THE HUMAN ERROR We (maintenance personnel) are often not good


communicators and don’t always speak up when we should. The following speech by Giselle Richardson, a dear and departed friend of mine, says it better than I ever could. I fi rst heard that presentation and met her at a banquet for an industry guidance committee to Transport Canada, of which I was a member, way back in 1992. I asked and she gave me a copy to do with as I wished. She had the ability to shake your hand and know more about you than you knew about yourself, just from that brief encounter. See if what she said about us back then is just as true today.


“CINDERELLA IN THE FLIGHT DEPARTMENT” Some years ago, fl ight operations began to discover the value — indeed, the need for — training in the human element for their managers and staff . This activity has evolved from being a rarity to a regular feature in most fl ight departments and focuses mainly on fl ight crews and management. Although the seminars we off er are advertised as being useful for fl ight and ground crews alike, invari- ably, in our sessions, pilots out number mechanics by about fi ve to one. How come? Why is this type of training not made available to nearly the same degree in the maintenance departments? Aren’t mechanics people, too? Don’t maintenance directors, crew chiefs, and supervisors need skills to communicate and to manage and to mo- tivate? Don’t mechanics need to learn to deal with stress, too? Why aren’t they getting the same attention the fl ight groups get? The answers to these questions, I am afraid, come to roost


squarely on the shoulders of those responsible for the maintenance departments. You might know that diff erent professions are characterized by


diff erent predominant personality profi les. If you doubt it, the next time you go to the NBAA annual show, pause in the aisles and look around you. Use your intuition and you will quickly be able to pick out the pilots from the salesmen (well, not always!), the salesmen from the design engineers, and the mechanics from all the others. Why? These traits are found to predominate in the maintenance


area: commitment to excellence, willingness to put in eff ort and hours, integrity, distrust of words, dependability, tendency to be a loner, modesty (no desire to be in the spotlight), not liking to ask for help, tending to be self-suffi cient, thinking things through on our own and not sharing our thoughts too frequently or thoroughly. (We have not met many mechanics whose spouses say, “I wish my spouse would shut up and let me get a word in edgewise.”) Most of these qualities are assets, provided that they are not


carried too far. Let’s look at self-suffi ciency, plus the habit of doing your thinking without checking it out with others. It’s my contention that both contribute to the one-down role that maintenance too often holds in the fl ight department. In other words, one of the reasons the maintenance group so frequently fi nds itself in the position of the second-class citizen in the fl ight department is because, in a way, it is asking for it.


Speaking to an aviation group some time ago, I said, “When things go wrong, pilots bitch and mechanics sulk.” You have all heard about the squeaky wheel. Those who suff er in silence are less likely to get attention. The business of not asking has become a habit for some of you. Let me give you an example. Not long ago, we were conducting team eff ectiveness programs in a large corporate fl ight department. The company is one that does not cut corners and generally responds to reasonable requests from its manager. To our amazement, we found out that whenever pilots and mechanics went to ground school (even when they were there together), mechanics received a lower allowance for meals, etc., than the pilots did. We made loud and indignant noises about this to the aviation manager, only to learn that it was the chief of maintenance who established the cost-of-living allowances for his people when they were traveling. The aviation manager had no objection to increasing the allowances to match those of pilots; he was simply going along with the chief of maintenance’s preference. With that kind of behavior, is it any wonder that Cinderella pushes out cinders and garbage in the maintenance area while her pilot sisters go to the ball in their brocade gowns? This attitude invites others to see mechanics as less important than other members of the department. If you invite people to kick you, there is bound to be someone who will accommodate you. This article is an invitation to mechanics, and especially to the managers in the maintenance area, to rethink how they perceive their roles in the department, the contribution their people make to the company, and the ways they have at their disposal to make sure that they are duly recognized. Space available prevents our detailing the myriad instances where


some clarity and assertiveness would serve the maintenance group well: salaries, working hours, technical training, and (given our bias) the fact that mechanics — like other human beings — can benefi t from assistance as they fi nd their way in life, just like the rest of us, whether or not they are currently in a period of professional or personal or family crisis. That is to say that employees in the maintenance area require systematic psychological maintenance like the rest of us, and will benefi t from any kind of training that enables them to understand human behaviour better, to see how they unwittingly contribute to some of their problems, and — most importantly — to ensure that they fi nd some ways to become comfortable with more appropriate behavior. The fi rst step, of course, is for the management group of the maintenance area to upgrade their own people skills, to get to understand how they limit their ability to use their talents, their experience, their wisdom and their compassion for the benefi t of their people. They need to recognize that they have two roles to play in the organization: to contribute to the success of the fl ight department, and to stand up for, defend, represent and develop their own staff . The two are sometimes in apparent confl ict. More importantly, the second role too often confl icts with the manager’s personal style as described above. Too often, he or she opts for the fi rst at the expense of the second.


04 2015 18


DOMmagazine


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