CRM is like a reversed bidet … Everyone knows what it’s for,
(has their own view) but no one knows what it actually is. … OK the regulators define it but not in a practical way that enables easy training and application.
CRM can and does contribute to flight safety, however to do so successfully the training must concentrate on specific weaknesses – as identified in accidents and incidents.
The history of CRM identifies that the initial need was for the ‘social’ skills involving teamwork and thence behavioural aspects. Latterly the need for cognitive skills were identified –
Situation Awareness and
Aeronautical Decision Making; and even more recently the need for
Error Management.
Currently training for team skills predominates (a worldly view), possibly because these skills are easier to train than the cognitive ones – we still struggle to define ‘practical’ situation awareness (there are several good definitions of what it is, but how do pilots gain or lose SA?). Similarly decision-making is taught as a process – DECIDE, but in reality DM is natural, or recognition primed, which depend heavily on expertise; exactly how is expertise trained/gained?
In recent accidents and many incidents the need for both social and cognitive skills can be identified. Occasionally there are indicators that social aspects not only failed, but might have contributed to a failure to intervene – cognitive dissonance; not wishing to be out of step, or destroy the team harmony, all of which has been promoted (or over-promoted) by social CRM.
Thus it is time to bias CRM more towards
cognitive issues, training individuals to think, think about their own thinking, and maintain a questioning attitude (open mind). This will improve the quality of the individuals who form the team, who are then further moulded with individual (behavioural) and group CRM training.
I prefer not to use those CRM definitions which list the components – what it is, but instead use the definition given by Helmreich – ‘the application of human factors’, which provides the basis for training and achieving the aim of embedded CRM in everyday operations. Start with a good understanding of HF, and then develop the cognitive skills before combining these with the behavioural and teamwork aspects. Relating this approach with the SHELL model, CRM deals with all aspects around the branches of ‘SHEL’, but currently does not focus sufficiently on the central ‘
L’ - the individual’s thinking skills. Think inside the box
(the individual’s mind) before thinking outside the box.
Refs:
Critical thinking.
Promoting critical thinking.
Four kinds of questions for any position.
Metacognition; before during and after.
Knowledge of one’s self.
Reasons For The Failure of CRM Training in Aviation.