Safety to Sustainability: Reflections on Education as the Key to Culture Change
Human Factors:
Around 14 years ago, I attended a course on Human Factors as part of a mandatory training program with my then employer. The course itself was a modified version of the Cockpit Resource Management courses taught to airline pilots since the 1980s; I found the material fascinating and well delivered – it remains one of the best and most useful courses I have ever attended. The other delegates, ranging from junior officers like myself to senior captains and chief engineers were similarly invested – something that doesn’t happen often enough in short courses.
At the end of the course, the delegates were asked what, if anything, could be improved about the course. And unanimously, we agreed that the greatest failing on this occasion was that those who stood to benefit most (in our experience) from the lessons were not present. In other words, we felt that some of the effort was wasted on “preaching to the choir” – a group of delegates who were so agreeable with the learning objectives that we felt that we hadn’t been challenged at all. Better, we said, for our employer to send the kind of people whose destructive behavioural habits could well result in an accident.
As the years have gone by, I have begun to realise that my classmates and I were not entirely correct in this assessment. I still refer to this course on a regular basis, and although I may be unique in that respect, I can guarantee that all delegates left the classroom that Friday with something. No lofty ideals about revolutionising the workplace or anything close, but rather just enough new information, perspective and focus to allow for a slight modification in our approach to our work and our colleagues.
Experience vs Education
The vast majority of people in the superyacht industry favour experience over education or training. I respectfully disagree – I believe that to be a nonsensical argument. For any given role on board, we need people to have the right mix of training and experience. Experience, namely good experience, will allow you to be more efficient and more skilled in the tasks for which you are trained. But training, or education, remains fundamentally important for personal professional and team development.
Good quality, relevant training should give you deeper insight into your chosen subject, it should allow you to benefit from the experience of others and it should allow you to test yourself physically or mentally in a controlled environment. But good courses should go further – the classroom environment is also the ideal place to question the status quo, to introduce new concepts and to challenge views and beliefs. Would you feel more positive, for example, about the demands of the STCW refreshers if you were guaranteed to leave each course wiser and more knowledgeable?
If each of the delegates of our Human Factors course left just a little wiser and more knowledgeable, then at some point each of those people will have applied that new wisdom and knowledge in the workplace. The application of knowledge to a task is what generates useful experience.
As each delegate has progressed through their career and risen through the ranks, the influence, however slim, of this knowledge on their decision making has increasingly influenced the work of those around them. Concepts discussed briefly in a classroom well over a decade ago can in this way evolve our workplace behaviour and norms.
Culture change
“Culture wars” aside – culture change is happening all over the world, all of the time. I would not call it a fundamental human societal trait because there are many peoples in the remoter parts of the world who have been successful enough as hunter-gatherers to eschew technological development or the creation of more complex hierarchies that ultimately result in the need for culture change.
Instead, it’s a trait of the developed and developing world. It’s a symptom of progress, an adjustment mechanism that allows individuals and communities to realign with technological and philosophical progress, new concepts and new information. Culture change has happened because of the availability of mobile phones, cars and passenger aircraft. The internet, television and books have fundamentally changed the world through the information they convey to their audiences. Culture change occurs when a new concept or behaviour becomes a “norm”, a value accepted by that society. Culture change is never consistent or infallible. It takes real effort to effect value changes and many people will be extraordinarily resistant. Even those who fully embrace new ideas are prone to mistakes and poor judgement. This is all very evident in the increasingly polarised politics of climate change, nothing of which is worth discussing here.
How is this relevant to the superyacht industry? Well, the industry is itself a society with a hierarchy and preconceptions, standards and expectations. And culture change is alive and well here too – in area in particular that I have observed evolving over my years in yachts is safety – the industry is slowly moving on from one where gung-ho, high-risk operational behaviour was prized to one where crew go about the same tasks with the right PPE, the right amount of people, better appreciation of the risks and no less of the confidence or swagger. This evolution hasn’t occurred through harsh discipline or extra paperwork, it has occurred because values, standards and expectations have changed. In my view, this is due to the increasingly broad understanding and acceptance of safe management practices by those in leadership positions, who in turn create the environment where crew respond positively to the safety standards expected of them.
Why this matters for Sustainable Development Goals:
Meeting the IMO sustainability targets remains one of the biggest challenges in the wider maritime industry. I wrote last year about my belief that the STCW training standards need to be revised to focus on, and be relevant to, sustainability targets. Now, perhaps it is clearer why I think this is so fundamentally important. The maritime industry doesn’t just need tighter regulation or more complex rules – it needs a consistent supply of educated seafarers who will make better judgements and decisions not just because of regulation, but because they have recognised the concept of sustainability as valuable, just as the generation before has embraced safe management culture.
In the superyacht industry it is all too easy to take for granted the established supply chains, operating parameters and cruising patterns. Can the industry move to a more sustainable footing when the key decisions makers on board each yacht are unable to assess the true social, economic and environmental impacts of their decisions? At present, much of the decision-making is rooted in the status quo – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the impetus for change is growing, and increased awareness, knowledge and experience is needed.
Final Thoughts
By undertaking that human factors course, I and others gained new insight and perspective, which in turn helped change our attitude and behaviour. As we applied the lessons learned throughout our careers, we have influenced those around us for the better. As more people undertook human factors education and progressed through the ranks, the effect was multiplied. The new values became the expected standard; understanding human behaviour was no longer a niche concept but a core consideration in the decision-making process. Culture change had been effected.
Now, the maritime industry is facing a series of interwoven challenges that, as yet it is not fully geared up to meet. Sustainability, a much misunderstood (and thus increasingly maligned) term, is the all-encompassing description for these challenges. Shipping needs resources such as fuel, people, ships and ports; it generates pollution, but also economic benefits; it provides employment but not always security. It’s pertinent to recall that the Sustainable Development Goals are just as much about providing for human needs and economic growth as they are about environmental protections: long story short, it is about maximising the benefits for the majority while consuming less resources. Viewing the shipping industry through this lens should also point us towards ever-present crew welfare issues, decent employment and the effect of shipping on coastal communities, especially in port areas or ship-breaking yards.
To achieve a similar cascading culture change amongst seafarers, we need to move beyond passive compliance and into the realm of active problem solving. The transformation needs appropriately educated seafarers and management to generate consistent best-practice approaches that are context specific. It is our business to adapt, to be proactive and the best result will be achieved when everyone is on the same page.
