SAY AGAIN
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September, 2022. I'm British but I live in the US now. The news coverage here of the death of Queen Elizabeth II has reminded me of when I was a small boy. As a naughty 5-year old my mum would sometimes threaten to telephone the Queen! 'Right, that's it ... I'm calling the Queen'. As she pretended to dial the number for the Queen I would melt into compliance ... 'Please mummy, no. I promise to be a good boy!' One of the reasons for the great respect we felt for Queen Elizabeth was because of her silence ... we never really knew what she thought. Oh, how I would love to have known what she really thought about Trump! About Brexit? About her son Andrew? But she never told us. And that helped enormously to make her feel remote, aloof and powerful. In our day-to-day lives there are many reasons to remain silent. Often we don't want to ask for help or to admit we don't understand something. We prefer to pretend everything is fine. We don't want to be labeled 'a trouble-maker', to be labeled 'slow'. But in aviation it's different. We know that we have a responsibility to speak out if we think something is wrong or we don't understand, regardless of seniority, gender or culture. 'Assertiveness' is an important part of Human Factors training. The 'Dirty Dozen' includes 'Communication' but I believe language specifically deserves more attention. To admit you don't understand something or to question someone else's actions requires courage and confidence. But to do that in another language? And to do it perhaps when the other person is using their first language and you are using your second (or third or fourth) language requires real courage and confidence. This short video looks at some of the issues:
HUMAN FACTORS - language
SAY
September, 2022. I'm British but I live in the US now. The news coverage here of the death of Queen Elizabeth II has reminded me of when I was a small boy. As a naughty 5-year old my mum would sometimes threaten to telephone the Queen! 'Right, that's it ... I'm calling the Queen'. As she pretended to dial the number for the Queen I would melt into compliance ... 'Please mummy, no. I promise to be a good boy!' One of the reasons for the great respect we felt for Queen Elizabeth was because of her silence ... we never really knew what she thought. Oh, how I would love to have known what she really thought about Trump! About Brexit? About her son Andrew? But she never told us. And that helped enormously to make her feel remote, aloof and powerful. In our day-to-day lives there are many reasons to remain silent. Often we don't want to ask for help or to admit we don't understand something. We prefer to pretend everything is fine. We don't want to be labeled 'a trouble-maker', to be labeled 'slow'. But in aviation it's different. We know that we have a responsibility to speak out if we think something is wrong or we don't understand, regardless of seniority, gender or culture. 'Assertiveness' is an important part of Human Factors training. The 'Dirty Dozen' includes 'Communication' but I believe language specifically deserves more attention. To admit you don't understand something or to question someone else's actions requires courage and confidence. But to do that in another language? And to do it perhaps when the other person is using their first language and you are using your second (or third or fourth) language requires real courage and confidence. This short video looks at some of the issues:
HUMAN FACTORS - language
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