I think the experience of family life is instructive about how dramatically the working atmosphere of a collaborative enterprise can change with as little as a single word uttered in anger or desperation of some other sort.
Airline operations are inherently complex on the ground and in the sky. The system depends on quiet and seamless collaboration of many individuals in many roles, each one expected - as the base-case for success - to do the right thing at the right time in exactly the right way. Management, training, promotion and personal career goals all work to the same convergence of skills and interests that cause a very demanding and unpredictable process to seem reliable and consistently successful in commerce.
When this collaborative and precise activity is contaminated by an individual's behavior that distracts, confuses, and polarises the minds of co-workers, the unavoidable result is that performance suffers. For this reason, if no others, the minimum standard of comportment and demeanor should be set high and kept so for the special persons in the process responsible for command and control.
Last edited by arcniz; 13th Apr 2007 at 01:47.