<< I think CRM involves far more than managing error. I have long felt
that we focus far too much on the negative in CRM. >>
and
<< To truly motivate individual learning, we need to stop
the "don't do that or bad things will happen" approach and move to the
higher levels of talking in terms of "maximizing individual and crew
potential" or "true professionalism" etc. >>
Welcome again, Tony.
Hear, hear on the negative focus. One of the more common critiques I hear of
CRM courseware is, "Can we focus more on the positive? Don't we have some
case studies that illustrate the positive outcomes of CRM?" We do have some
cases that show how CRM "saved the day", but they are too few and overused.
However, I think a point is being missed as we try for a definition of CRM.
As I compile the commentaries on Metrics, I see the same thing happening in
that venue.
Our problem is one of perspective, rather than differing views of the
definition.
To say that CRM involves far more that managing human error is to short
change what that management involves. First of all, one would have to be
motivated to learn to manage before they will learn; therefore, some time
must be spent orienting the student on what CRM is. If a simple definition is
what is needed for starting the student on the CRM trail, then the Mancuso or
Lauber or one of the other definitions is great. "Maximizing individual and
crew potential" or "true professionalism" is an appropriate goal, but may
stretch the bounds of what we can do in an early program. This is a pretty
high order goal.
If we need to define the "field" of CRM, maybe Dick Jensen's treatise in the
program of the Ninth Symposium paper is the thing.
If I want to define a program, then Jens Rolfsens comments below are more
apprpriate:
"Developing and practising skills is the essential part of any
CRM-program. If you cannot give people behavioural tools they can bring
with them and use on the flightdeck, your training is worth nothing. My
point is that if you want a CRM-program to be successful, you have to do
some other things besides building the skills.
First of all, it's important to give CRM-training participants a
theoretical framework to build these skills on. In my company, as in
many others, we do this in the awareness phase. We tell pilots and cabin
attendants about stress, fatigue, sensory process's etc, and use this as
a foundation for building CRM skills. If we agree that some theoretical
human factors oriented knowledge fosters the development of CRM skills,
then I think it's a bit artificial to sharply divide between where CRM
stops and human factors begin. Developing CRM skills is the result of a
process that includes human factors knowledge.
Second, mastering a skill is has only value if the skill is
used. To make sure that pilots really use their CRM-skills, it's
important to work with their attitudes, their predisposition's to act in
certain ways on the flightdeck. In order to establish a pro-CRM attitude
in a company, you have to work with instructors, check-airmen and
management, with procedures and rules and regulations. "
The term CRM is so broad it is a matter of perspective as to which definition
we use.
Regards,
Dave Wilson
HTI