Predicting the future

The distinction between leading and lagging indicators is more important in aviation safety than in most other places. When you consider the tools, systems, training and advice that is available, it is surprising how many of the approaches to safety are really about trying to predict the future.

Tony Kern’s seminal analysis of airmanship, Redefining Airmanship, with its underpinning commitment to situational awareness, is all about projecting possible human responses and actions onto likely future scenarios so that the pilot is truly ‘ahead of the aircraft’.

James Reason’s famous ‘Swiss cheese’ model of accident investigation, when coupled with Doug Edward’s Fit to Fly work on using a ‘red flag’ system, provides another excellent, simple and cheap way of people changing the emerging accident chain to get a safe outcome.

A ‘red flag’ type approach is particularly important in the Australian social context, where research hints that the Australian cultural imprint may actually work against safety by imposing barriers to clear communication – unless there is a system in place that effectively ‘gives permission’ for people to intercede on another’s actions for safety purposes.

Risk management, including threat and error management, is all about trying to look at what you have and trying to match that to possible future scenarios – and then adding controls for any residual risks that are unacceptable.

The latest research now being integrated into AAAA safety courses is around the importance of motivation and habits, including understanding the habit sequence of cue, routine and reward and how to change the routine for the better. The motivation stream is about individuals finding their own drive to a safer way of thinking – especially by using leading indicators and tools.

The tools already used by professional pilots in maintaining their own safety behaviours – routines of risk management and sound planning, habits of using checklists and standardised procedures and communication skills directed by the principles of CRM – all lend themselves to being better prepared for what the immediate future might throw at us.

In a business management sense, just like preparing for a flight, a

Research hints that the Australian cultural imprint may actually work against safety.

healthy dose of asking ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ is at the core of opening up to the possibilities of rough seas ahead so that we can prepare. If you just want to pretend that ‘she’ll be right’, then you shouldn’t really complain when your lack of forward thinking means you are unprepared to survive or even prosper in tough times.

In aerial application, it has been four consecutive seasons of above average or average activity since the end of the last drought – unless you are in Queensland where there has been another very dry spell in some areas over the last few years.

It is a truism in agriculture that for every 10 years there will be about three good years, four average years and three bad years. As a rule of thumb, this is a useful warning to agribusiness people who expect anyrun of good seasons to continue.

What could trying to predict the future add to the equation – other than spoiling the party? Simply, it allows you to prepare.

The lessons coming out of the last drought were stark. Debt control and diversification were two critical elements that almost everyone could have had more of. The spectacular end of the last drought created its own problems – pilot shortages, stress of too much work, pressure from clients – but it did allow some choices to be made.

The quality of those choices will likely be a strong indicator of the resilience of the company come the next challenge.

Business knowledge is useless for its own sake – it has to be applied – and that means a change in behaviour so as to prepare for whatever might be coming.

If you get it wrong and the good seasons continue, all the better because you are well placed to take advantage of the situation with a lean company, lower debt levels and diversified income that is not agriculture (or perhaps even aviation) dependent. If your pessimism is warranted, then you have a better chance of getting to the other side of the drought with most of your assets and company intact.

Trying to predict the future might sound like a waste of time given the amount of change in our lives and our businesses, but if you leave your future to others, you shouldn’t be surprised if you experience some poor outcomes.