Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 28 replies
  • Subscribers 14 subscribers
  • Views 2316 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Are there lessons we could all learn from how the modern military copes with unexpected situations?

Andy Millar
Hi,


A couple of serious issues I was involved with this weekend made me think of this. One was in the engineering world to do with the day job, I was reviewing a very serious incident report (fortunately no fatalities but very close) involving a mixture of everyone trying to do the best they could, but perhaps over reliant on structured checklists which had completely missed an entire piece of equipment in a fairly unique situation. The other was a medical issue in the family, once again all the individual hospital staff were doing their best, but there was a bit of the process that just didn't cope with a particular situation.


Which made me think of something that's long been at the back of my mind: I've never worked in a military environment, but my impression of the modern military from the contacts I have had is that there is still a very structured hierarchy, chain of command, and focus on process, but equally it appears that somehow there is also the ability for small units to have the skills and freedom to evaluate and make their own decisions when challenging circumstances arise - exactly the key skills that were missing in the two examples above. 


So really two questions I'd really like to know other people's views on (particularly those who have worked across both the military and civilian worlds): firstly are my impressions above correct? And if so (or even if a bit wrong but on the right lines) are there lessons we can learn from how this works that we can apply to the management of engineering activities in the wider world - particularly in safety critical issues where we need structure but also need the ability to rapidly and effectively cope with new problems when they come up?   


Thanks,


Andy
  • 0
    On this subject the tale of Bravo Two Zero comes to mind - despite extensive training and checking, virtually nothing worked on the communications front. It could be held up as an example of what can go wrong in the field.
  • 0
    Andy, I'm ex-RN, BAE Systems and a few others and could help here if you want to have a chat.
  • 0
    Hi Andy,


    I’m exRAF and I work in the same type of department in the civil world.


    As much as we prep for anything that could go wrong by writing procedures and check lists etc. I’ve noticed in the civil world, we don’t tend to practice them as much as we maybe should because we have other pressures in the civil world.


    In the RAF we had a big support mechanism behind us and in my section we had about 15 guys plus 3 managers.  In my department now we have 4 engineers 1 supervisor and me as a manager and we don’t have the support in the background and a hell of a lot more work.


    To have good emergency practices, they should be practiced and reviewed regularly. So you will know that they work and when it comes to doing it for real everyone is well rehearsed.

    When the adrenaline  starts to flow, the brain doesn’t function as well and thats why it’s important to practice.


    You can’t plan for everything .


    hope that helps
  • 0
    Hi Andy,


    I’m exRAF and I work in the same type of department in the civil world.


    As much as we prep for anything that could go wrong by writing procedures and check lists etc. I’ve noticed in the civil world, we don’t tend to practice them as much as we maybe should because we have other pressures in the civil world.


    In the RAF we had a big support mechanism behind us and in my section we had about 15 guys plus 3 managers.  In my department now we have 4 engineers 1 supervisor and me as a manager and we don’t have the support in the background and a hell of a lot more work.


    To have good emergency practices, they should be practiced and reviewed regularly. So you will know that they work and when it comes to doing it for real everyone is well rehearsed.

    When the adrenaline  starts to flow, the brain doesn’t function as well and thats why it’s important to practice.


    You can’t plan for everything .


    hope that helps
  • 0
    It very interesting this idea that's come through a few of these posts about training, practising, rehearsing - and I assume adapting the response based on feedback (perhaps someone would like to comment on that)?


    Very often, in fact most of the time, in the civilian world it's a case of producing a process, and if it works for 80% of cases then keep using it until something absolutely forces it to change. And don't practice (which I think is the point being made here) every scenario, which means you don't practice (or even identify) the 20% where the process doesn't quite work.


    I think there must also be something about personal responsibility as well - in the civilian world it's perfectly acceptable that if you've followed the process, and everything's gone wrong, then you can say "not my problem". And then, if it's five o'clock, go home. I assume that doesn't quite apply (to put it mildly) when you've got incoming!


    I reckon there's a nice little presentation or two in this if anyone with a bit of suitable background wanted to take it up...


    Thanks for all the comments,


    Andy
  • 0
    Hi Andy,


    i work in the Air Traffic industry and we do emergency training where we cover training for emergency situations.  This is only done a few times a year.  Personally I think this is better than nothing however, it would be better to do more but we are limited by the number of staff.


    It may help if you look at the Air Traffic world.  We have something called a “just culture”, where we learn from our mistakes and we don’t blame people for errors or mistakes.  Its like this so that people don’t hide their errors and feel comfortable putting their hand up and saying that they’ve made a mistake.


    i think this feeds into the whole culture and we don’t have the issue that you’ve spoke about with staff.


    it might be worth looking at in addition to the emergency training.


    if you need any pointers, let me know.


    Paul
  • 0
    Hi Andy,
    Background; I served 11 years in the Royal Signals. I left a long time ago, and work in a senior sales role.
    I think one of the things about the military that I learned was that more people get hurt, if someone does not do something? That decision might not be the best one, but the theory being, better to do something, using experience (think of the subliminal brain here) than wait and try to find a near perfect solution.
    Mike

  • 0
    I saw this come up on the E&T 'advert' inserts. I was in the OTC at university and a junior TA officer for a few years there after, before moving North where I worked in the defence industry (mainly Army & some Air Force equipments). My interests include systems thinking, human error and cognition.


    Here's a few points I'd noted about some of the differences between the civil and military approaches which make them not directly comparable for the learning about situations (aren't all 'situations' in some way unexpected?)


    1. Money is not an issue.

    2. Distinction between leadership (forces) and management (civilian) (e.g. the organisation has an independent conscience (NHS))

    3. Losses, though highly undesirable, are to be expected and planned for.

    4. Team mindset. (no work-life balance)

    5. Narrow minded mission.

    6. Overwhelming force (see also 1.), (rather than efficiency)

    7. Expertise in local equipment, often deep, rather than broad.

    8. Reliance on specialist equipment designed long ago for a differing purpose by lowest cost contractors for political reasons...

    9. Plenty of time practicing / doing 'nothing'.

    10. Monopsony / monopoly conundrums.

    11. Politically supported bunker mentality.

    12. System Thinkers, maybe. - Different system / Different environment.

    13. Focus on success vs focus on failure ?

    14. Development of the soldier vs being a production worker.

    15. A different perception of "Normal Accidents".

    16. Different perspectives within Navy, Air Force, Army.


    These differences will tend to push the military into a different quadrant of Quinn's Competing Values Framework (CVF) so that while normally adjacent, there are many aspects that veer into the conflicting values zones, just as most engineering companies have 'poor' HR function because of the value differences.


    Yes there is a lot to be learned, but one has to scratch below the surface to make sure that we are looking at similar environmental conditions and similar system foci.


    Philip

Community Rules & Guidelines