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Managing Change on the Flightdeck In 1989 the opportunity arose to take on a controversial topic in aviation, that of Cockpit Resource Management. Working for SimuFlite in Dallas, and daily lecturing courses of airline, military and commercial captains and pilots proved to be a very rewarding window into aviation disasters, and near disasters. This was the ultimate in managing change!
This is a scenario where traditions met modern psychology, technology and group dynamics. Occasionally traditions won, with devastating results. This was a truly unique opportunity to develop change management knowledge for besides well equipped classrooms there were 13 multi million dollar flight simulators to actually show what can happen in any scenario. Unfortunately when you crash a simulator it can strain the very expensive hydraulic rams and the ability to clear the fault, or save the crash on the instructors console was essential. By the way that was not written down anyway and I found out the hard way. These unparalleled resources enabled many scenarios to be played out, and many personality types mixed together to see the results. The interaction and effects of different personalities proved to be pivotal in many critical scenarios, an aspect often missed, or glossed over in managing change in corporations and government. Today HR would rap my fingers for suggesting that everyone isn't equal, had bad tempers, were too vain, or were an accident waiting to happen. The real world knows otherwise. One interesting exercise I used, which I used many times in military training was to put no faults into the computer. There was nothing wrong. The chaos that caused had to be seen to be believed. Recently a company did an inventory to decide how many pieces of new furniture were needed. The employees immediately assumed the office was closing down, why else were they counting chairs and desks, except to sell them. Pilots are no different. They can assume the worst, even when there isn't a problem. When it comes to the devastating effects of not managing changes the accident reports bear witness to some spectacular failures of communication, and set procedures. Communication failures are the most common, and it is amazing how many people assume everyone else is aware of changes made, or being made. With the benefit of cockpit voice recordings and radar plots it was a sobering presentation to show how failure developed. Today I see the same communication failures in Wall Street, government and corporations across the United States. For some reason we have developed a generation of managers and supervisors who dare not say, "Wait a minute, that doesn't seem right?" Maybe it is because we have adopted the Superpower "My Way of the Highway" attitude that sent the Captains of old to their deaths, before we taught co-pilots and flight engineers to politely question and point out the errors of their ways. Pilots are highly professional, highly trained and constantly reviewed to ensure they stay current and safe. Yet we hear of airline safety violations, even major safety cover ups. These are the exceptions, and usually a product of fatigue, greed and maintaining the bottom line. The US airline industry is on the point of collapse, through mismanagement and lack of customer care, or change management to meet a changing world. If aviation industry managers took the same level of training that their pilots are required to undertake, then we would not be in the mess we find today. The same can be said about the rest of Corporate America. |
Like their counterparts in the marine world a Captain has the final word, and to question his commands would have resulted in a flogging, or keelhauling in earlier generations. Large passenger jets do not have the facilities for keelhauling insubordinate officers, they just crash and usually kill everyone on board.