Brainwashing
CRMDEEN_at_aol.com
Mon, 26 May 1997 21:21:53 -0400 (EDT)
I'm so glad someone else share's my talent for stimulating ideas and
discussion. Not since I put out the metrics challenge, have I seen such
spirited responses. Isn't it interesting how a word, possibly
mis-communicated, can do so much.
Well, here's another approach and challenge to define what it is we are
trying to define. I ran into this challenge many, many years ago when I was
first given the task to start CRM training in the Air Force, although I
called it ACT, for curious reasons.
The Air Force, (probably the entire military) had been going through
several rounds of difficult social change, and to try to help facilitate the
change, a training effort was generated. The people tasked to do the
training were not well trained, and yet they were tasked to present this
training to every person within the Air Force--flyers and non-flyers. These
people were assigned to an agency titled "Social Actions", and the changes
they were trying to make us aware of were "Race Relations", "Alcohol Abuse",
and finally, "Sexual Harrassment". I'm sure the upper, upper management of
the military thought that if everyone went to school on these topics, then
the problems would go away. The result was an attitude among the populace,
especially the aviators, that these programs were not necessary, and they
were a form of "behavior modification'". No term raised blood pressures
among aviators than "behavior modification".
When ACT/CRM showed up on an aviator's training schedule, there was a
lot of confusion about what it was. The rumor mill began to speculate as to
what the training was all about; and when people thought the objective was to
"improve the relations" within the cockpit, this sounded like a new form of
social actions behavior modification. I remember hearing one PIC mention to
another "Before we had all of this ACT Sh--, we could make the decisions
ourselves. Now we have to have a discussion and take votes from the crew."
I was the poor (but privledged) sap who stood in front of the class and
said "welcome to ACT training". The next response from the pilots was "is
this some form of behavior modification training?" Well, of course, since I
didn't like that term either, I said no. Little did I know.
Through the years, as I became more educated and experienced, I began to
realize that what we do IS a form of behavior modification. When I am asked
today if this is behavior modification, I proudly say, Yes it is!.
When an aviator takes off toward an airfield with insufficient equipment
in the aircraft to fly a proper instrument approach, when a unit commander
orders his people to not fly with a rogue aviator, but he does so himself,
when very skilled and competent aviators intentionally fly a good aircraft
into an unsafe condition and no one on board challenges the deviations from
SOPs---I'd like to change that behavior. When two thirds of a crew know the
aircraft is about out of gas, and they don't force the PIC to realize his
dilemma, I'd like to change that behavior.
So what is CRM? How about "behavior modification". Works for me, but
sometimes I think I've been brainwashed.