Helping industry is not a sin

Of course, any competent mentor knows you have to make sure the ‘goals’ are aligned with something worthwhile and are not based on exploiting others or causing harm.

Good mentors also understand that the mentoring relationship must be safe and secure for both parties – in other words, trust plays a central role in effective mentoring.

The concept of helping people realise their ambitions should not be as foreign to regulators or industry as perhaps has been the case.

More people flying, for example, means more fuel burned for aviation tax. It means more income for cost recovery. More people flying means an improved opportunity for regulators to make a greater contribution to the wealth of the nation by overseeing and even encouraging economic activity.

However, the underpinning principles regarding trust remain the same. Criminalising safety – as much of Australia’s aviations regulations now seek to do – provides a glimpse into a world view that is corrosive to a ‘just’culture. If people are constantly worrying about being prosecuted – even when they are trying to do the right thing – then they are likely to spend more time being defensive rather than being proactive about safety.

Sidney Dekker’s book Just Culture – Balancing Safety and Accountability provides sobering reading on how systems can be slanted against good safety outcomes, especially if fuelled by the legal system’s and the public’s perverse need to blame someone – even at the expense of learning valuable safety lessons.

Dekker’s insights into the construction of blame are profound for any organisation grappling with the difficulty of creating and sustaining a just culture. The examples of nurses, pilots and others who have fallen foul of the blame game – despite them trying their best to manage with the information they had at the time – are a salutary warning to the foolishness of the ‘strict liability’ offences now written throughout Australian aviation law.

Hindsight bias can lead to findings that reflect little of the complexity of the real world.

Making decisions with incomplete information, compromising between thoroughness and efficiency (see Erik Hollnagel’s The ETTO Principle) and taking what looked like the best option at the time are often ignored when accidents are reconstructed by regulators or investigators.

We should all be trying to take the perspective of the person involved – ‘inside the pipe thinking’.

As Dekker explains (in The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error) we should all be trying to take the perspective of the person involved – ‘inside the pipe thinking’ – something that sounds very similar to a key principle of effective mentoring – empathy.

Regulation should not be a zero-sum game. If one side has a win, that does not mean the other side must lose.

There are plenty of win-win scenarios on offer as CASA moves towards a more balanced and healthier philosophy – guided now by the Forsyth recommendations, the government’s response, the new CASA board and the Minister’s Letter of Expectations – all of which are welcomed by industry.

The challenge is to get industry-CASA agreement on some specific and urgent changes that demonstrate we are back on a positive path that will contribute to a just culture.

Part 61 remains a big problem, as do some of the shortcomings of the new flight and duty time regime – especially for seasonal industries such as aerial application. Manufacturing companies have expressed their difficulties in working in an environment choked with impediments. Relatively simple operations are suffocating under unnecessary complexity – whether it be the DAMP regime or changes to maintenance requirements.

CASA needs to demonstrate not only a medium to long-term plan for helping industry, but an urgency in delivering improvements in the short term that inspires confidence in new management.

New CASA director of aviation safety Mark Skidmore has invited all aviation industry participants to help CASA identify red tape reduction initiatives. AAAA has already made a detailed submission. Skidmore will also be addressing the joint Australian/New Zealand aerial application and Aviation NZ conference in June to outline further positive developments (Conference details are on the AAAA website – www. aerialag. com. au. ) There is considerable potential for increased and appropriate cooperation between CASA and industry. Building on AAAA’s existing work with CASA on a sector risk profile that established agreed risks and controls offers a new model that seeks ‘wins’ for all participants.

If regulator and industry can cooperate to achieve mutual goals of improving aviation safety and a vibrant and profitable industry, then perhaps the future is already looking brighter – for both CASA and industry.