Crew Resource Management: A Key to Preventing Corporate Crises, Study notes of Communication

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Practice “Crew Resource Management” to Keep Your Firm on

Course

Corporate, Securities, and Governance

The primary goal of CRM is to enhance situational awareness, self-awareness, leadership, assertiveness, decisionmaking, flexibility, adaptability, event and mission analysis, and communication.

On December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 bound for Miami International Airport departed John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York at 9:20 pm. The four-month-old Lockheed L-1011- Tristar wide-bodied jet carried 163 passengers and 13 crew. It was piloted by 55-year-old Captain Robert Loft — a veteran Eastern Airlines pilot who ranked 50th in seniority at the airline. Captain Loft was accompanied in the cockpit by First Officer Albert Stockstill, 39, and Second Officer (Flight Engineer) Donald Repo, 51.

The flight to Miami was routine until 11:32 pm when the aircraft began its descent. After lowering the gear, First Officer Stockstill noticed that the landing gear indicator, a green light identifying that the nose gear is properly locked in the “down” position, did not illuminate. This was later discovered to be due to a burned-out light bulb.

In response, the crew discontinued their approach to the airport and requested to enter a holding pattern while they sorted out what was going on with the aircraft’s nose gear. After seeking permission from air traffic control, they climbed to 2,000 feet, engaged the autopilot and circled over the Everglades.

As the crew “worked the problem” one of the pilots bumped against the yoke, inadvertently disengaging the auto pilot and causing the plane to enter into a gradual descent. A cockpit alarm sounded as the aircraft continued toward the ground, but the entire crew was so preoccupied with the

As with first officers in an airline cockpit, it is important that corporate counsel know how to effectively deliver to our leaders critical information in time to avert catastrophe — especially in a time of crisis when emotions may be running high. To address this problem, CRM teaches the following five-step assertive statement process that will serve us well in providing our clients advice they may not want to hear:

1. Opening or attention getter — Address the leader. “Hey Bob, we need to talk about [shorthand name for the crisis].”
2. (^) State your concern — Express your analysis of the situation in a direct manner while owning your emotions about it. “I am concerned that we are on the wrong course.”
3. State the problem as you see it — “The approach we are taking will seriously damage our credibility with the public and the regulatory authorities.”
4. State a solution — “Let’s acknowledge our responsibility for the situation and commit to figure out what happened and prevent it from ever happening again.”
5. Obtain agreement — “Does that sound good to you, Bob?”

These are difficult skills for anyone to master. But, if you make the investment to develop them, you will maximize your firm’s chances of successfully navigating through a crisis and arriving safely to its intended destination.

Jim Nortz

Founder & President

Axiom Compliance & Ethics Solutions, LLC

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