DEFINING TRM
Reducing Error, Avoiding Stress, Increasing Efficiency
"Communication is particularly hard when negative issues are discussed, when safety is compromised and when criticising those of greater seniority and experience. Another problem of communication in large organisations is that the flow of information is often dictated by power. In these situations information can be shared by a chosen few, withheld from the majority and used to enhance an individual career. These groups tend to discourage inquiry and independence and encourage conformity."
Captain Dan Maurino, ICAO
TRM (or 'Team Resource Management') refers to the effective use of all available resources. These resources are divided into four broad categories - people, machinery, time and information. TRM is designed to optimise the human/machine interface and accompanying interpersonal activities. These activities include team building and maintenance, communication, problem-solving, decision-making, maintaining situational awareness and dealing with automated systems.
TRM training is not limited to multi-crew pilots. TRM is a concept, affecting the way you think and the way you act. It is intended to heighten attitudes and behaviour, not to change personalities. Pilots flying single-pilot, flight despatchers, flight attendants or cabin medical attendants, maintenance personnel and air traffic controllers can all benefit from TRM training.
The definition of TRM is:
The use and co-ordination of all the skill and resources, available to the team, to achieve the established goals of a safe, efficient and comfortable flight.
TRMSkills
Six major areas have been included in TRM training.
• Communication/Inter-personal skills
Specific skills associated with good communication practices include such items as polite assertiveness and participation, active listening and feedback. Polite assertiveness is a skill ignored in communication training but vital to a healthy working environment. In order to improve the communication channel, cultural influences must be taken into account as well as factors such as seniority, age and operating position, all of which can create communication barriers.
For example, a supervisor may ordinarily be open to communication, but at times when operational could be temporarily unable to receive information or comprehend situations. This partial or total incapacitation should be identified and addressed by another team member.
Other team members must be aware of the importance they hold and have a strong feeling of self-value. A team member's failing to communicate important data constitutes a failure to discharge individual responsibility to other team members.
• Situational Awareness
Situational awareness refers to one's ability to accurately perceive what is going on in your sector or position, and to be aware of the influences of your actions on others. It further extends to the planning of several solutions for any emergency situation that could occur in the immediate future. Maintaining a state of awareness of one's situation is a complex process, greatly motivated by the understanding that one's perception of reality sometimes differs from reality itself. This awareness should promote on-going questioning, confirming and refinement of one's perception. Constant and conscious monitoring of the situation is required.
• Problem-solving/Decision-making/ Judgement
These three topics are broad in spectrum, and can interrelate with each other or other skill areas. One may consider problem-solving as a cycle of events beginning with information input and ending with making a final decision. During the phase in which information is requested and offered, some conflicting points of view or differences of opinion may be represented. The concept of 'legitimate avenue of dissent' is an important vehicle for clearing the air, maintaining lines of communication and maintaining self-image. Skills in resolving conflicts are therefore especially appropriate at this time.
• Leadership
In this area, there is clear recognition that the command role carries a special responsibility.
The supervisor or watch manager is responsible for accessing and managing all resources that are available and pertinent. This process will ensure that informed decisions are made and if required specific duties delegated.
Similarly, every team member is responsible for actively contributing to the team effort, for monitoring changes in the situation and for being assertive when necessary. This is especially important when working with a colleague who does not subscribe to the TRM concept.
• Stress Management
Any kind of emergency situation generates stress, but there is also the residual stress (both physical and mental) that a team member might bring to a situation which may be difficult for others to detect. A team member's overall fitness for operational duty may be affected because of fatigue, mental or emotional problems, to the extent that other team members should be on the alert for any performance decline or subtle incapacitation.
Skills related to stress management refer not only to one's ability to perceive and accommodate the stress in others but primarily to anticipate, recognise and cope with one's own stress as well. This would include psychological stresses such as those related to rostering, anxiety over LCE checks, career and achievement stresses, inter-personal problems with other team members, as well as the home and work interface, including related domestic problems. It would also include so-called life event stresses, such as those related to the death of a spouse, divorce or marriage, all of which represent major life changes.
Several employers are attempting to alleviate stress problems by encouraging open and frank communications between operational management and team members and by viewing stress as part of the 'fitness for duty' concept. Management must be open to understanding stress problems and to encouraging managers and other non-team personnel to attend TRM training.
• Critique
Skills of critique generally refer to the ability to analyse a future, current or past plan of action. Techniques for accomplishing critique vary accordingly to the availability of time, resources and information. Three basic types of critique are distinguished:
• Pre-duty Team Briefings for analysis and planning
• On-going review as part of the operational problem-solving process
• Post-duty team debriefing
All three are important but can sometimes be overlooked in either day-to-day operations or during training. The art of critique is not to dwell on the negative, but to accentuate the positive and to encourage participation from the team.
Challenges of TRM
To admit any 'weakness' may appear to show a loss of confidence contrary to the image of what a team member is expected to portray. But the team members are human. Humans are not perfect 100% of the time, as we have seen in many accident cases.
As a team member the ability to tap another member as an available resource will help to compensate for the subjective human factors performance errors involved in decision-making and risk management. Managing the team's resources will help to ensure that all decisions and actions are in accordance with safe practices and reduce the risk of an incident.
The Five Elements of TRM
Inquiry
Inquiry is every team member's right and responsibility. Inquiry is a mode of behaviour that causes an individual to question, scrutinise and investigate all that is happening. It is curiosity, scepticism, interest; it maximises learning and awareness at all times and ensures larger gains in knowledge from each experience. Inquiry is the opposite of complacency.
Team members who practise inquiry, question or investigate what others are doing, believing or proposing. In addition, they recognise that their own knowledge, beliefs and actions could be wrong and are continuously challenging them.
Undetected problems and wrong assumptions present a unique difficulty for air traffic controllers. Active inquiry is an approach that stimulates early detection and definition of problems by helping a team member's sense of discrepancy between what is and what should be occurring. Inquiry is also useful in sorting out what is going on from what appears to be going on. Nothing is taken for granted. Human errors are reduced by exposing and correcting them at an early stage.
Advocacy
The essence of advocacy involves a team member accepting the obligation to speak out in support of a course of action different from that which is currently being planned or followed. At the same time, it is listening to viewpoints that may be contradictory to one's own.
An inviting question such as "Do you want to..." encourages the other to bring up alternatives that might be considered before a decision or course of action is finalised. Similarly, the phrase "I can't..." signals to other team members that a reservation exists that merits examination. This kind of concern is constructive questioning that represents a respect and a desire to support authority, rather than a resentment of authority.
Verbal communication in a forthright and relevant manner increases the likelihood that information will be understood and accepted; then problems can be anticipated and dealt with soundly. Advocacy is the obligation to support a position firmly, but to also respond to a sound alternative when one is put forth. For example, a team member whose own proposed action has proven to be unsound accepts the sound action without reservation. This acceptance does not detract from the responsibility to remain vigilant and continue to question others thereafter.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict is inevitable. In fact, it is often beneficial if handled properly and in a constructive manner. Differences in feelings, opinions, thoughts, values or action (actual or perceived) may lead to disagreement or dispute. Sometimes differences in personality alone can create a source of conflict.
A conflict will turn bad when a team member is unable to cope with giving or receiving inquiry, advocacy or critique constructively. This conflict can polarise team members to the point that the real problem or issue is not probed. Heated arguments can lead to bitter words or bad feelings and will ultimately affect operational performance unless the disagreement is brought into the open and resolved.
Alternatively, conflict can be transformed into a lively comparison of viewpoints that lead to deeper thinking, better problem definition and sound solutions. Under these conditions, conflict resolution can provide a basis for mutual understanding and respect, which strengthens, rather than erodes, team effectiveness.
Conflict resolution, which holds the underlying question of who is right, is destructive; conflict resolution which is focused on the question of what is right is constructive.
Decision Making
Many types of decisions are made during the course of an operational duty. Some decisions of high quality can be made singularly by one member of the team; other decisions are of such complexity or importance that the inputs from more than one team member, or from an outside source, are necessary to ensure higher quality decisions.
When all information is resourced and analysed, the likelihood is increased that from team members at another ATSU, members become aware of potential problems they otherwise would not have appreciated and thus can take steps to deal with them in a sound way. In no way does the consideration of all appropriate resources in the decision-making process diminish the ultimate authority of any controller. When decisions are made in this optimum manner based on a maximum of information, there exists a high potential for success, respect among team members and commitment to full support in implementing the decision.
Critique
Critique - used in the context of TRM - refers to discussions among team members regarding the conduct of the task. Properly utilised, critique can be initiated by any member at any time when he/she believes it will be helpful to the safety and efficiency of the operation. It is totally separate from the evaluation involved with LCEand ECT checks.
Critique is essential in producing useful future insights. When frank discussions are held among team members, misunderstandings and errors in perception can be clarified and resolved and conflict can be dealt with before serious problems arise.
Potential problems in the day-to-day operations
• Lack of support - where one team member fails to back up another during a high workload situation
• Standard Operating Procedures ignored - where there is a failure to complete a procedure when under time or other pressures
• Stress problems - where a team or individual experiences difficulties in adapting to unusual or emergency situations
• Judgement problems - where management of priorities and operational distractions distort the judgement process
• Emotional problems - where aggression or extreme submissiveness affect personal relations; or where there is a carryover of domestic worries or job conflict
• Discipline problems - where corners are cut or where there is inadequate control of the operation
• Communication problems - where there are misunderstandings
• Peer pressure - newly 'validated' controllers versus 'old hands'.
Stress
What is it?
It is the body's response to the demands placed upon it and the loss of perceived control.
There is more than one type of stress:
• Physical
• Physiological
• Emotional
There are essentially two categories:
• Acute
• Chronic
The main stressors in aviation are to be found in:
Physical Signs
• Palpitations - throbbing heart
• Pain and tightness of the chest
• Indigestion
• Breathlessness
• Nausea
• Muscle twitches
• Susceptibility to allergies
• Fainting / dizziness
• Recurrence of previous illnesses
• Rapid weight gain or loss
• Fidgeting and nail biting
• Feeling weepy, emotional or irritable
• Angina
• Headaches
• Cramps
• Stomach and duodenal ulcers
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Skin irritations or rashes
• Clenched fists or jaw
• Frequent colds, flu or infections
• Constipation or diarrhoea
• Alteration of the menstrual pattern in women
Emotional Signs
• Swings in mood
• Increased worrying
• Feeling tense
• Drained, no enthusiasm
• Cynical
• Feelings of helplessness
• Loss of confidence
• Lack of concentration
• Boredom
• Anxiety
• Fears, phobias and obsessions
• Depression
• Inappropriate aggression
• Over stimulation and excitability
• Feeling nervous, apprehensive, anxious
• Lack of self-esteem
• Withdrawal into day-dreams
Behavioural Signs
• Accident Proneness
• Poor work
• Increased smoking
• Increased dependence on drugs
• Change in sleep pattern, difficulty in getting to sleep and waking tired
• Poor time management
• Withdrawal from supportive relationships
• Too busy to relax
• Mental problems
• Difficulty in making decisions which used to be straightforward
• Overeating or loss of appetite
• Not looking after oneself
• Loss of interest in sex
• Impaired speech
• Taking work home more
• Marital and family breakdown
TRM Skills
Remember:
As stress increases - performance decreases
Asking the right question and stating your opinions factually on professional matters reduces stress.
When stress is reduced there is less chance of interference with perceptual and judgmental processes.
This enhances sound decision-making.
Manage (Use) Resources
Yourself
Others
Information
Ask the Right Questions - Inquiry
Asking questions will provide valuable information that might otherwise be lost.
State your Opinion - Advocacy
This is all team members' responsibility, but be prepared to change your opinion when facts or circumstances warrant it.
Resolve Differences - Conflict Resolution
This is a crucial element in the management of risks in the control room (not who but what is right).
Make Decisions
Ultimately you must make a decision.
Review of Critque
Critique is a skill that stimulates feedback in operations and in personal relations so evaluate situation constructively.
Most effective if company culture supports TRM principles.
Reinforces good decisions and discourages the repetitions of errors.
De-personalised and tactful technique is generally accepted .
Evaluation is an antidote for complacency.
Effective Feedback
Constructive feedback - should be helpful.
Descriptive rather than evaluative, non-judgmental.
Specific rather than general.
Well timed.
Team Co-ordination and Communication
Safe and efficient ATC operation requires the team-members to act in a co-ordinated manner. This implies the need to exchange information between all the participants. Team members must be aware of the importance of information they hold and have a strong feeling of self value. A team member failing to communicate constitutes a failure to discharge individual responsibility. True and effective communication occurs when there is a sincere and conscious effort by all parties.
Definitions
• Effective communication is being able to communicate your thoughts and feelings in such a way that the other person shares the same meaning you do.
• The imparting of interchange of thoughts, opinions or information by speech, writing or signs.
• The process of exchanging ideas and co-ordinating information by the use of a common system of verbal and non-verbal signals.
Key Facts About the Way We Communicate
• We tend to protect, maintain and enhance ourselves when we communicate.
• We defend against looking ignorant or foolish for fear of ridicule.
• We wish to maintain consistency, we tend to support our opinion even when we suspect that we may not be totally correct.
• We wish to feel valued, worthwhile, belonging and meaningful. This means that we must be acknowledged with respect and trust.
• Reality is second to perception - and our mindset may be very difficult to change.
• People behave according to their perceptions; they may not be aware of the level of risk.
• Emotions always take first place, feelings are facts.
• Commitment comes from self-determination; people have their own motivations.
Modes of Communication
Verbal - verbal communication occurs when words are used to communicate, either orally or in writing.
Non-Verbal - non-verbal communication occurs when body language, eye contact, posture, gestures, touch, silence - anything other than words is used to communicate.
Symbolic - symbolic communication occurs as a result of our appearance - clothes, hair, jewellery, make of car, etc.
7% of all communication is accomplished verbally. 38% of communication is the result of unconscious signals and readings, such as tone or sound of voice. 55% of all communication is achieved through non-verbal and symbolic means (body language).
Essential Verbal Communication Skills in TRM
Communication can affect the safety of the operation. Using the following five elements will assist team members to communicate in a more clear and precise manner.
Inquiry: Good decisions are based on the quality of information that is assessed. In a control room, controllers scan radar displays, CCTVs, FPS displays and, in a VCR, the airfield to gain information. In varying degrees, this seeking of information is taken into consideration when making complex decisions. Clarification of an action or intended action is the right course among team members.
Advocacy
Advocacy is the clear stating of one's position, even if it is contrary to the accepted position. Should a team member disagree with an action, it is the team member's responsibility to advocate their position. Advocacy is also the attitude of an individual accepting perspective and rationalising the different points of view for the best operational decision.
Listening
The art of listening appears to be a recurring failure in many accident reports. Active listening is an action, it is not a passive function. It requires the listener to actively inquire and respond, confirming to the transmitter that the message has been received and understood.
Conflict Resolution
If team members are effectively advocating their position, eventually there will be a conflict of opinion. An effective resolution process will help controllers to operate efficiently. Conflict can be constructive if issues are dealt with rationally. Problems may arise when the conflict becomes external to the task at hand. Outside issues should be deferred until another time while the team deals with the task at hand.
Critique
Proper critique is an important element of a successful operation. Critique is an analysis of events, past or future. It is an impersonal survey of how the operation can be improved. All team members' input to the critique process will improve total performance and ultimately improve the safety and efficiency of the operation.
Listening
Active Listening is:
The genuine desire to understand another person's perception.
Listening and expressing - understanding of what another person has said.
Sensitivity to another's thoughts and feelings.
Active Listening is not:
Passive or token.
Giving advice.
Agreement or disagreement.
Judgmental or critical.
Argumentative.
The Art of Effective Listening
Being an effective listener takes practice and a sincere effort on behalf of the listener.
Problems in effective listening are:
• We speak at approximately 125 words per minute.
• We have the capacity to listen at 900 words per minute.
Our brain spends this excess time:
• Pre-planning (anticipation) - preoccupation with formulating a response and not listening to what the sender is saying.
• Detouring (wandering) - waiting for a key word and when it comes up taking the conversation into another area of interest.
• Debating - playing the devil's advocate; regardless of what was said, taking or exploring the opposite point of view.
• Tuning out - when a message has been heard repeatedly, after a while the receiver does not listen because it is felt that the message is not important.
The effective listener is:
Caring.
Trustworthy with integrity.
Accepting.
Let's you talk.
Focuses on thoughts and feelings.
Constructive, focuses on problem-solving, not blame.
Encourages self-determination.
Is capable of active listening.
Listen to More than Words
Effective listening takes into consideration all aspects of communication - verbal, non-verbal and symbolic. For controllers, much communication takes place via R/T or telephone.This environment is ripe for communication error and misunderstandings because words exclusively represent just 7% of total communication. The communication process can be enhanced by an additional 38% by paying particular attention to the individual's speech characteristics.
1. Rate of speech - Is the individual speaking quickly or slowly? Generally, people speak more quickly when they are excited, angry or upset. Speaking slowly generally suggests calmness and control.
2. Inflection - Which words should the individual emphasise? Inflections can help indicate what is more important to the individual.
3. Tone of Voice - Is the individual's voice loud or soft, harsh or smooth? Tone of voice can help to determine the individual's emotional state. It can be critical in determining stress levels of other team members.
Critique
Definition: Critique is an efficiency or performance analysis of future, current or past events.
All team members should be encouraged to give critique to enhance the operation.Critique is constructive.It is what we think will work best, monitoring of our decisions to ensure performance is as expected and a debrief as to what will improve total team performance next time. Critique is a continual process that challenges the dynamic environment of operations.
Communicating Criticism
Occasionally, mistakes happen.Bear in mind that people do not make mistakes on purpose, but they are the result of a multitude of factors that may be influencing the individual at any one time. Mis-communications, task overload, misunderstanding of targets, stress or fatigue are some of the factors that could induce errors. Perhaps just letting the person know the consequences of his or her behaviour is enough to make the point. Other times, criticism must be communicated. The most effective way to do this is to:
• Avoid criticising the person, focus on the behaviour exhibited instead.
• Describe the specific behaviour you observed.
• Avoid being sarcastic or parental.
• Avoid using vague or general statements.
• Avoid using anger.
• Avoid asking questions for which you already know the answer.
• Describe the impact of the behaviour. It is important to help the person see what type of consequences it might have for him or her personally over a period of time.
• Reach an agreement on how to change behaviour. If the person chooses not to change the behaviour after being made aware of its negative impact and consequences, the person is either an intentional trouble-maker or under severe emotional strain. Proper disciplinary action should be taken. If the person agrees to modify his or her behaviour, then a process should be agreed upon to provide supportive and positive feedback.
Do:
• Encourage others to talk.
• Be tentative, explore.
• Express your feelings objectively.
• Focus on other's self-determination.
• Use a problem-sharing approach.
Do Not:
• Degrade the other person, especially in public.
• Be dogmatic or self-righteous.
• Ignore other's feelings or ideas.
• Argue.
• Interrupt.
Conflict Resolution and Maintaining Team Co-ordination
The key principle in resolving conflict is the determination of:
What is right, not who is right
When team members advocate their position, a difference of opinion arises. TRM principles recognise this conflict as not only healthy but expected. All team members' input is a required ingredient for synergy to become active.
A problem begins when outside conflict enters the operation, when heated emotion, bias or lack of respect taints the real issue.
Is it an operational issue or does it pertain to something beyond the confines of the control room?
If it is not an operational issue, set it aside and deal with it later. Maintain a professional attitude. If it is an operational issue, resolve it based on what is right and not who is right. Rely on an impartial source of information if possible, e.g. MATS Part 1 or 2. This is a constructive method of resolution versus the destructive method of 'who is right'.
Peer pressure can also bring conflict into the open where there are newly-qualified controllers working alongside old hands with many years' experience at the unit. Peer pressure can be exerted both ways, with either side deliberately (and also inadvertently) influencing the other to act out of character or against better judgement. In such circumstances, co-operation and mutual support, not conflict and competition, are essential.
How to Manage Angry Conflict
There may be times, inside or outside the control room, when angry conflict will take place. Should this angry conflict take place during operational duty it will constitute a serious hazard to safety. The following tips will help you to manage the angry conflict until the problem can be resolved at a more convenient time:
Maintain Control:
• If possible suggest another time (cool off).
• Avoid sharing the anger.
• Objective: To listen.
Listen:
• Objective: Allow others to explain.
• Use listening skills.
• Open-ended questions.
• Probe questions.
• Paraphrasing.
Conclusion
From the beginning of flying, pilot-training programmes have focused almost exclusively on the technical aspects of flying and on an individual pilot's performance and problem-solving capabilities. However, accident statistics show that many problems encountered by flight crews have very little to do with the technical aspects of flying. It would appear that to improve the safety of flight, the priorities must shift from operating independently to problem-solving, by using all available resources in a total operational team environment - flight crew, cabin crew and air traffic control staff.
TRMconcepts are not designed to challenge legitimate authority or the high degree of technical proficiency essential for safe and efficient operations. Nevertheless, a high degree of technical proficiency alone cannot guarantee safety. Studies have shown that marrying technical proficiency with effective team co-ordination will provide the best opportunity for success.
TRMis a concept involving three main elements:
• Education and awareness training.
• Practice, feedback and recurrent training.
• Continuing reinforcement.
Individual participation is imperative to gain maximum benefit.
The key to the success of TRM is the mutual respect and confidence that is created among team members which fosters an environment that is conducive to openness, candour and constructive critique. The result is a more professional performance due to the synergy that is achieved, thereby decreasing the risk of an incident.
The concept called "Team Resource Management" is intended to address the problem of making flawed decisions or acting inappropriately because of lacking all the information available at the time to complete a proper situational assessment. In many accident investigations it has been found that the information was available but, tragically, it was not utilised.
Aircraft and ATC equipment, operating procedures, navigation methods and airworthiness safety standards have steadily improved over the last few decades. This may lead to an assumption that as a result the accident rate has improved. It has not. Accident investigations show that more than 80%of incidents and accidents have been caused by a failure to make use of readily available 'resources'.
In mid-1996 the Boeing Airplane Company issued a warning prediction concerning aircraft accidents, unless efforts to reduce the global accident rate are successful:
'Provided that the historical worldwide accident rate of 1.5 hull-loss accidents per one million flights remains unchanged, and Boeing's projection of a virtual doubling of worldwide departures between 1996 and 2015 holds true, we can expect approximately 50 hull-loss accidents annually by 2015.'
We have just 178 months in which to achieve the necessary reduction.
MLB
Based on the Multi Crew Co-operation Course concept for flight and cabin crew, adopted by a number of UK airlines.