Jim,
Email
is a terrible medium for communicating tone. It’s difficult
to accurately project and/or discern emotion via email. Often a writer
intends
to be sarcastic in a humorous way, but it is received as demeaning and
derogatory.
Some
of us military types grew up in a flying environment where
one’s skills and judgment were under constant review. Public
post-flight reviews
(to give you an idea of the mindset, we called them ‘critiques’)
were mandatory, and all aspects of a mission were evaluated for mission
effectiveness and safety. For training missions, the guiding principle
was
(still is I’m sure) ‘safety of flight is paramount.’ For
operational missions crews might assume higher risks to get the job
done, but
compromising safety for a training mission was , um, not in accordance
with official
guidance.
Despite
our government’s current effort to the contrary,
you can’t write a rule book that prohibits EVERY sort of dangerous
behavior/mindset/inclination. This, of course, is especially true in an
organization where such behaviors/mindsets/inclinations would be
advantageous,
depending on the mission. There are many things you can do with a USAF
aircraft
that, while not specifically forbidden, would be considered dangerous
-- even
negligent -- on a training mission. The problem is you can’t simply
throw
away a pilot you have spent millions training for behaving stupidly on
a single
flight. And sanctioning via official means (reprimands, courts-martial,
etc.) usually
kills any chance of promotion, so you may as well count on a person so
sanctioned to punch out (of the service) at the earliest opportunity.
Understanding
this, the leadership chooses to use peer pressure to modify behavior
rather
than more official means. It turns out the peer pressure idea works
better
anyway.
In
a community so inculcated with the ‘safety
culture,’ engaging in behavior not officially prohibited, but
considered unsafe,
was grounds for public humiliation during a post-flight critique with
the crews
of all aircraft involved, and maybe even during a monthly safety
meeting in front
of the entire wing. Such public humiliation served several purposes
including
(but not limited to):
-
It provides a teaching moment to show how easy it is to make
bad decisions
-
Those experiencing such public humiliation rarely repeat the
offending behavior
-
Those observing learned the hazard of engaging in such behavior
I
don’t bring all this up to suggest ritual public
humiliation as a means to make all Lancair pilots identical automatons
of
safety. I only wish to point out that while public rebukes may come
across as pompous
personal puffing (and some may be), often it is simply a matter of
habit –
and old habits are hard to break.
My
suggestion is for both sides to attempt tone deafness. Those
posting their disapproval of others should make every attempt to post
opinion
backed by fact and data, but absent the vitriol. If the subject
behavior/idea/mindset
is heinous enough it will speak for itself. Humor is often an effective
tool to
use in such cases, but beware the problems noted above. If you want to
be funny,
be sure it’s funny and not mean spirited. You might find them trite and
silly, but adding an emoticon
to your text can be an effective means of deflecting hurt feelings. (I
can’t
wait to see how some of these guys react to this one… :-P)
Those
on the receiving end of a critique should assume the best
of intentions on the part of the poster. Speaking for myself, if I
offer an
opinion about another’s judgment or behavior, I do so with the sole
purpose
of avoiding injury or bent airplanes. My guess is the vast majority of
those
posting negatively have the same goal. In other words, as difficult as
it may
be, when you’re getting spanked try to get the message and ignore the
tone.
One
thing I would point out to those who truly have the best of
intentions (improving safety) when critiquing another: If your message
bounces
off the defensive wall sure to go up after you deride his/her ego, your
best intention
to ‘help’ a person will come to naught, because even the best, most
obvious message is wasted if the receiver doesn’t get it
Even
if everyone completely disregards this rambling missive,
Jim, please don’t quit the forum because you are unhappy with the tone.
I
have learned some very important lessons while observing the (often
unpleasant)
dissection of another person’s behavior. I’ve learned some of the
most important lessons of my life after being shown (always unpleasant)
how I’d
behaved stupidly or irresponsibly. Yes, it hurt, but I am forever
grateful to
the @$$holes who pointed out the error of my ways.
Respectfully,
Mark
Sletten