Tenerife, the power gradient, and the calculus of voice On 27 March 1977, two Boeing 747s collided on a runway in the Canary Islands, and 583 people died. It was the worst disaster in the history of civil aviation, and
Cultural Diversity and Cockpit Communication Here’s a classic paper from 1999 – Cultural diversity and crew communication, by Fischer and Orasanu. They examined how cultural background, rank and gender influence pilots’ corrective communications in the cockpit. Analysing over 500 pilots
Leadership and Empathy One of the most powerful capabilities that leaders and managers can possess is empathy. Arguably, the same could be said for anyone – we can best understand and help others when we’re able to see the world
Introduction As a result of the ever-increasing scale and complexity of healthcare systems, hierarchies and layers of management have become increasingly necessary (Kumar, 2021). These facilitate operational capability, both in terms of scale and complexity, but also lead to sometimes
Telling the boss bad news twice. Soon after I graduated from university with my degree in ecology, I got a job as an Experimentalist at Jealott’s Hill Research Station, Berkshire. I worked in a department called “Weed Science” (yes, it does
Crew Resource Management (CRM) and the Centrality of Psychological Safety CRM was developed in the 1970s and operationalised psychological safety in safety-critical, complex environments. Crew Resource Management (CRM) recognised, as a result of accidents such as Tenerife in 1977, that
Selection Pressure and Psychological Safety Why has it taken so long for some industries to recognise the importance of psychological safety, whilst others have been doing it for decades? One possible answer: selection pressure. Over the past few decades, the
Crew Resource Management In preparing for my conference talk this week, I was reading up further on the 1977 Tenerife disaster and the history of Crew Resource Management (CRM), and came across this excellent paper: The Evolution of Crew Resource Management Training
Psychological Safety, Aviation Disasters and Crew Resource Management This week I’ve been reading “Confronting Mistakes” by Jan Hagen. This is a fantastic book, focusing on the human factors behind a multitude of aviation incidents. Jan highlights how miscommunication and failures to speak up
