Table of Contents

• Computer Aided Debriefing Station, Jim Blanchard and Marshall Rogers
• Followership and Leadership in the Cockpit: Part III, Dr. Maureen A. Pettitt, Mr. Joseph H. Dunlap, Western Michigan University
• Creating and Sustaining a Safety Culture, Ashleigh Merritt and Robert Helmreich, NASA/UT/FAA Aerospace Crew Research Project

by Jim Blanchard and Marshall Rogers

Introduction

There are at least three areas in the training mission where the Computer Aided Debriefing Station (CADS) will improve flight operations quality. The first is the use of the device as a simple and reliable tool to collect and debrief line-oriented flight training scenarios. The second is the use of the system as a means to control and structure learning for both the crew and instructor in the training process. The third is the use of the system for applied research into flight safety and quality assurance.

LOFT Tool

Data Collection

Pilots-in-training (trainees) are held accountable for certain knowledge and abilities during a check event. Common to most air carrier training curricula are simulation-based scenarios and line-oriented flight training (LOFT), both performed in multi-million dollar simulators. The competency of the pilot-in-training is determined through a set of complex and subjective assessments by other pilots (check airman) qualified to assess the trainee's performance to a given set of criteria. A principle tool of the check airman is the act of observation. Observation requires two critical human-centered skills on the par of the check airman during the training or checking event: (1) Participating at a level that allows the recognition of the appropriateness of the crew actions (the big picture, "in-the-loop"), and (2) Accurately documenting for future use all actions which are required by the curriculum for certification or debrief. To improve the utility of the simulator in a training curriculum, the use of a computer system designed to collect the necessary quantifiable data would be an improvement in accuracy of the observation and recall actions noted above in points 1 and 2.

Instructor Workload

Performing the role of observer creates a cognitive workload on the check airman. The crew is tasked with operating the flight, but the check airman must bear the same level of "airmanship" in order to assess the appropriateness of the crews actions, and further, must document for the debriefing my critical information as it occurs in the LOFT event. The collection of the information interferes with the accurate and timely assessment of the crew by diverting the check airman's attention from the "big picture" to a clipboard and data collection sheet. Often, the opposite effect occurs, where the level of attention by the check airman is high and the recording process ceases, awaiting an outcome that may result minutes later in the scenario. In either case, the check airman has only half of the components needed for a quality observation and subsequently the post-LOFT assessment will be flawed.

Consider the training "system" in a LOFT event to have a crew, a check airman, a device, and a curriculum, This "system" is operating in a high-anxiety environment made difficult by the cognitive complexity of the LOFT scenario and the uncertainty of the outcomes to be assessed. A system perspective would consider the components of the system as resources and the attainment of the learning objectives as the desired product. The correct viewpoint for implementing this training system would be to allocate the reasoning and decision-making to the human components of the system (since no real "thinking machines" exist for this type of computing) and to allocate the remedial, boring and repetitive tasks to machine components (since they do these things reliably well). With this understanding, the check airman should could be "in-the-loop" a greater percentage of the scenario time and focus on assessing the processes of the crew, allowing the system to collect and tabulate the technical details of the tasks.. This re-allocation of duties provides relief for the check airman to become more involved in the decision making process of the crew (as an observer) while the computer svstems record and assess the technical details of task performance using various analytical techniques. The check airman's interaction with the system is simply (a matter of two or three keystrokes) to mark the technical record for reference and accurate recall in the debriefing.

Scenario Development

Often the best learning experiences for a training center curriculum developer is the observation of their scenario in action during a LOFT event. Understanding fully what the intended objective of the scenario was, and then seeing portions come to life, provides reinforcement for the developer's measurement of success toward attaining the learning objectives. This reinforcement forms an association between a set of knowledge that has been conveyed in a class or training event to the act of applying the knowledge in a LOFT event. Satisfaction is gained, and quality is traceable when that knowledge is accurately "linked" to a training module.

Linking learning objectives to outcomes is a critical concept in training system design. It is the relationship that exists between the checking events and the training events. The strength of the relationship is measured by curriculum designers in-part to determine where improvement is warented. Today, training centers often have a feedback process that uses a subjective measurement of the training program's effectiveness to determine where changes are needed. In many cases, their "opinion" comes from the LOFT event outcomes assessment filed by the trainer or the crew.

Using the Computer Aided Debriefing Station, a training program manager could ask curriculum designers to identify these relationships between the training modules and the LOFT scenarios. Once identified, these relationships can be accurately tracked and quantifiable data on the effectiveness of the curriculum becomes race reliable. Some relationships in a training program are simple to establish, others complex. Either way, the use of CADS information marked by the check airman as "valuable" to curriculum improvement, can be shared accurately through an achivve of data collected in an objective manner using CADS. This process is called baselining. As more CADS data becomes available to curriculum managers, they will realize the benefits of having "baselined" a LOFT scenario in the curriculum and can then implement the baseline as a guiding structure for the check airman to follow during the LOFT event by embedding the training objectives into the simulator instructor station interface.

Improved Learning

Instructional Objectives Maintained

Curriculum designers should outline a training objective, provide the objective to the subject matter expert, who will then gather the needed materials which represent the critical knowledge needed by the trainee to meet the objectives. This material, in the hands of a qualified instructor, then becomes the training module and is taught to the trainees. Described as a training process, each of these "hand-offs" creates an interface where problems can occur that detract from the overall outcome of the training process.

One of these problems is the lack of clarity or constancy in the training objectives. Often the movement of the objective from one group of designers to another group of instructors causes the objective to be incorrectly intepreted by the humans involved (as is the nature of human communication and is to be expected). This lack of constancy leads to a disjointed training process where the end checking events do not trace back to a set of described objectives. In other programs it is not the constancy, but the complexity, where the checking events are a super-model of a large set of objectives and that complexity of combined tasks in the checking event is so great that the training managers cannot identify which areas of the training process are. in need of improvement.

Using a system like CADS will support the identification and tacking of learning objectives throughout the process. After a brief period of use, the feedback provided by the CADS system will allow a training manager to assign measures of effectiveness to each of the training objectives, and track those objectives through the entire training system In some cases, CADS could be used from the initial training in the classroom through to the checking events m a means of guiding the process using the objectives, and simultaneously collecting the proficiency data needed to supper the outcome.

Immediate Utility in Teaching and Assessing Complex LOFT Skills

The simulator itself is the second worst environment in which to be teaching complex skills, but it is a great tool for the demonstration and reinforcement of knowledge and motor skills. It is known that more than motor skills are needed to operate an aircraft. Decision making and team orientation have been the recent focus of the aviation training community. The ability to teach or critique these skills is less than developed at most training centers. What we don't understand we can't teach well is a statement that needs to be addressed under the current paradigm of teaching pilots to fly.

The problem is that moving from measurable criteria as an outcome (such as altitude and heading) to cognitive performance assessment will require an improved instructor and training system if tractability and effectiveness are to be achieved. A potential solution is to provide the instructor with the needed understanding in the area of aeronautical decision making. Two actions are required:

First, instructor training curricula must adopt, as required knowledge, the basic knowledge of human behavior and implement it into their instructor training courses.

Second, they must prepare their training instructors to deliver the message by developing instructional skills that complement the training methodology.

This does not mean that developing or hiring staff experts is the best or only solution, since most of the understanding required comes from the learning process used to train instructors and will become pact of the instructional model as the training staff progresses in the use of human behavior assessment models. What these two required actions do mean is that the control of the instructor quality after their training is completed will require a new method of assessing performance in both the pilot trainee and the instructor. The complexities of teaching and assessing decision making processes of the crews should not become a purely subjective action on the part of the instructor or check airman. To support this training task, the CADS system will enable the training center to place recognizable markers into the interface which prompt and guide the evaluator during the instructional class sessions, the LOFT event and the debriefing. This "start-to-finish" control will assist in the correct and progressive application of the material and allow broader learning experiences without sacrificing the curriculum quality control. Each of these markets could be based on the FAA Advisory Circular information, and can be supplemented easily by curriculum designers as the instructional content/material required for certification and safety changes.

Effectiveness

Once a learning objective can be designed into the system, the use of the Computer Aided Debriefing Station as a semi-structured "checklist" during the LOFT event and the debriefing can be achieved. A set of known modules in a curriculum will relate to a well-designed and stable LOFT scenario used to assess certain defined pilot abilities. Given these traceable relationships between the classroom modules and the checking events of the LOFT, the performance of the crew is traceable to certain, known training materials associated with specific learning objectives. Over time, these relationships can be evaluated and improvements directed at those training modules where performance improvement is needed the most. The evaluation process can then start to use a more reliable statistical methodology to assess and guide instructional effectiveness. Beyond simply improving the utility of the curriculum, the effectiveness improvements provide a much higher reliability than the existing system of subjective assessment.

Flight Safety

Decision Making Models

The research community should produce a cogent set of decision making models in a format that is descriptive and able to be applied reliably by training center personnel. This is clearly a long-term effort, but given the current state of the literature, the gap between the theoretical research efforts and the applied training community is growing. Therefore, it is important to start to develop a handful of verified and validated models that would be a direct move towards consensus-building an allow a common (albeit non-standardized) set of comparative results to emerge. From that point, these models could be used to support ad hoc analysis and eventually become predictive in nature. This would allow training centers to take pro-active actions relative to curriculum change and possibly support the operations-related interdiction programs required to control and improve overall quality of the flight operation.

Predictive Models

Two prevailing techniques are used to predict human behavior. The first requires (1) an understanding of the past, (2) knowledge of what has changed since a "baseline" was established, and (3) descriptive information about the relationship that between the variables. The second is less rigorous .and typically uses trend monitoring to detect areas of concern. When coupled together, these methods become very powerful. Simply stated. the first method requires time. The time is measured stating at the point where some stability is introduced into the data collection process (the past), the comparative models (baselineing), and the infered meaning of the results (relationships). This approach means years of structured data collection and analysis before the models will become stable and reliable for human behavior prediction. By starting now to use systems like CADS and others, the data collection and interoperability issues of this process are stabilized and related to a known, describable pseudo-standard. This will facilitate the use of the data in the future as more refined techniques for analysis are developed.

The second method above requires a continuing refinement to the sensitivity of the trend model as it processes the inputs. This implies that the treatment (statistical trend model) is stable, and the use of output of the process toward trend-related decisions, such as a set of modules in a curriculum bear closer monitoring. Specific outputs from these models are likely to be used in indicating broad areas of concern. The attractiveness of these model is the ability to use them almost immediately in curriculum development and effectiveness monitoring for an area of aviation performance that is likely to always have a contingent of experts who feel further accuracy is not warranted.

Refined Data Collection

The Computer Aided Debriefing Station will provide the training centers with valuable information about aeronautical decision making that has previously been collected in a capricious manner, then subsequently archived or destroyed. This information is critical to describing the cognitive process of the flight crew. This information is also in need of protection and refinement. Challenges to the usefulness of this data are met by either of two views: (1) It is confidential and only our company evaluators get to use it, and/or (2) Tell me what data you really need and I'll try to get it. Both are valid positions and the CADS system project recognizes each as a challenge. A system like CADS would be a complement to existing systems used today to assess flight vehicle performance and other related engineering data. Beyond simple exceedence measurements, the system will support cognitive modeling.

Amongst those who build decision making models, the notion exists that collecting some data is acceptable. To move forward without specific knowledge of what is required remains difficult. To address this question, researchers have designed the CADS system to operate on the data that each training center might desire under position 1 above - proprietary security controls. This means that inside the company, the data will be available to develop and refine decision making models for the purposes of training curriculum refinement. This process will lead to industry consensus about what information is needed to assess decision making behavior. For the use of others, who would benefit from the training centers findings in decision making, the shared use of the de-identified data gathered through such programs as the FAA Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) and other related activities would be a step in the right direction and CADS would be a complementary tool for such data collection and analysis activities.

Position 2 - above, data required, is part of the circular argument that the research community has described well. Experimental and causal-comparative research methods describe data as derived from the hypothesis. To "tell you what data is needed" presumes that a hypothesis exists. Too many studies have been conducted where the results were not applicable to the customer to expect that the air carriers will actively participate in another large-scale study of hypothesis testing. What is needed is a simple set of common issues that would be found in any training center relative to LOFT. Using this set of issues, industry experts would identify and describe a set of data needed to address these issues. The correct method of structuring this to be successful is:

• describe a problem under study
• define it as a hypothesis
• determine the variables that will allow discrimination in the results
• set up an experiment to control the variables
• conduct an analysis of the data
• make a recommendation

In the realm of aviation flight operations, this process is costly, time consuming and complex. Never the less, it is not satisfactory to leave such efforts to the research community alone. Operators must be a part of the process if meaningful advances are going to be made.

Summary

Three messages are intended to emerge from this white paper. The first is that the Compete, Aided Debriefing Station is a tool for data collection, curriculum development, guided instructional processes and the sharing of flight safety information. The second is that the higher-level issue of data collection and security are details that must be addressed if the true value of such systems like CADS is to be achieved. The third is the fact the system can be adapted to training center where learning objectives are documented. 

by: Dr. Maureen A. Pettitt
Mr. Joseph H. Dunlap
Western Michigan University

This article is the third in a series about followership and leadership in the cockpit. In the first article (July, 1995), we argued that leadership is an activity that necessarily involves both leaders and followers but, in on, culture, the importance of followership is often discounted. It could be argued that this perspective is held by many in the airline industry despite the fact that good followership is just as crucial to safe flight operations as is good leadership and, further, that leader and follower roles in the cockpit often shift from one crew member to the other.

In the most recent article (October, 1995), we identified six "interacting" skills common to both leaders and followers: initiative, influence, adaptability, receptiveness, modeling and envisioning. We argued that these interacting skills were essential in airline operations in light of constantly changing composition of crews and rotation of pilot roles. Based on our interviews with pilots, we also suggested that if the leader or follower is weak in one of these skill areas, it is likely -- indeed, desirable -- that other crew member(s) will compensate for this "skill void."

While we are eager to discuss leadership/followership skills in more detail, it seems important to first establish the context in which leaders and followers operate. Therefore, this article will focus on the forces which affect leadership and followership in the cockpit.

We have identified four external forces -- force over which the flight crew has little or no control -- that impact leadership and followership. While the crew may not be able to readily act on these forces, their reaction to these external forces may be critical to flight safety. The most obvious external force is the regulatory environment. This is the legal structure within which the flight operates. The Federal Aviation Regulation, of course, provide many of these parameters. Another external force is the corporate environment. This is most apparent, from the pilot's perspective, as yet another layer of written policies and procedures established by the company. In addition, the corporation -- knowingly or unwittingly -- conveys an attitude and this corporate culture is manifested in the cockpit, often as unwritten norms. Indeed. on occasion the corporate culture may be in conflict with the regulatory environment.

Yet another external force which acts on the crew is the market environment. Customer expectations, external service providers (i.e., catering and fuel services, crew accommodations), and labor/management relations all impact flight operations as do factors that impact profitability and the overall health of the company. The last external force affecting the crew is the physical environment. This includes the weather, the condition of the aircraft, and Air Traffic Control considerations. These forces can have a considerable impact on crew performance, particularly on operational decisions.

Much more within the control of the flight crew are the internal climate and structure. To some degree, the structure is dictated eternally by federal regulations and company procedures. However, the Captain clearly sets a cockpit-specific climate and structure. Climate-setting can be very subtle. Non-verbal cues and body language can be as illuminating as words. In general, the climate is the reflection of the attitudes of the most influential crew members. If the Captain conducts only a cursory briefing - or no briefing -- he or she conveys an attitude about the value of crew coordination and communication.

The structure is established, normally during the briefing, by setting the operational parameters. The Captain can discuss the specifics of the route, who will fly what leg, how abnormal situations should be handled, etc. The Captain may elect or include the cabin crew or not during the pre-flight briefing. While our main concern is with the cockpit, the climate and structure which includes the cabin crew and the ground crew cannot be ignored. Examples of the negative results of a poor relationship between the cabin and flight crew are all too frequent.

To illustrate, we will se an example of an international flight conducted by a major carrier. In this situation, the Captain did not assume his leadership responsibilities well. He did not conduct a briefing and failed to establish an adequate structure or supporting climate. As the flight continued, the relief pilot was forced to assume more and more command responsibility because the Captain elected to spend much of the flight on the rest seat.

One of the cabin crew n this particular flight had just discovered a significant difference of opinion with company policy and was feeling wronged by the company. The unfortunate result was poor service and several complaints about him from the business class customers. The lead flight attendant wanted to enlist the Captain's help with this situation, but he was asleep in the rest seat. To make matters worse, the rest seat extends past the entrance to the cockpit area. and created yet another barrier between the cockpit crew and the cabin crew. The relief pilot and the first officer had little interaction with or service from the cabin. Further, there was little conversation between these two in deference to the Captain's rest. As it turns out, the relief pilot flew a majority of the flight, the first officer ameliorated the difficulty with the flight attendant, and, as directed, the first officer woke the Captain at the point where he again resumed the left seat and landed the aircraft safely at their destination.

The point here is that significant crew interaction was needed to compensate for the Captain's weak leadership skills. He exhibited little receptiveness to the crew and could never be accused of modeling good behavior during this flight, The rest of the crew showed initiative and communicated as much as practical in an effort to resolve problems and to compensate for the Captain, but to the detriment of a balanced workload. This crew was probably ill-prepared to respond to an emergency situation had one arisen. Although incidents like these are, thankfully, infrequent, it illustrates the need for more discussion during training about leadership and followership rolls and expectations.

This brings us to the most internal important forces that affect leadership and followership: the knowledge, skills, and attributes each of the crew members bring with them. The airline clearly has an opportunity to impact the attributes brought to the cockpit through the selection process. Attributes such as stable personality traits can be assessed with a number of validated personality assessments. Such evaluation can assist the airline with selecting in the most desirable candidates, rather than selecting out the most undesirable. The use and validation of "selecting in" assessments, while challenging, provide the airlines the potential for improvement and rewards in cockpit followership and leadership. The other significant contribution to effective leadership and followership is, of course, the airline's training program. It is during training that the airline has the greatest opportunity to impart the knowledge and skills -- both technical and interpersonal -- and, thus, create those environments that encourage effective and efficient flight operations. 

by Ashleigh Merritt and Robert Helmreich,
NASA/UT/FAA Aerospace Crew Research Project,
Austin TX USA

This paper was presented at the Thrid Australian Aviation Psychology Symposium, Sydney, Nov. 20-24, 1995.  The research reported here was supported by NASA-Ames Research Cneter Cooperative Agreement NC22-286, and by FAA Grant 92-G-017; Principal Investigator, Robert L. Helmreich.

The word "culture" is being used a great deal in aviation these days. In addition to discussing the influences of national, organizational and occupational cultures, some researchers, regulators, and industry officials are now advocating a safety culture (Lauber, 1994; Maurino, 1994; Meshkati, 1995). But what is culture, and why is it important in aviation? What is a safety culture, and how does it differ from a safety initiative or a safety system? I think it is necessary to define culture and understand its parameters if one is ever to create or sustain a safety culture. To that end, let me try to demystify culture in two paragraphs.

A Definition Of Culture

Culture can be defined as the values, beliefs, rituals, symbols and behaviors that we share with others that help define us as a group, especially in relation to other groups. Culture gives us cues and clues on how to behave in normal and novel situations, thereby making the world less uncertain and more predictable for us. There are two important and distinct components of culture. The surface structure, outer layer of culture consists of observable behaviors and recognizable physical manifestations such as members' uniforms, signs and logos, and documents. The deep structure, or inner layer of culture, consists of the values, beliefs and assumptions which underlie the surface structure and provide the logic which guides the members' behaviors. Cultural misunderstandings occur when people interpret the surface structure of another culture from the vantage point of their own cultural logic or perspective. Ethnocentrism occurs when behavior from one culture is judged to be inferior by the values of another culture.

We all experience multiple cultural influences upon our lives deriving from our membership in national, organizational and vocational cultures. When these cultures are congruent, there is no uncertainty or hesitation - we know how to proceed because the underlying values and beliefs are sending us convergent messages. But when these cultures are in conflict, we become unsure of how to proceed or behave. The hesitation and uncertainty arising from divergent cultural messages can cause confusion, frustration, and even conflict, especially in emergencies and other time-pressure situations. For example, some pilots at a regional airline recently refused to fly because they were concerned about the safety of an aircraft in icing conditions. The pilots' professional culture was at odds with the organization's demands. In aviation, the result of cultural incongruity is compromised safety. Pilots and other employees on the aviation "front line" do not need conflicting messages on how to behave and proceed.

Organizational Culture

While national culture is undoubtedly an important influence in aviation (Johnston, 1993; Maurino, 1994; Merritt, 1994), it is the organizational culture which ultimately shapes the perception of safety, the relative importance placed on safety, and members' activities regarding safety. Every person brings their history and multiple cultural memberships with them to the company, hence an organization consists of many sub-cultures based on profession, work history, position, location, gender, age and nationality, to name few. The existence of so many organizational sub-cultures is not detrimental to the company, as long as these cultures are united by common values and beliefs represented in the organizational culture. An integrated organizational culture can be characterized by sub-group co-operation, a strong corporate identity, a positive organizational climate and high emplovee morale, all of which create a positive impact on service and safety. A discordant organizational culture on the other hand is characterized by a weak corporate identity, sub-group divisiveness, a negative organizational climate and poor employee morale, all of which creates a negative impact on service and overall safety standards.

If organizational culture has the potential for the greatest impact on safety, and an integrated organizational culture is preferable to one that is discordant, then strategies are needed which address two issues. The first more general approach aims at unifying and strengthening the organizational culture; the second aims to introduce safety as a shared value which will provide the underlying logic directing all members' behavior. Recall that the definition of culture involves the observable behaviors and the underlying values and beliefs. A safety culture is more than a group of individuals enacting a set of safety guidelines - it is a group of individuals guided in their behavior by their joint belief in the importance of safety, and their shared understanding that every member willingly upholds the group's .safety norms and will support their members to that common end.

The Role of Management

The senior management plays such a crucial role within the organizational culture, that before outlining some practical strategies, I believe it is necessary to briefly address its role. First and foremost, senior management is a part of, not apart from, the culture. Management does not look down upon the organization and direct it by edict, rather it influences the management practices that are noted by others in the culture. Hence, there is no point in appointing a Safety Officer if that officer is "in name only" without the discretionary powers required to enact and enforce safety policies. If employees observe management condoning or indirectly promoting something unsafe, then they lose faith in the system. Worse still, there is no redemption for senior managers who convince employee groups to accept a 5% pay cut, and then award themselves bonuses. No amount of rhetoric can undo the damage done to the culture by this action. When employee groups feel that they can not trust management, they will reject with suspicion any new initiatives. The first task for management is to gain and keep the trust of their employees.

It is also management's responsibility to provide leadership and a common vision which unites the cultural sub-groups. Management that uses a "divide and conquer" strategy with its employee groups gets exactly that, a divided and ultimately defeated organization. In at least two airlines that I am aware of, management announced the pilots' sa1aries to other employee groups as a strategy to intimidate the pilots at salary negotiation time. The net result has been complete sub-group divisiveness - the ground personnel are not prompt at push-back, gate agents are civil but uncooperative, and the pilots feel isolated and attacked. And everyone mistrusts management!

Cultural Diagnosis

Given the unique role of management in culture, as the group centrally positioned to influence and unite all the groups, many cultural strategies originate with and/or require the full enthusiasm of management. But before any action can be taken, to strengthen or alter the culture, there must be a clear perception of the existing culture. What is the present culture? Is it united or divided against itself? What are the behavioral manifestations, and the underlying values and beliefs that are guiding work behaviors, particularly those relating to safety? There are several ways that these cultural understandings can be reached, ranging from a one day focus group with participants from all areas of the organization (Schein, 1992) to ethnographic investigations requiring several months (Trice & Beyer, 1993).

The NASA/UT/FAA research group has adopted a mixed methodology of empirical questionnaires, observations. and interviews to understand organizational and national cultures. The expanded Flight Management Attitude Questionnaire includes Human Factors items and organizationally specific items about safety practices, interactions with other employee groups (including management and the training department), and some open-ended questions which prompt respondents for their opinions about perceived weaknesses in the airline and suggestions for improvements. The Line/LOS Checklist is used to systematically observe and evaluate on-line behaviors across different phases of flight or work-cycle. Members of our research group train and calibrate members of the organization in the use of the Line LOS checklist, followed by a month of jump-seat observations across all fleets and routes The. interviews allow participants to voice opinions which the researchers might otherwise miss.

While the checklists provide information about the observed behaviors, the interviews and the open-ended questions probe the underlying beliefs and values. Once the information has been collected and analyzed, a meeting of all interested parties (management, trainers, researchers) is then scheduled to discuss the findings. Once the culture is known onto itself via this three-pronged analysis, it can be compared with an ideal safety culture, and interventions can be designed to meet the perceived shortfalls.

Strategies For Cultural Unification And Change

Management can direct cultural shift by articulating the desired values, and enforcing the appropriate norms, but again, the efforts of management in this direction must be sincere. While it may be possible for management to direct people to change their work behavior, management can not direct people to change their value,. Without the underlying values in place to guide the behavior, behavior shifts will be short-lived. This is one of the truest and at the same time most frustrating aspects of culture - change is slow. Having said that however, it is possible to signpost the path to cultural change in several ways.

Roll Models

Managers, chief pilots, check and training captains, gate managers and pursers are all role models. If these people understand and support the desired values, there are in a better position to transmit these values and practices to others. As such, the organization's role models should be active promoters of the culture and its desired outcomes. By that I mean firstly they should internalize those values, and secondly they should be consistently available and responsive to all employees who query or challenge the company's values and norms.

New Member Socialization

New-hires (who by definition are seeking cultural membership) can be quickly and successfully socialized into the organization in very direct fashion. Rather than leaving the new members to discover the organizational norms though observation, trial, and error, a mentoring system allows a senior person to explain the culture to a newcomer. By explaining the airline's history, its present focus, its quirks and idiosyncrasies, its successes and challenges, the senior person socializes the newcomer to the airline's culture. The senior person is also available to explain why something is done the way it is, thereby revealing the underlying or implicit structure of the company. Published histories and guidelines also provide the newcomer with the "company line" - what it means to be a member of the culture. Because first impressions influence later beliefs, successful socialization acts as a cultural shortcut, the most direct route to strong cultural membership.

Organizational Language

Language encodes and reveals values, hence it provides another opportunity for management to strengthen the culture by articulating the values and publishing the norms. For example, does the management send a divisive "us and them" message or an integrated "we" message in its intracompany communications? Do the operations manuals clearly articulate the desired norms and behaviors or are they too vague and/or disjointed in their specifications? Guidelines should be published and posted publicly and repeatedly as visual reminders of the cultural norms. As well as the formal language of the organization, there are also stories and myths about the "heroic founders" employees who "went the extra mile", or "how we overcame early adversity" which all reflect and perpetuate the culture. These anecdotes are powerful transmitters of values, extolling the culture with every recounting.

Make the Membership Attractive

Making the cultural membership more attractive unites the cultural subgroups and creates a proud and motivated workforce. While this can be done with financial incentive programs like profit-sharing, it can also be achieved with an early success or the presence of a common enemy. Everyone wants to be on a winning team - it encourages greater striving. At the same time, group membership can be strengthened in the face of opposition. The common enemy might be a competitor, or"hard times" to be survived - something against which the group can strive.

Be Proactive

With regard to safety, it is important to be proactive, rather than waiting for incidents and then reacting in a band-aid fashion. To this end, periodic safety audits can identify weaknesses in the system. The philosophy of blame and punishment is divisive and creates sub-group defensiveness. An integrated approach uses system wide investigation and remediation aimed at upholding a shared value, i.e., system wide safety. To that end, the organization needs to encourage and reward vigilance and inquiry from all its members (Meshkati, 1995), seeking to mend the system rather than killing the messenger.

Capitalize on Timing

As stated earlier, cultural change is slow and can not be cynically manipulated. Nonetheless, it is possible to capitalize upon propitious moments to advance the desired norms. It may involve the open discussion of incidents and safety breaches as they occur. It may also involve the very public announcements of organizational successes. An organization can capitalize upon moments in its daily life which "tell the stories" of its culture.

CRM In The Safety Culture

As a final summary, let's consider Crew Resource Management from the perspective of a safety culture.

The allocation of resources (money and people) for CRM training sends a clear message from management about the valve they place on the training. When the airline's role models actively endorse CRM, the behaviors discussed in training are reinforced on the line, becoming a behavioral norm. New-hires are paired with mentors who are strong believers in CRM, and they team quickly. Management continues to send positive messages about CRM with it's commitment to recurrent training, and repeated references to CRM in its publications. Stories begin to circulate about CRM successes, how CRM "saved the day". Consider what Captain Al Haynes has done for the cause of CRM as a shared value within the pilot community. Since the UAL accident, the successful handling of which Captain Haynes attributed to his CRM training, Haynes has been mythologized and his exploites told and retold throughout the aviation community. In this way, the value of CRM is shared and reinforced. CRM becomes accepted to the point that to not actively support it is to risk being ostracized by the other members of the culture. As CRM is integrated into the safety culture, CRM begins to "make sense" - it provides the logic that guides members' behavior. Eventually, when asked why CRM-releted behaviors are practiced as they are, members will smile and answer "because it's always been done this way".

References

Johnston. N. (1993). CRM-Cross-cultural perspective. In E. L. Wiener, B. G. Kanki, & R. L. Helmreich (Eds.). Cockpit Resource Management. San Diego, CA; Academic Press.

Lauber, J. (1994). Safety Cultures and the importance of Human Factors. CRM Advocate, 94 (4), 1-3.

Maurino, D. (I 994). Cross cultural perspectives in Human Factors training: Lessons from the ICAO Human Factors Programme. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 4, 2, 173-181.

Merritt, A. (1994). Cross-cultural issues in CRM training. In Proceedings of the Sixth ICAO Flight Safety and Human Factors Regional Seminar and Workshop (pp. 236-243). Amsterdam, the Netherlands, May 17-19, 1994.

Meshkati,N.(1995). Cultural context of the Safety Culture: A conceptual model and experimental study. Presented at International Topical meeting, Safety Culture in Nuclear Installations, Vienna, April 1995.

Schein, E. (1992) (2nd, Ed.). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Trice, H. C., & Beyer, J. M. (1993). The cultures of work organizations,. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 

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