Human Factors
If you carefully consider the problems people face in marriage, you will find that in almost every case they arise out of conflicting role expectations and are exacerbated by conflicting problem-solving strategies.
A husband may think it’s his wife’s role to take care of finances; after all, his mother did. The wife may think that is her husband’s role, since her father filled that role when she was growing up. This may not be a big problem until they try to solve it and their problem-solving scripts come to the surface.
He is a “passive aggressive.” He slowly boils inside and says nothing, but is continuously judging and becomes increasingly irritated. She is an “active aggressive.” She want to talk it out, thrash it out, fight it out. They both blame each other. Thus, a small problem becomes a larger one; a mole-hill becomes a mountain. It may even become a mountain range because conflicting problem-solving scripts compound every problem and magnify every difference.
“The power of co-missioning is that it literally transcends “your way” or “my way.” It creates a new way, a higher way – “our way.”
“If you carefully consider the problems people face in marriage, you will find that in almost every case they arise out of conflicting role expectations and problem solving strategies”
Much of our pre-conceived ideas of role expectations and problem-solving strategies come form our families of origin. They tend be caught over time during our developmental years rather than taught. Self-awareness is the key to understanding both.
This coming together – this sharing and agreeing upon role expectations, problem-solving strategies, vision, and values in a relationship – is called “co-missioning.” In other words, it’s a comingling or joining of missions or purposes. It’s binding them so that they have the same destination.
The power of it is that it transcends “your way” or “my way.” It creates a new way, a higher way – “our way.” It enables marriage partners to work together to explore differences and to resolve problems in ways that build relationships up and bring positive results.
Origin of Crew Resource Management
Crew resource management or cockpit resource management (CRM) is a set of training procedures for use in environments where human error can have devastating effects. Used primarily for improving air safety, CRM focuses on interpersonal communication, leadership, and decision making in the cockpit of an airliner.
The pioneer of CRM was David Beaty, a former Royal Air Force pilot and later a BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) pilot who wrote the book, The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents in the late 1950’s.
Crew Resource Management training formally began with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation made during their investigation of the 1978 United Airlines Flight 173 crash. The issues surrounding that crash included a DC-8 crew running out of fuel over Portland, Oregon while troubleshooting a landing gear problem.
The term “cockpit resource management” (later generalized to “crew resource management”) was coined in 1979 by NASA psychologist John Lauber who had studied communication processes in cockpits for several years. While retaining a command hierarchy, the concept was intended to foster a less authoritarian cockpit culture, where co-pilots were encouraged to question captains if they observed them making mistakes.