Complacency

 Complacency

By Catalina9

Complacency is a human behavior hazardous to aviation safety. Complacency has become the new root cause for accidents and replaced pilot error. It is conventional wisdom that complacency is caused by the very things that should prevent accidents, factors like experience, training and knowledge contribute to complacency. Complacency makes crews skip hurriedly through checklists, fail to monitor instruments closely or utilize all navigational aids. It can cause a crew to use shortcuts and poor judgement and to resort to other malpractices that mean the difference between hazardous performance and professional performance. Complacency is also given as the reason when things go wrong flying the same route daily or doing the same job regularly. Complacency has just become another word for pilot error. However, this is all wrong. Complacency is not caused by experience, training, or knowledge. Complacency is all about organizational factor. 

Complacency is to take the path of least resistance.

 When conducting a root cause analysis within a   Safety Management System (SMS) world there are   four factors to consider. These are human factors,   organizational factors, supervision factors and   environmental factors. It is also crucial to a root   cause analysis to know that these factors do not   cause  complacency. In a healthy enterprise   complacency as a root cause does not exist. 

Complacency is when you are no longer striving to do your best or perform with accountability, but just do the minimum to get by. Complacency is also when you are not staying up to date in your field as an airline or airport operator. Complacency is to wait for the regulator to find problems with operations, rather than operating with a Quality Assurance System. Even if the subject is not linked to the aviation industry, take a course, or attend a conference. It is easy to drift into complacency, but it is not noticeable yourself.  Complacency is also when you are not seeking or taking advantage of new opportunities but relying on yesterdays news. There are enterprises, both large and small, that believe training is busy-time, or waste of time since their personnel was already trained. Annual training that is not a regulatory requirement are discouraged by these so-called leaders.  When you do not seek or take advantage of opportunities your skills become stale. Doing the same thing over and over gets boring. You remain invisible. Key stakeholders and decision makers do not know that the value that you contribute is to set up for an accident. Look for opportunities to work on new projects and maintain an active and curious mind. Complacency is when you are not maintaining or building your network of business contacts or associating with the industry.  When you do not build ongoing relationships at work or stay tuned to aviation news, you are not privy to critical information that can influence your daily job performance. Complacency is when you do not risk sharing your opinion or ideas. This is a high-risk factor, since when there is an inherent risk by sharing opinions, enterprises are operating outside a just culture environment. 

Complacency is to force the wrong piece to fit the puzzle.

 Complacency is not a condition but a symptom of   hazards within an enterprise and their lack of   commitment to organizational factors. To perform at 

 their best, individuals have two basic needs in the   world of work, if it is in the aviation industry or any   other industry.  The first is the autonomy need. This   is  the need to be seen and respected as an individual,   and to stand out for one’s personal performance. It is   a need to be recognized for individual achievements.   The second need is the dependency need that each   person has in the workplace. This is the need that people have to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. People want to be part of a team. It is the need to feel recognized and accepted as part of a group of people in the workplace.

Leaders create environments where people feel both autonomous and important, on the one hand, and have their dependency needs satisfied by making them feel as if they are part of a team; part of the whole organization. Using positive reinforcement at work is a key factor in personnel motivation. It is what takes place at the moment of contact or communication between the manager and personnel that is the key determinant of performance, effectiveness, productivity, output and profitability of an organization. The point at which the two people connect, whether positively or negatively, is where the past, present and future performance of the individual and the organization is determined. When this contact between the boss and the subordinate is positive, supportive, and encouraging of self-esteem and a positive self-image, then performance, productivity and output of the individual will reach its highest level.

When lightning strikes it’s best to play it safe.

  The worst way to gain personnel satisfaction is   when  the point of contact between the manager and   the managed is negative for any reason at all,   performance and output will decline. A negative   relationship with the boss will trigger fears of failure,   rejection, and disapproval. When their boss is   negative for any reason, people will play it safe, and   only do exactly what they need to do to avoid being 

 fired. Almost everyone has worked in a low self-   esteem environment. These are usually remembered   as the worst jobs the person ever had. Everything you do to improve this intersection or contact improves the overall quality of your work life, no matter where you are on the ladder of management.

The more effective you can become in eliciting peak performance from each of your staff members, the more and better people you will be given to manage for it. The top managers and leaders of today are those who are capable of eliciting extraordinary performance from ordinary people. Effective managers are intensely action oriented. When they hear a good idea, they move quickly to implement the idea and put it into action. Therefore, if you hear about anything that you think can help you to motivate your staff to a higher level, do not delay. Practice it immediately, that very day. You will be amazed at the results.

The Safety Management System (SMS) has all the tools an enterprise needs for Project Solutions Leadership Motivation. SMS has a just culture, where there is trust, learning, accountability and information sharing. In a successful SMS world, comprehension is derived from data (collected by hazard, incident or accident reports), information (data is turned into information), knowledge (absorbed information) and comprehension (interacting systems). When comprehension is missing the system is faulty, or data is not analyzed, system comprehension is faulty. This faulty system comprehension does not rest with pilots, mechanics, or airport crew, but with the enterprise. When a CEO or Accountable Executive wants to find out the reason for complacency in their organization, all they have to do is to take a look in the mirror. 

Catalina9