When one thinks about it the airline industry’s tenet is:
“Physical Safety First”
(because it hurts physically to be slammed into the ground)
If you have ever watched Aircrash Investigations you will note the extensive
efforts, of the Transport Safety Board (TSB), to investigate a plane crash.
And all the systems that have been deployed to prevent such crashes in the future.
Such a tenet and follow through behaviour, has made flying the safest form of transportation by a country mile, with a chance of being involved in a fatal crash around one in seven million flights.
So what about business and personal partnerships? What could these relationships
have as a tenet that would bring up their success rate to something nearing that of the airline industry?
Well what about:
“Emotional, Physical and Financial Safety First”
(because it hurts emotionally, (sometimes physically) and financially to be bankrupt or
divorced)
So what is the biggest cause of emotional, physical or financial pain in a partnership?
In my view it is anger or the fear of anger. To me being afraid of someone’s anger
in a partnership leads us to overly agree either by our silence or by our over endorsement,
using such terms as “absolutely”, “exactly”, “perfect”, or “you’re dead right” when a simple
“I agree” would have sufficed.
Overly or extreme agreeing can lead to errors and the ultimate failure of a partnership and has been shown to have lead to a number of plane crashes with the cabin crew not voicing
their disagreement when an overly officious captain made a wrong decision. As a result the
TSB formed CRM or Crew Resource Management system to train crews to speak up in such events before it is too late.
So imagine if a CRM was developed for business or personal partnerships? A system where
members of the team felt safe to speak up early enough when they did not agree and other moderating systems developed to resolve disputes efficiently and effectively. Where it was agreed from the start that anger was understandable (because we are only human) but not acceptable (because we were willing to apologise and account for it, on both sides).
Rethink Perfect is such a CRM system that I have been working on for over 30 years to combat anger and the fear of it.