Lucrarea este un material care a fost realizat de către Centrul Român pentru

Pregătirea şi Perfecţionarea Personalului din Transporturi Navale – CERONAV,

Constanţa. Ca urmare, reproducerea integrală sau parţială, transmiterea sau
stocarea în biblioteci a textelor şi materialelor din prezenta broşură este interzisă
fără acordul CERONAV.

Titlul lucrării,
“CREW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT”

Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României

VASILE, GABRIEL
Crew resource management / Gabriel Vasile. - Constanţa
: CERONAV, 2013
ISBN 978-606-8554-11-2

65.012.4:656.61.052

Autor,
Cpt. Gabriel VLASIE - Exp.cons.1 A

Consultant pentru l. Engleză: Liliana Marteş – Exp. Cons. 1A

Coperta: G. VLASIE/ N. HÂNCU

Adresa: CERONAV, str. Pescarilor nr. 69 A

cod 900581 – Constanţa.
Tel.: +40 241 639595
Fax: +40 241 631415
E-mail: office@ceronav.ro
http://www.ceronav.ro

- 2013 -
 INTRODUCTION TO CRM

CRM CONCEPT
First introduced in the 80’s in the aviation industry as a tool for responding and to the
increasing risks due to “human factors error” problem (most of the accidents were
reported to have not technical causes, not even lack of skills and knowledge, but by
human errors), CRM extended in other highly operational environments (shipping,
oil/offshore industry, medical operation theatres, etc.) looking to solve human
aspects involvement and relationships in settling such activities on safety base.
Many changes have taken place over last decades regarding the way how commercial
activities are carried and managed on as well as ever increasing implementation of
highly advanced technologies and equipment – combined with additional tasks and
requirements from international regulations (ISM and ISPS lately) for seafarers, with
Owner’s decision to cut expenses by reducing ships crews and using of multinational
crews. All these for the sake of the profit, brought the safety aspects into the
shipping industry on the edge of a critical situation.
When we deal with accidents causes we should look at the following statistics:

Lack of planning
Wrong assessment
71% of accidents
Lack of watchkeeping
Falling asleep during duty (stress and fatigue)

Lack of skills in use of navigation aids

10% of accidents Lack of competence
Failure to comply with COLREG

19% of accidents Other causes (technical failures, Acts of God, etc.)

We can define CRM as “the use and coordination of skills, knowledge,

experience and resources available to the ship’s crew, to accomplish or
achieve the established goals of safety and efficiency of the voyage”.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 2

 WHY WE NEED CRM TRAINING?
As afore-mentioned, the reason for which such course was developed was the result
of most accidents caused by human management errors; here are some of identified
errors:
Preoccupation with minor operational/technical problems (distraction)
Failure to delegate tasks and assign responsibilities (lack of communication, bad
leadership)
Failure to set priorities (lack of communication, bad leadership)
Inadequate monitoring (complacency, excessive routine, lack of skills and
knowledge)
Failure to use available data (lack of skills and knowledge)
Failure to communicate intentions and plans (lack of communication, bad
leadership)
Failure to detect and challenge deviations from the SOP (lack of skills and
knowledge, bad leadership)

Following closely the industry development, CRM has undergone many

transformations that reflects the deepening and broadening of the concept – today,
there are countries where CRM became a mandatory standard for several industries
falling under the incidence of CRM theories; as for the shipping industry, we salute
the decisions of more and more companies to include as general requirements for
their crews and applicants to organize CRM workshops as a professional way to
respond to changes in the industry related to “human factor error” problems.

It is worldwide accepted that CRM is NOT a technical course, related to professional

training, NOR a course to ask you change your personality…CRM is a PRACTICAL
and EDUCATIONAL course – aimed at giving you knowledge and practical
understanding of operative managerial skills, no matter on which management level
you are – it aims at showing the seafarers not WHAT and HOW to do things as
generally training courses are intended to, but WHY things should be done in a
specific way and thereby generating a high level of willingness and acceptance of
such management concept and actions.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 3

 WHERE CRM IS HEADING?
The final station of CRM train should bring us to the “positive performance”
station… Besides acknowledgement of positive performance, another objective we
have to reach is establishing a “common shared vocabulary” platform to describe
all concepts related to “management and leadership”….
How hard or easy to accomplish such task, we’ll find together on completion of our
workshop…
Experience has taught us that achieving final training “stations” could be done by:
Learning from past errors and getting knowledge about how people and
teams function in highly operative environments
Looking at attitudes – attitude defines “the configuration of all persons’
expectancies about an object or the organization of concepts, beliefs, habits
and motives associated with the subject” or, in short, the way we look upon the
world upon us; it is the attitude of each of us that makes the difference
between NEGATIVE and POSITIVE performance.
Implementing new ways of behaving – as behaviour is mostly part of our
personality matrix, is not our intention to try to change you; however
specialists in human relationships believe that a major factor in behaviour rely
on attitudes – thus, by taking and influencing the attitudes we should be able
to adapt and adjust our behaviour in a NEGATIVE or POSITIVE way as well.

What kind of behaviour are we looking for as result at the end of our journey?
By studying successful teams exposed to critical situations in different industrial
activities “positive performance” was demonstrated by:
Good situational awareness (anticipation of next step)
Obtaining relevant information in due time
Building a shared mental model (uniform representation of concepts and
actions)
Applying conservative strategies and procedures, but keeping options open
upon situation
Decisions are sensitive to constraints
Applying of explicit task delegation
Continuous monitoring progress of team actions

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 4

As for “common shared vocabulary” we’ll introduce several terms specific to CRM
such as:

Briefing / Debriefing Awareness (both situational and cultural)

Authority and assertiveness Short Team Strategy (STS)
Workload Team state
Crisis and crowd management Critical incident debriefing

During presentation several situations and cases will be submitted to your attention
that will illustrate the point we highlighted; your experiences should be of great help
and interest in discussions–so, don’t hesitate to analyse your own experiences not
professional and technical but through the filter of CRM terms and concepts….

Life is a dynamic process and so are all human activities….

Although this course tries to include most recent results of CRM knowledge, should be
regarded as a pilot for further improvements and developments…
We hope that by applying the basic concepts of CRM on board your vessels you’ll
succeed to better understand and improve your activity and crew relationship for the
benefit of future employments.

So, let’s start…

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 5

 MODULE 1
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

By the end of this module you will be able to:

State some physiological and psychological limitations
of Human Factors
State some of the factors that leads to Human Failure
Define attitude and behaviour
Training Define motivation
objectives:
List of hazardous thoughts
Definition of situational and cultural awareness
Mention of factors influencing awareness
State ways of maintaining a good level of awareness and
signs of loss of it

Maintain your own an crew’s level of performance

within acceptable limits
Learn to know yourself and behave in a civilised way by
controlling your attitudes and behaviour
Behavioural Observe and restoring awareness level at all times,
objectives:
especially by being sensitive to multicultural aspects.
Improve personal CRM knowledge
Learn to control any factor that may alter your Human
Factors performance

MANAGEMENT is a process by which, utilising all

resources of a system, we can achieve a given goal.
Compared to other industry areas, shipping has become
Extracts from a living proof of how important the team is in order to achieve
CBT presentation:
such goal like SAFETY OF NAVIGATION.
Safety of navigation is a specific discipline and, like all
disciplines must be learnt and impressed.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 6

 Once a management is losing its commitment to safety, is
losing its ability to contain risks, safety as economic
performance must be managed.
The Master’s challenge is to build this assortment of
groupings and individuals into an effective and cohesive team
that will assist him in managing both the vessel in the most
efficient and effective way and PEOPLE as the most valuable,
infinitely variable and increasingly scarce resource of all.
WE ARE ALL PART OF SOMEBODY’S TEAM.
Human Factors represent our own nature, the man
itself, the individual, but above all our mental structure.
When we refer to Human Factors we refer same time to:
Personality
Behaviour and Attitude
Human physiology and physical structure
Motivation
Intelligence, creativity and aptitudes
Extracts from
CBT presentation: Skills and Knowledge
Situational and cultural awareness
In fact, accidents and all other relationship related matters
are the results of Human Failure – that is when, due to
negative influences by external factors our Human Factors
breakdown or get blocked by external factors; therefore, it is
more important to identify these factors that can affect the
capacity of our human resources:
Stress - due to:
Poor communication
Environment and fatigue
Inappropriate leadership style
High workload
Hidden pressure
Bad working and living conditions
Multicultural environment
.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 7

 Lack of skills, knowledge and training
Illnesses (physical and mental)
Unsuitable attitudes (complacency)
Behaviour and Attitude – behaviour is defined as an
objective manner or way of action in various life situations; by
such actions people express their psychic life; thus, behaviour
is generally strong related to the personality and can be
influenced in a positive way only by adapting our attitudes.
In turn, attitude is the general opinion about a subject, the
way the individual organize the concepts, beliefs or habits
toward that subject, the way we look upon the world and
things around us.
While behaviour is affected by personality, the basic feeling
and the level of skills and knowledge affect attitude.
Attitude is very often a reflection of a combination of past
Extracts from experience and future expectation; your team‘s attitude will
CBT presentation: reflect your attitude towards them – to change attitude and
therefore his behaviour, build trust and demonstrate
commitment and consistency; must focus on issues, behaviour
and problems, support the team’s efforts to improve
competence and not to look to blame the individual by creating
a sound “blame-free culture”.
Attitude indicators are the hazardous thoughts and safe
thoughts, as illustrated:

HAZARDOUS THOUGHTS SAFE THOUGHTS

“I thought….” “Check….”

“I can do it…” “Why take chances?”

“Don’t tell me what to do…” “ Follow the rules”
“It’s not my job…” “ We’re all on the same ship”
“We’ve always done it that
“Let’s review it!”
way”
“Let’s do it quickly!” “Not so fast – think first!”

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 8

 Before taking any action, remember following basic truths:

OUR JOB AT SEA IS DANGEROUS.

WE CAN’T CHANGE THE LAWS OF NATURE
ALL PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES.

SELF
ACTUALISATION
NEEDS
Personal development
through self-fulfilment of
our life goals and objectives

ESTEEM/EGO NEEDS
Self-respect, desire for prestige,
recognition from other

LOVE/SOCIAL NEEDS
Need to belong, companionship,
Extracts from identification with a group
CBT presentation:
SAFETY/SECURITY NEEDS
Security continuity for work, protection against risk of sickness

PHYSIOLOGICAL/SURVIVAL NEEDS
Sleep, food, drink, shelter

The most important function of our “equipments” is the

interconnection with the surrounding world and people… This
process is carried out by our five senses (smell, taste,
eyesight, hearing, touch), via a lot of neurons and synapses to
the brain where the signals are decoded and find their meaning
to us… The decoding of electrical nervous into something we
see, hear, feel, smell and taste is called perception;
perception consists of 3 important functions of the brain:
Long Term Memory (LTM) – “permanent memory”
Short Term Memory (STM) - “working memory”
Motor Memory (MM) – “procedural memory”

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 9

 Awareness is meant to define the ability of knowing what’s
going on around us so we can to decide what to do; this
concept is defined as the most important quality of every team
member in a highly operational team; it’s answering the 3
stages of the awareness loop:

COLLECT INFORMATION
“WHERE AM I?”
“WHICH RESOURCES DO I
HAVE?”

INTERPRET
PROJECT
INFORMATION
INFORMATION “WHAT DOES IT
“WHAT’S GOING MEAN?”
TO HAPPEN?”

The level of situational awareness may depend on:

Extracts from Time - elapsed or available for action
CBT presentation:
Speed and, in same cases, establishing positions in space
Level of automation (induce a false impression of safety
and exactness)
Team member’s fitness and health
Team member’s personality and attitude
All team members should pay attention to the signs of
decreased or loss of situational awareness:
Observation or feeling that nobody is in control of the
activity
Observation that nobody is watching around or to the
display/equipment indications
Execution of unannounced alterations of plans or working
schedules
Quality and frequency of communication
Uncertain situations not cleared up
Observation of unsuitable attitude (usually complacency)

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 10

 Safety may be considerable improved in multicultural
environments if the leader is:
Becoming fully culturally aware
Questioning crew’s members attitudes
Treating people with respect as individuals
Avoiding to stereotype people
Assuming own people values
Avoid offending the personal dignity
Looking permanently flexible solutions
Maintaining harmony and avoiding any conflicts
Speaking out easily and honest
Taking account of “cultural wheel” knowledge (Geert
Extracts from Hofstede):
CBT presentation: RESPECT
LEARN PEOPLE’S
UNDERSTANDING
MOTIVATION
THE INDIVIDUAL

INTERPRETER AS
CALL THE PERSONS
LINK BETWEEN
BY NAME
CULTURES

CONSISTENT
APRROACH TO AVOID EXPLAIN ACTIONS
CONFUSION IN SIMPLE WAY

PROCEDURES TO
AVOID
MISUNDERSTANDING

Stress is assumed as a universal phenomenon and a result

of excessive demanding of psychological, social and even
physical aspects of modern man (Stress can also be defined
as an adaptive response mediated by individual differences i.e.
a consequence of any external /environmental action, situation
or event that places excessive psychological and/or physical
demands on a person); it is a human reaction towards a
situation that generates dissatisfaction and non-fulfilment of
one’s primary needs, sometimes assimilate as a “load” or
associated with other unpleasant moments of life. Stress is
looked as an individual perception and assessment of
i t

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 11

 PERFORMANCE

CONDITION
STRESS
STRESS
LEVEL

LEVEL
STRESS ACCIDENT
EFFECTS FACTORS

Complacency
Casualness
Boredom Lack of care
Under Fatigue Shortcuts
LOW LOW
stimulation Frustration preferred
Dissatisfaction Lack of interest
Lack of motivation

Creativity
Alertness
Rational problem
Optimum
OSL OSL solving OSL
stimulation
Progress
Changing
Satisfaction

Inability to think
clearly
Ineffective problem Inability to make
solving sound decisions
Over
HIGH HIGH Exhaustion Feeling of panic
stimulation
Extracts from Illness Feeling of being
Low self-esteem out of control
CBT presentation:
Feeling of being
unable to cope

Complacency – in CRM terms, it means a lot more than

just self satisfaction, induced false over confidence, common
laxity or sloppiness in actions… from the psychological point of
view, it is merely the result of a gradually unconscious change
of attitudes caused by various factors (bad leadership, bad
communication, unpleasant environment, high automation
work) that leads to the point when the individual does not use
available knowledge and resources anymore… complacency
looks like a mental state where an individual, has the
capacities, the resources and the knowledge to act in a
competent way, but for some reason this capacity is not
activated.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 12

 Complacency may strike when a person feels his skills, his

knowledge and his experience questioned by his superiors;

most of the time, the result will be changed attitudes

caused by gradually hampered creativity capacity.

The main types of complacency are:

Extracts from Technology complacency

CBT presentation: Leadership complacency
Management complacency
Self-induced complacency

KEEP THE FEELING OF BEING IMPORTANT!

Our body is affected by external factors. Describe some

factors that affected you sometime in your activity.
Have you ever reconsider your attitude and behaviour after
a moment of crisis?
Suggest some personal solutions for stress relief.
Why we have the temptation of deviating from the safest
Discussions way of working?
questions: How can you build and maintain proper awareness?
Give examples of potential consequences of degraded
awareness.
From your experience, what was the culture impact on
personal behaviour and attitude?
State some solutions to fight against various forms of
complacency.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 13

 MODULE 2
COMMUNICATION AND MULTICULTURAL
ENVIRONMENT

By the end of this module you will be able to:

State the principles and models of good communication
Perform a briefing/debriefing and recognize their
importance
Identify various types and communication methods
Training
Define authority and assertiveness
objectives:
Recognize the implications and effects of possible
extreme combinations of authority and assertiveness
Define “challenge and response” mechanism and
establish importance of team involvement for providing
safety operation at all times
The leader should:
Establish permanently an open, interactive and closed
loop communication style
Coordinate the operation so as to bring an appropriate
balance between his authority level and team level of
assertiveness
Provide support and corrective management actions when
Behavioural imbalance occurs
objectives:
Establish a favourable environment that encourages
challenges and responses from whole team
Perform at all times efficient briefings/debriefings.
The team should:
Support and participate effectively in all briefings and
debriefings
Learn about multicultural influence in communication

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 14

 Challenge and respond every time there is a deviation
from the established concept of actions, from the “shared
mental model”.
Behavioural
objectives: Learn to be responsive to any changes in the authority
and assertiveness level in order to keep the balance and
make the essential decisions.
Communication is generally accepted as the process of
transmitting spoken/oral and non-verbal messages, using
various channels or codes (language, signs, noises, drawings,
etc.) towards a receiver or group of receivers and getting an
answer or feedback; such communication sequences should be
different as context for various receivers is
The quality of the communication is a main team building
factor; a certain factor of cohesion and, why not, familiarity
between team members may breed safety and effectiveness.

Extract from
CBT presentation:

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 15

 In order to ensure that the receiver fully understands, no
messages should be passed across (especially in multicultural
environments); the message should be transmitted in the
receiver’s cultural language – for this reason one of the basic
concept in communication and in CRM is “mental shared
model”, concept which is intended to avoid any confusion and
misunderstandings when communicating between different
nationalities.
The “Closed loop” communication:

SEND MESSAGE

FEEDBACK

MESSAGE
ACKNOLEDGEMENT
Extract from
CBT presentation:
MESAGE CONFIRMATION

Whenever we refer to the efficiency of communication within

a social or organizational culture should take account of:
Relationship quality between management and
Masters
Level of considerations of senior Masters
“Blame free “ culture level
Existence of groups conflicts
Level of coordination of safety policies and safety
measures
LOW VALUE OF THESE CRITERIA SHOWS POOR
COMMUNICATION!

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 16

 Types of communication:

Interpersonal communication

Group communication

Internal communication

Technical communication

Private communication

Methods of communication:

Spoken/oral

Written

Telephoning

Briefings
Extract from
CBT presentation: Body language

Authority and assertiveness work together as

complementary elements; whenever there is a low level of
authority that can affect the safety of voyage or other activity,
this is immediately compensated by a higher level of
assertiveness to get essential tasks done and essentials
decisions to be made and vice versa. Both while performing a
similar level of authority or assertiveness behaviour is similar;
in “high” assertiveness/authority people act with strength, force
and confidence while in “low” situations action is poor,
performance is weak and hesitating.
Leaders may make mistakes or judgement errors – it is the
responsibility of the team to challenge permanently the leader
any time he is deviating from the established concept.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 17

 By challenge we mean questioning in a positive way of a
deviation or felt change of a concept... In turn leaders are
expected to give response – that means a reply or reaction
based on the challenge mode.

IN FACT CHALLENGE IS ABOUT CONCEPTS, NOT PEOPLE!

In conclusion:
Extract from The leader is the one who sets the proper environment for
CBT presentation: “challenge and response” mechanism
The team should support and make challenges
Challenging concepts should be a continuous process
Contrary to the initial impression, “challenge and response”
mechanism increases leader’s authority (by high appreciation
and valuation of challenges, leader’s decisions make the people
feel important – a means of increasing motivation and reducing
risk of self-induced complacency).

How can you define a good communication process?

Why briefings and debriefings are not usually held on board?
Give some examples from your experience about
cases of imbalanced authority and assertiveness.
Why do such situations happen?
Give some advices dealing with extreme behaviours

Discussion caused by authority and assertiveness.

questions: How does safety benefit from challenge and response
mechanism?
How can a good climate for “challenge and response”
be established?
Is it “challenge and response” more difficult to develop in
multicultural environments? Why?

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 18

 MODULE 3
TEAM DEVELOPMENT
By the end of this module you will be able to:
State the steps in forming an effective team.
Acquire knowledge of team management.
Training Learn to recognize and apply CRM for excessive
objectives:
workload and automation situation.
Learn how to delegate tasks within the team.
Show importance of understanding and recognising

The leader should:

Create an effective team in short time by using his
knowledge and abilities, by knowing his team members.
Provide efficient work planning, corrective actions
and proper tasks delegation in order to avoid habitual
thinking (assuming) and complacency.
Create a STS any time when risk and time permits,
for each problem that arise and whose solving is not
covered by procedures.
Maintain the team within reasonable state and take
Behavioural
action to keep all activity as far away as possible from
objectives:
extreme states.

The team should:

Support the leader in preplanning and maintaining
a reasonable workload level.
When using automation, engage automation as a
team member and apply CRM concepts in whole activity
involving automation.
Be willing to support the leader in any developing
extreme states.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 19

 By definition, the team is a group of people in a work
setting who must rely on collaboration to accomplish personal
and organization’s goals and obtain requested outcome.
Building the team stages:
Orientation to group an d task
Conflict over control among group’s
members and th e leader
Group establishing and gr oup solidarity
Differentiations and effectivenes s
Always look for honest and objective approach. A good
manager, besides considering and analysing himself over the
skills and attributes that he cope with, needs to be sensitive to
the events both in his internal working environment as well as
in the external one (company). Especially in his internal
environment, to pay attention not only to “hard” evidence of
Extracts from performance but also to “soft “side that is people feelings and
CBT presentation: problems.
As we remember he should create an environment to
encourage open communication, challenges and responses
actions, make every team member feel important to the team,
with no discriminations whatsoever. By building a sound
motivation of team belonging and improving interpersonal
skills, the leader will succeed to create an effective team.
In conclusion, we may summarize the steps of good
team management:
Know yourself as a leader, identify your abilities
Know your team
Improve your CRM knowledge
Improve communication knowledge and abilities
Make proper task delegation
Make professional decisions
Provide proper evaluation and action planning

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 20

 Workload - generally defined as the balance between
demands and resources – whichever side the balance is
lowered, it leads to stress (overloading situation) or
reducing of safety and vigilance (under loading situation).
From practical point of view, the workload of a person is the
amount of work that has to be done given a certain period of
time, while from mental point of view workload is the amount
of work that a person perceives that they must deal with in a
specific period of time.
As measures recommended for maintaining the proper level of
workload are:
Pre-planning, short term strategies and anticipation of a
too high/low level of workload, corrective measures to
prevent such development
Priorities setting
Extracts from Use all resources available
CBT presentation:
Correct task delegation
Sometimes leaders hesitate to delegate certain tasks to
some team members on various grounds:
Fear of poor quality
Fear of wasting too much time
Comfort
Fear of mistakes and too much risk
Fear of loosing power and authority
Here are some recommendations to prevent bad workload
distribution:
Use all available resources
Consider the inputs of all team members
Support and encourage the most inexperienced
Observe the results
During planning develop problem-solving strategies

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 21

 Automation dangers to human are:
Affect the workload and operator’s state of mind
Introduce new type of errors
Create confusion
Risk of overruling by the automation
Technical complacency
In order to avoid such situations, operators must:
Increase knowledge of automated systems onboard
Increase knowledge of operating the systems
Train by means of exploration – to identify not only
performances, but mostly the system limitations

people are alert, attentive and

Optimum state +1
performance level is high
people may not be clear what is
the problem; such feeling affects
Concerned +2
performance and increase
Extracts from workload
CBT presentation: people under maximum stress
Alarmed +3
and overloaded
people still alert and well
Bored -1 performing; such feeling induced
by automation usually
people get sleepy and became
inattentive; frequent errors and
Inattentive -2
performance is impeded by
mistakes
most dangerous state; people
may miss important information,
Inattentive at a
-3 may lead to extreme dangerous
critical phase
situations and activate the
alarmed state (+3)

STS consists of following steps:

Identifying the problem (assessing/gathering info/identify
available time)
Build own plan (interactive step – others opinion valued)
Check of own plan (by making use of every team
member)

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 22

 These 3 steps create the so-called “Team Situational
Awareness”.
Summary briefing (check understanding, task allocation)
Extracts from
Monitoring plan execution (monitor assigning,
CBT presentation:
corrections)
Debriefing of situation (after action)

How important is the experience in maintaining a good

team state?
What are the effects of technology and automation
on humans? Examples from your experience.
How do members of different cultures respond to
Discussion automation? Examples.
questions:
How does automation influence the situational
awareness?
How you recognize various levels of workload?
Simulate situation to create a STS.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 23

 MODULE 4
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
By the end of this module you will be able to:
State management errors at various management levels
State leadership concept, ways of identification of different
Training leadership styles.
objectives:
Recognize circumstances for using different styles.
Decision making process – factors that may influence the
process.

The leader should:

Observe all errors within his management area and initiate
error management strategies.
Encourage the officers to ask for challenging duties.
Manage the team by maintaining a balance between
performance and people oriented leadership styles.
Manage to understand differences between leadership
and personality – learn how to adapt in different environments.
Assess the quality of information, its relevance and accuracy.
Be aware of stressors and mark safety of operation as
Behavioural first priority.
objectives:

The team should:

Apply error management strategies at all levels.
Demonstrate ability to work with managers and leaders using
various styles, so as to maintain safe working conditions,
without threatening the command or leadership roles.
Assess the quality of information, its relevance and accuracy.
Be aware of stressors and mark safety of operation as
first priority.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 24

 The main types of error encountered during managerial
chain are:
Violations of rules and procedures (by individuals)
Procedural violations (inappropriate environment)
Level of communication (all managerial levels)
Lack of skills and competence (by individuals)
Poor decision and judgment (organization level)

The top link of managerial chain is organization

management; it is responsible for errors related to:
Communications
Management structure and management decisions
Organizational processes
Setting unrealistic goals
Competition issues and cost reductions

Extracts from
CBT presentation: Next in row is it task management/environment that
accounted for errors related to:
Excessive workload
Equipments faults
Design, manuals errors and faults
Quality of procedures issued to the vessel
Level of training and supervision
Natural factors / weather, VTMIS

At the “sharp end” there is the individual / the team and

onboard management who must face:
Lack of skills and knowledge
Human mistakes and errors
Violations of procedures and rules
Poor performance (boredom, inattention)

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 25

 CRM training
Establishing “blame free”
culture
Avoiding Measures well in
Skill training
errors advance
Operations pre-planning
Briefing
Challenge and response
Communication and
Measures just briefings
Catching
before operation Delegation
errors
starts Challenge and response
Monitoring
STS
Reducing Measures during Crisis management
errors operation Challenge and response
Delegation
Debriefing
Getting Measures after Crisis debriefing
lessons operation Feedback
Defusing

Leadership is the art or ability of getting someone else to

do something that you want done because he wants to do it; is

Extracts from a process of influencing the activity of an individual or of a

CBT presentation: group in a given situation.
When speaking about leadership style we refer to our
behaviour in order to influence individual or crew behaviour or
performance. There are generally 2 leadership styles:
Performance oriented
People oriented
Main types of leadership behaviour:
Directing style
Coaching style
Supporting style
Delegating style
Decisions may be affected not only by various stressors, but
also by:
Expectation filter
Attitude filter (this may vary from ethnic group to
ethnic group or may be affected by stressors

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 26

 Human Defence mechanisms:
Denial (denying existence of an unpleasant situation)
Repression (defence against internal threat)
Rationalization (unconscious strategy to use to get the
feeling of being rational)
Regression (behaving as we did when we were younger)
Projection (unconscious mechanism to protest us from
recognizing our own undesirable qualities by assigning
them to others)
There are 3 categories of decisions:
Skill-based decisions –based on practice
Extracts from
Rule-based decisions – based on use of rules,
CBT presentation:
checklists and procedures
Knowledge-based decision - based on knowledge and
use of Short Term Strategies (STS); this category became
more important every day as the level of automation is
rising.
A good leader must remember at all times not to get
influenced in the decision–making process by:
Emotional awareness
First thought (must consider also other solutions)
Hidden pressure
Stressors (lack of time, fatigue, complacency)

Give examples of various types of errors you were

involved. Were they from blunt or sharp end?
How does personality may affect leadership styles?
How may the quality of decision-making process be improved?
Discussion
questions: How do you recognize the point of no return in your
decision-making process?
Explain from your experience how did you react to various
factors under the influence of hidden pressure.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 27

 MODULE 5
CRISIS MANAGEMENT

By the end of this module you will be able to:

Identify stress symptoms and how it degrades
performance in a crisis situation
Explain the strategy for managing a crew through crisis
Training
objectives: phase
Explain important factors to account for in managing a
crowd in a crisis situation
State how a critical incident debriefing should be conducted

The leader should:

Properly monitor his officers and crowd stress level
during a crisis.
Make sure that team is aware of extreme stress risks
and appropriate procedures are in place to help crew
members incapacitated by stress.
Assure efficient crisis strategy and appropriate
management and leadership style through all 3 crisis
phases.
State how to carry on a critical incident debriefing.
The team should:
Behavioural
Properly monitor his officers and crowd stress level
objectives:
during a crisis.
Make sure that team is aware of extreme stress risks
and appropriate procedures are in place to help crew
members incapacitated by stress.
Understand announcement/communication during
crisis situations.
Get proper knowledge and training abilities in setting
standard or STS procedures.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 28

 Crisis management is concerned with:
Recognising and handling stress – control over such
situation may benefit from:
Knowledge
Attitude
Experience
Training and anticipation
At he moment we face a crisis situation we should identify
and recognize the symptoms of stress:
Strange behaviour
Acceleration of activity
Jumping to different solutions
Expectations seems to look certainly
Experiencing tunnel vision
Concentration on irrelevant details
Action of defence mechanisms (denial)
Extracts from Perception of distorted time
CBT presentation:
Managing the crisis situation - in order to handle stress,
following guidelines are recommended:
Anticipation of situation evolution
Controlling regular breathing
Slow down action rhythm
Make a structured approach to the crisis
By varying the management style, the leader should
provide best support and monitoring during crisis phases;
upon risk and time, leader must prepare a STS that must
follow same patterns but adapted to crisis situation:
Shock and orientation phase
Storming phase
Action phase
Commander’s role in a crisis situation consists of:
Monitoring team/crew stress level
Support and encourage

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 29

 Monitoring time of actions
Focusing on main task
Delegating tasks
Performing briefings and assuring closed loop
communication
According to STCW, the crew must possess the ability to
monitor and manage a crowd during an emergency situation:
The crew must be able to provide passengers with
relevant information during an emergency situation.
(Once people know why they are required to take
certain actions they are more willing to do so.)
The crew must be able to take a leading role in an
emergency situation. (Passengers must have faith in the
personnel on the basis of their uniform and their verbal
and non-verbal behaviour.)
The crew must be able to react in a proper way after
Extracts from having assessed the reaction pattern of the passengers.
CBT presentation:
The crew must be able to mobilize some of the
passengers to assist.
The crew must be able to convince a passenger that
an emergency situation is over if this really is the case.
The purpose of the Critical Incident Debriefing is to
minimize Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) and Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); such stress may be
triggered by similarly events or anniversary of the event.
Main means of minimizing are:
Company support
Defusing (short meeting after incident)
Critically incident debriefing
There are several key factors that help to anticipate how
severely a mariner may be affected by a traumatic event:
The severity of the incident.
How sudden and without warning it occurs.

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 30

 Did you had any experience of a reptilian brain
decision
Theinmariner’s
action? Explain.
proximity to the incident.
What
The CRM tools between
relationship may be used during aand
the mariner crisis
thesituation?
victim(s).
Discussion
What
The can helpemotional
mariner’s a team action in order
stability to manage
and personal a
support
questions:
crowd in crisis?
system aboard the vessel as well as whether or not they
Think
have of someaccess
telephone personal tips friends
to their on managing a crowd
and family in
back
crisis.
home.
Whether the mariner has experienced unresolved past
maritime or personal trauma.
The mariner’s cultural perspective on death.

Critical Incident Stress Debriefing steps are:

Introductory Phase
Fact Phase
Thought Phase
Reaction Phase
Symptom Phase
Extracts from Teaching Phase
CBT presentation:
Re-entry Phase

In conclusion, during an critical incident debriefing:

DO NOT:
Interpret feeling and emotions
Discuss organizational and technical issues
Blame individuals
Provoke reaction
Give meaningless remarks

DO:
Listen attentively
Let the group give mutual support
Give a chance to everyone

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 31

References:

Cultures and organizations, Geert Hofstede , McGraw-Hill 2004

Hierarchical Power Differences in Forty Countries, Geert Hofstede,
Sage Publications, 2003
Commercial Management For Shipmasters, Robert Tallack, FNI,
The Nautical Institute, 1998
Communication Problems Inherent In A Cross Cultural Manning
Environment, Prof. D.H. Moreby, FNI, The Nautical Institute, 1999
Essentials Psychology, Prof. Mielu Zlate, POLIROM, 2001
Life Resource Management and CRM and Human Factors, Gunnar Fahlgren,
Creative Books Publishers, 2004
Romanian Psychologists Association Magazine Collection
SEAWAYS Magazine Collection

CRM COURSE/TRAINEE’S WORKBOOK 32