The unspoken barrier of safety.

In aviation, the frontline professionals are usually considered the creators of safety to the industry. It is the pilots, the technicians, the air traffic control officers (ATCOs), etc. who are the safety network for flying public. They are the ones whose skills, abilities and often unseen actions ensure that people and goods get to their destinations in time and safely. Their jobs are mystified in their complexness, difficulty and stressfulness. But, consider this - all of these professionals were trained by someone. They have all attended someone’s class to become the safety superheroes they are. It is worth taking a moment to uncover what sort of people are developing the professionals taking care of your aviation safety needs.

Education is a curious activity with interesting facets. On one hand it is very personal and sensitive process for a learner, and highly humane task for an educator. On institute and community level it has cultural manifestations, and it’s got a whole-of-nation mind-set for development of generations. In modern societies, it is highly rare if any individual gets no schooling whatsoever. Somehow, then, we all have done our time in some educational institute at some point in our life. To get a profession, we have completed some sort of educational programme.

For the purpose for making a point, let us consider aviation, and more closely air traffic control, from educational perspective. Aspiring ATCO trainees undergo an intensive training programme, which, depending on national requirements lasts from about one year up to six years from first day in school to having an ATCO license in hand. Such a big variation in training times comes from number of factors, but big ones are skills requirements posed by national regulator and cultural approach to organizing training in the country.

Regardless of the nation, the goal of any ATCO training programme is to develop individuals to the professional domain, who possess required knowledge, skills and attitudes, a.k.a. competence, to conduct the work in a safe and expeditious manner. They need to understand their role in ensuring the safety of aircraft, their crew and passengers, and any infrastructure and personnel in the scope of any flight under their control.

Professional air traffic controller represents a part of a slice, or a layer of defense against hazards in the famous Swiss cheese model, by James Reason. The Swiss cheese model considers how accidents happen and according to it, organisation defends itself against failure by a set of safety barriers, i.e. the slices of cheese. Each slice represents a domain of safety, which are organisational influences, unsafe supervision, pre-conditions for unsafe acts and unsafe acts themselves. The holes in the slices are the weaknesses or failures in each layer of defense, and, if the holes align, a hazard may pass though and cause an accident. The failures can be active or latent. Active failures are unsafe acts that one can link directly to the accident. Latent failures are contributory factors, which may lie hidden for long periods of time, and only become dangerous when certain conditions occur.

Now, any gaps in ATCO’s required competence can be regarded as such latent failure, or a hole in the slice. Through appropriate education programme, fresh ATCO trainees learn the necessary competencies of the occupation to minimise the size and number of holes in the slice they represent in the Swiss cheese model. On the frontline of this process are the Air Traffic Control educators. In their endeavours to help learners learn what they need to learn, they too represent a slice in the same model.

One of my favorite topics to discuss with people involved in education, is sharing personal experiences of teachers in their past. Everyone has been subject to the influence of at least one, usually several, professional educators at one time in their life, and all of them are able to dish out the experiences they have liked and disliked. The discussion reveals what qualities current, active and future educators appreciate in a teacher, and what are the traits to be avoided.

Without need to single out individual commentaries, it is very clear that all the answers culminate around an ancient art described by Aristotle over two thousand years ago. Mastering this art will elevate a teacher or a coach to gold standard. On the other hand, failing on any level of it jeopardises learning, and as discussed before, in an industry such as aviation where professional skills of staff are critical, this can be dangerous.

The art in question is what Aristotle calls rhetoric, which is known as ‘the art of language’. It was considered a civic art and the highest of the skills one could possess. Rhetoric was the weapon used to win court cases and to persuade and convince people in political arenas. It was the best speaker, who the audience believed and whose message they accepted. Used virtuously, it could shape communities, form institutions and move mountains, but with malicious intentions, was also a tool of manipulation. Indeed, a worthy device for a leader or an educator, whose task is to get audience believe and learn what he or she talks about. Indeed, a device needed to ensure that the audience, in this case the ATCO trainees, come out of the programme propped with a proper competence set, ready to face the safety critical tasks of their profession.

Rhetoric is hence a safety tool, but it is something that is quite often left outside of focus on institutional level. The “art of language” matters not less than regulatory audited and approved processes, documentation, organization and facilities. In the upcoming posts, I will discuss the appeals, or proofs of rhetoric, i.e. the components of what makes a great speaker and educator.