As others have said, this is an extremely valuable topic (Could the mods give it its own space and merge the posts?)
Like some others, I see the 'CRM' concept as either 'inbuilt' or 'no way', but what I think the CRM topic does is to make the receptive folk THINK and perhaps realise there are areas where they can improve approachability and team play. Like PJ, during my 'initial' (one of the relatively early ones - 1988 with DanAir) we had the 'over my dead body' brigade who really needed the exercise, and the others, and I had to spend more than a few legs being berated by Captains in the former group as to how the whole thing was a 'complete waste of time'.
Where I do see the problem is where the concept has gradually been hijacked and expanded into an industry (rightly) involving just about all from bottom to top (excluding, sadly, operational management in many cases) and thus further alienating those 'non-believers'.
Like 'airmanship', I believe the concept is basically innate, and it takes a very disciplined person to counter any innate personality 'defects' when under high stress. I suspect most of the 'shining examples' we have highlighted above had a well-founded innate structure which carried them through the jungle. 'Natural evolution' has drastically reduced the numbers of now Captains who grew up under the glare of the old 'Captain is god', and will further improve. We are probably just coming to the end of the first 'post' generation.
Originally Posted by DW
Firstly the advent of CRM occurred roughly in the same time period as the widespread introduction of powerful digital FMS and automation, but I suspect this is a coincidence - please correct me if you know differently
- I believe it does effectively 'pre-date' this period. What happened subsequently was well demonstrated by BA and its 'glass cockpit awareness' ('EOI') courses to try to address these later issues (and excellent they were in my opinion.)