Lessons in Teamwork from the Cockpit

TEAMCOMMUNICATIONAIRCRAFT

Avery Johnson

11/13/20264 min read

I learned a lot about teamwork, both positive and negative, from my military flight experience. The Army learned early on that teamwork is crucial within the aircraft and has published doctrinal literature on crew coordination, also known as Crew Resource Management (CRM), which has since been adopted by the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team. The document (now obsolete) used during my time in service was Training Circular 3-04.44, which establishes solid foundational principles and objectives for operational teamwork. CRM has proven to be such an effective framework for operational teamwork that modifications of it (like Maintenance Resource Management) are being adopted for non-flight operations and even by teams outside of the aviation industry. These communication and collaboration tenets are often effectual in personal relationships as well.

The key purposes of CRM include team building, human error management, human/machine interface optimization, stress management, problem solving, and decision making.

In Army helicopters, multiple individuals of different backgrounds must work together as a cohesive team in tight proximity. The team depends on the proficiency and communication of its crew members to successfully perform complex missions in dynamic and sometimes hostile conditions. In such an environment, a team member’s operational competence could be the difference between life and death for the whole crew.

Interestingly, significant rank disparity between team members in an aircraft is common. For example, a Colonel (CEO equivalent) may sit in the right pilot’s seat, a Chief Warrant Officer and technical expert with 15 years of experience may sit in the left seat, a Sergeant or first line supervisor may sit in the right rear Crew Chief seat, and a Private (new guy) may be on his first mission in the left rear crew seat. These four team members operate within a total cabin area smaller than 10’ x 10’. It’s important for these crewmembers to respect and trust each other, and to communicate fluidly, despite the difference in rank, to enable mission success.

In CRM, all operational communication should serve to:

Establish and maintain team relationships
Distribute and efficiently manage workloads
Cross-monitor team member performance
Exchange critical information

Below are simple lessons I’ve learned throughout my career that support those four objectives:

Establish trust first. No person is an island. We’re all connected; no flying solo. Army helicopters are too large and the technology too complex to be safely piloted by a single person. The crew must work as a team and to do so, they need to trust each member’s ability to carry out their respective tasks. Rank/position must not be a barrier for trust and communication. The leader must rely on his team and trust that the crew is familiar with their duties and that their communication is accurate.
Shared language is essential. Shared vocabulary is a necessary element of any successful team. The word “bird” must identify a bird, not an aircraft. The word “aft” may be more appropriate as opposed to words like “back”, which have multiple meanings. Confusion creeps in where concise language and shared vocabulary are absent. In dynamic environments, there’s little time to clarify miscommunication. Avoid ambiguity.
Communication is a two-way street. In Army aviation, a similar catastrophe has happened on multiple occasions in which pilots, responding to an engine failure, have died because they shut down their only functioning engine, simply because they didn’t confirm which lever they were pulling. Listening for and expecting feedback changes everything. Announce your actions and expect a response. Give and receive.
Brevity is critical. Consider what you want to say in advance. Then say precisely what you want to say: nothing more, nothing less. Plain language is often clearest. Unnecessary transmissions clog communication channels that others may be trying to use to convey important information. More information is immediately available today than ever before, but it’s accompanied by increased distraction. Most likely, your audience in operational environments is extremely busy and has very limited time and energy to process your message. Construct your communication to pierce through the noise.
Announce your intentions. I’m probably an internal processor, which means my tendency is to hold onto information as I consider it, rather than passing it on to others who could benefit from it. This pattern could be dangerous in demanding team environments. Withholding information from a team that depends on having it could be anxiety inducing (at best) or deadly (at worst). Announcing intent builds the team’s trust in your process, keeps the team on the same page, and prevents others from having to guess what actions you’re going to take next. Executing aviation missions as part of a team helped me learn to verbalize my thoughts for the security of others.
Let others know how they can be most helpful. Directing assistance is essential for managing effort and stress. Delegate tasks early to distribute workloads evenly across the team. If you find yourself inundated with responsibilities, ask for help, but ask specifically for what you need the other team members to do.
Speak up. Every voice on the team, regardless of rank, is crucial to mission accomplishment and could save the lives of its members. While this may seem like common sense, many aircraft accidents have occurred in which a junior pilot was unwilling to break cultural norms to confront the senior pilot and/or take action that might have saved the crew. Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are quite relevant here. Secure leaders are comfortable when confronted by members of their team. Individuals must be bold enough to approach and/or warn leaders. Healthy culture promotes open and respectful dialogue and facilitates forthright and fluid communication.

On Confrontation: It’s never easy, but there comes a time when challenging authority is necessary for the well-being of the team. The following guidelines are helpful in conveying disagreement or in confronting team members, which can always be done respectfully.

Start with inquiry: “Do you see that tower?”. The best initial assumption is that the team member is oblivious to the threat you perceive, rather than impervious to it.
If inquiry doesn’t work well, advocate for your position: “I believe we should stick to our planned route because we haven’t accounted for off-route obstacles that could be threats”. Many strong personalities will keep rolling until somebody speaks up with confidence.
When advocacy does not have the desired effect, take action to save the crew: “I have the controls. I’m turning left 30 degrees back to our planned course”. Later, discuss the scenario and resolve any related issues so that it improves future interactions.

Finally, if a disagreement cannot be resolved quickly, the crew should choose the most conservative course of action, which is usually the safest. The team can then discuss the disagreement in more depth after the mission, but they must survive it first.

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