CRM – The new religion
Over the last years I’ve felt that CRM has become a gargoyle. Supposed to be very impressive and monumental but like its analogy it has long since had its prime and is only changing by deterioration.
When I started flying, although not that long ago, I thought CRM was a good idea and a thought worthy topic.
We have all learned, and benefited, from the teachings about the Tenerife accident for instance. This one lesson, and others, were good ones when the issue was first raised. Now the conclusions of these lessons seem like common sense. Certainly this is mainly because of what CRM has done for us in the past.
Now however I find myself in a classroom once every year listening for hours at end to someone who has done a quick training course on how to teach it. Hearing the same old textbook stories with the same old voice over and over again. Haven’t they found any new material since 1979?
Sure, there’s plenty of finger pointing going around with every example. “If he hadn’t forgotten that, this thing wouldn’t have happened!”
Why that sure helps me, “I’ve got it Watson, I’ll remember the flaps next time!”.
Mind that I’m not knocking the teachings of human performance and limitations. That stuff is actually very good to ponder, to understand others and not least yourself.
What really gets me itching about this is that, like with religion to its believers, you are not allowed to criticize it or its teachings and like religion, people generally seem to miss the basic point of the message.
If a pilot would openly have a go at CRM in a company I’m pretty sure he’d have an appointment with the DFO within days.
“Well Hoskins, if it’s one thing I know, it’s that the emperor’s gots his clothes on”.
I’m sure most see it but never have I heard a single outright complaint. Complaints are plenty where other ground courses are concerned but the holy cow no one’ll touch.
Once I had the fortune to partake in a course held by a guy who actually researched the issues of CRM and human performance for years, long before he decided to lecture on it. He didn’t follow the normal patterns of a CRM lesson but instead opened up to new though-loops, explanations and suggestions. This guy really taught me something new that made me think.
Sadly he is one in a thousand it seems. Because what attracts opportunists more than a forum where you can’t be questioned? “Why yes sir this here snake oil ‘ll cure you even of your mother in law!”
Remember, there is a lot of money to be made for an approved CRM instructor.
I’d venture to say that most, and I mean most, CRM instructors are under trained and not fit to be teaching at all. And why should that be so strange? In the before time, when requirements were tougher you couldn’t become an instructor over night. Why should that be any different today?
“But the CAA says that CRM is important, the most important subject!?”
Yes they do. What else could they say? CRM is portrayed as the one single biggest hope for aviation safety. To hell with lowering FTLs or what have you that could actually make a change. The CAAs and the airlines don’t have the courage to say that we need a change of course. Would you like to have been the one who denied god in the 15th century? Of course not, but it had to be done at one point.
So what to do? If one pill is good for you, two must be great, right?
No!
What we need is not eight hours of endless drivel by an under trained, over motivated guy, fresh from a ten day instructors course with no theories or experiences of his own but with random pointless examples a plenty.
We need perhaps two hours by a truly knowledgeable teacher who has teaching itself as his motivation, with one good insightful example instead of five off the shelf ones.
The idea of CRM was to get people thinking and to raise awareness of the pitfalls lying ahead. Not for them to yawn through what will surely be the same headache as last year.
I’m sure CRM is not an easy topic to teach well. This should be the reason to increase instructor requirements rather than the opposite.
Eight hours of 0.1 is a hell of a lot less than two hours of 1.0
I say let us develop this subject into something befitting of aviation today and raise the bar for instructors
Or
Stop kidding ourselves, wasting our time and leave the whole thing behind as part of our evolution and await the next prophet.
/Thought for food.