POLITE FIRST OFFICERS CRASH PLANES

 

Having negotiated said Emergency Saturday and Seminar Sunday, I boarded the train at Liverpool St to head to Stansted for the return journey to Cork.  The tannoy on the train kept informing us we were heading to Liverpool St and, after the shenaningans of the day before I couldn’t help feeling nervous even though I knew we were heading for Stansted.  The shifting sands of Ryanair Gates had me gaily skipping down the ramp to a plane to Milan before the nice ground hostess followed me having spotted the Cork ID on my boarding pass.  At this stage I laughed out loud.  Another Gate change later, much to the consternation of passengers who, previously occupied prime positions at the top of the queue now found themselves at the end of the new on, and I successfully boarded the correct flight.

 

Having by now, surrendered my fate to the gods, at 30,000 ft or something, I calmly read Malcolm Gladwells study of airplane crashes in his book OUTLIERS , Ch. The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes.  In this fascinating study, he discovers a lot of plane crashes are caused by communication problems between cockpit crew.  To whit, between the Captain and First Officer in which the PDI culture affects communication causing the First Officer to used “mitigated speech” in his dialogue with the Captain.  What this means is the First Officer is over differential to the Captain and doesn’t want to upset him.  The PDI refers to the Power Distance Index of a culture.  “Power distance is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority.”  In high PDI cultures, the FO doesn’t issue clear instructions to the Captain as he feels too intimidated, and this has resulted in numerous plane crashes.  PDI in work situations across the board results in employees fearing expression of disagreement with managers, and, in society in general, to individuals repressing their own opinions, intutitions and authentic self belief in favour of hierarchical figures and values.

If a country has a high PDI Index, it means the culture of that country holds authority figures in very high esteem, and there is a large discrepancy between power relations between what are seen as higher and lesser individuals within that society.  A country with a low PDI Index is one which upholds a more egalitarian societal structure.  According to Gladwell, the list which ranks plane crashes by country matches very closely with the top pilot PDI’s.  The list below lists the top five:

1. Brazil
2. South Korea
3. Morocco
4. Mexico
5. Philippines

 

The five lowest PDI’s by country are:

 

15.   United States

16.   Ireland

17.   South Africa

18.   Australia

19.   New Zealand

 

So, while we may whinge about Ryanair’s notorious ‘intractable’ attitude, it could be that my calm demeanour aboard the plane was justified.

 

On a more poignant note, the chapter contains actual transcripts from the Black Boxes before the planes crashed which very sadly demonstrate the speech patterns and attitudes culminating in the deaths of all onboard.

 

If this demonstrates anything, it’s that it’s essential for our own and everyone elses sake that we cultivate a healthy level of self respect and encourage all about us to step into their own power.