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Old 4th Mar 2016, 20:35
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LlamaFarmer
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: UK
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Not a CRM instructor, but I would like to it some day.


The hardest thing about teaching CRM is getting people to buy into it. It requires a culture of peer-pressure.

When it was brought into the aviation industry, it was seen in a lets-sit-in-a-circle-holding-hands-talking-about-our-feelings kind of way. You can imagine how well it went down.

Now it has an evident track record of reducing accidents/incidents and improving crew performance, it's much more widely accepted, and the old boys who frowned upon it are mostly all retired and out of the industry. So over time, the culture shifted. Nowadays it is probably frowned upon to brush it off. I feel like most of my colleagues would call people out who think it's a "crock of s**t" and that has the effect of basically bullying people into CRM. (That's not what I mean... I know what I do mean but struggling to find the words to convey it).

But until you get that culture shift in the rail industry, it's hard to get people to buy in overnight, it takes time. Like turning around an oil tanker.





There is a general framework and behaviour markers for assessing people.

CRM is split into cognitive and behavioural processes, with other "core" elements too. Main categories in these processes (such as Cooperation, Decision Making, Situation Awareness etc) are split into further elements, such as
- Team building, Conflict solving (Cooperation)
- Problem recognition, Option generation (Decision Making)
- Awareness of systems, external environment (Situation Awareness)


Then there are positive and negative behaviour markers for them...

Ranging from Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, Very Poor.

Very Good would be something that "optimally enhances flight safety and could serve as an example for other pilots"
Good wouldn't quite be such a textbook example, but still behaviour "enhances flight safety"
Acceptable is something that needs improvement, but not endangering flight safety.
Poor "could" endanger flight safety
Very Poor is behaviour directly observed to endanger safety.


So for conflict solving, positives would be things like "keeps calm in conflicts", "suggests conflict solutions" or "concentrates on what is right, not who is right".



It's hard though, to assess objectively. It's not black and white, there are many variables.

Flying a raw data ILS for an IR, you're either within half-scale deflection, or you're not. You're either within +/- 5kts or you aren't. That stuff is very easy to assess.

CRM not so much. Someone can be doing all the right things, saying all the right words, but the way they way say them can be undoing all of that. Having an aggressive or argumentative tone when resolving conflict, or having a weak voice when being a leader can have the unintended affect, or reveal true feelings behind the words. And some people may interpret things more strongly than others.




One thing worth looking into is Single Pilot Resource Management (as opposed to Crew) which may be more useful for train drivers. I'll admit, I know nothing about trains or driving them, but they are sat there on their own for the most part aren't they?

SRM was one thing I looked at in a lot of detail 10 or so years ago when I did my university dissertation on General Aviation fatal accident rates. Although I've slept since then so can't remember much of it
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