That is one of the best posts I have read in a long while, Greg. Short of
generating a few "smoking holes", what are our options for steering the wheel
as you say?
Best regards,
Neil Krey
neilkrey_at_aol.com
http://members.aol.com/neilkrey/
In a message dated 99-02-05 22:20:59 EST, you write:
<< Great questions, Niel. Is CRM at some sort of a plateau? Since I've been
involved long enough to witness a few cycles, allow me to propose a profound
statement. A few years ago Bob Helmriech told me that a successful CRM
program is invisible. I would submit to this very learned forum that "Success
breeds failure". A successful CRM program is doomed.
A long, long time ago, I was appointed to pioneer CRM training in the
C-130 community. The motive was a rash of crashes, all attributed to "crew
coordination". The progam began, and the accident rate decreased rapidly.
After several "good" years, the program was abandoned with the belief that it
was no longer necessary.
A very similar cycle occured in the US Navy.
A few years later, I get the call to start another CRM program. Why?
You guessed it; airplanes are crashing, due to "bad CRM". So, the leadership
said "go get some more of that CRM stuff." We began our current program in
the wake of 3 crashes in the same year. The rate dropped immediately to one
per year, and we just closed 1998 as the first year in a long time without
losing a C-130. Success?
In the meantime, the emphasis on training, and updating the program, has
disappeared. A special program designed to address organizational culture
has
been dropped from the training manuals. The crewmembers are telling me in
classrooms that management interest is on other things now. For a period of
time, the flight evaluators considered CRM a "Special Interest Item", which
warned the aviators of what was the important stuff. Just the other day, an
aviator told me that since CRM is no longer a SII, it's not even mentioned in
some PIC briefings. Flight commanders at different units have cancelled
training, diluted training, and even asked for exemptions to not do the
training. There is a foreboding percerption that CRM is a one-class-will-
cure
you program. An ironic twist is some criticism I've gotten lately in that I
don't have any new crashes to talk about in class. I guess we need one crash
a year to keep a program alive.
I've tried to tell a variety of managers this is history repeating itself,
but the message fails.
Obviously, to this forum, we know that using "crashes" to measure the
success, or challenge, of a program is erroneous. James Reason's and
Helmriech, et al's, messages of "error management" and organizational culture
are the long term goals we should be striving toward. The other new
developements such as more automated planes, and traffic control systems are
changing the challenge to the teachings. The increasing population in the
cabin, with the stresses that trigger the "sky rage" incidents are serious
future challenges.
No, my friends, CRM is not cold, it's warm. And if the programs don't
continue to explore, expand, and improve, CRM will get "very HOT", for the
wrong reasons. It's an evolutionairy program that has inertia. I've said
before that CRM is like a large cement wheel that is moving. If one tries to
push it, they'll get a hernia. Try to stop it, and you'll get run over.
Ours is the challenge of steering; let's keep it going in the right
direction.
Greg Deen
>>