It's all very true that CRM training is a good initiative towards safer flight.
However, you can never teach someone to have good CRM. You can show them statistics, go through NTSB reports and evaluate different situations. For those who are unable to see the importance of this (most often "the old dogs" and young "hot shots", both types lacking in the ability to give self critique), it's a day wasted and loss in production. And for those who are proficient in using the CRM concept, it's also a day wasted, because for this group the things we go through are so obvious and self explanatory.
Instead of spending time and money on this in the middle of a pilots career, pre hire screenings should eliminate these types of pilots from ever becoming active in the buissness. I don't see myself as a godsend not needing to discuss things like this in an organised manner, that's not my point. I am however interested in all of this and I enjoy evaluating my days work in the form of a debriefing with the rest of my crew, what could be done better and what did we do well. The crews that are interested and do give and accept critique, usually are the ones that also read statistics and reports for their own good and give things like CRM a good thought on a regular basis, even between the refreshers. That's why I think it's basically a waste of time, because no-one really learns anything from these classes. This is ofcourse a very black and white point of view and perhaps there are those that aren't as keen about this as I am, but still don't mind taking the lessons into real life and making use of them on the line.
Perhaps a more sensible way would be instigating a course in the ATP theory about CRM (way more than what is being done today) to get graduates into the correct thinkpath from the beginning and also perhaps emphasizeing (spelling?) this more during the MCC course. It is an important topic that needs to be adressed, but for those who it genuinly concearns, it is a lost cause.
LnS