Odie’s Vision

High-risk activity has many common elements whether the field is aviation, manufacturing, construction, power generation, oil and gas, steel, or any other occupation with heavy equipment and fast spinning parts. Odie believes the lessons of a career aviator (military and commercial) can be applied … [Read More...]

As an observer of human behavior

February 13, 2012 By

I have noticed the following to be true: high performing organizations actively promote and support Target Leaders who are exceptional at:

1)  …emulating the organizations values and beliefs to make safety and operational excellence the overriding priority among the employees.
2)  …maintaining a balanced and healthy working relationship between the company and the employees doing the work.

The byproduct of these two items yields work behaviors from employees which ultimately defines the organization’s job culture. Target Leaders establish and maintain the culture of an organization, and the workers will work within the norms of that culture.

–Odie

Filed Under: business, excellence, safety

Shocked, not Surprised

February 12, 2012 By

When a middle-aged Whitney Houston dies, or a youthful Amy Winehouse, we are shocked but not surprised. Tragic. Preventable. A terrible loss. Like many of you, my occupation (pilot) was no place for drugs or impairment unlike the entertainment industry where recreational drug and alcohol abuse seems to be part of the fabric of the community.

When working around heavy equipment, electricity, excavation, or any industrial setting, to be impaired is to flirt with disaster. And if you own a business, or are responsible for employees, one of the fundamental things you must know is their state of mind. Are they under undue strain? Are they impaired by drugs? Drug use is tragic for the individual, but can be disastrous in the work place. Here is an article on dealing with workplace substance abuse that is worthwhile reading for all of us.

Know your people and know their problems to the extent possible. That’s the kind of good leadership you will find on our latest video on safety: Pulling Through Every Time. You can view the trailer and order with this link. Also, don’t forget to download our free study guide which complements the video or can serve as a stand-alone lesson outline.

Filed Under: Airliners, business, excellence, Fighter Pilots, safety

Can-Do Resistance

January 30, 2012 By

I landed in a snowstorm yesterday presenting at least two challenges. First there’s visibility–seeing the runway. That is a measurable thing reported from ground equipment near the runway. Secondly there’s stopping ability which is most often reported by landing pilots so others behind them know what to expect. If I hit the brakes and slow down nicely then braking action is good. There’s also “fair”, “poor” and “nil” which is a British word which means “hello snowbank”.

The machine’s visibility reporting is reliable and accurate because machines are not nearly as complex as people. Pilot reports of stopping ability are fairly reliable but not with machine precision. In fact, the stopping ability was not as good as reported yesterday. Why does that happen?

People have layers like
what they think,
what they think others will think, and
what they think others will think OF THEM.

A pilot, being a can-do person, will always be reluctant to say “I cannot do that”. All of us have internal resistance to overcome when going from CAN-DO to CANNOT-DO. Pushing through that resistance to find the honest truth is difficult, but KEY to accident avoidance.

Filed Under: Airliners

Sudden Death

January 24, 2012 By

When Suzanne Hart stepped across the threshold of an elevator in Manhattan a few days before Christmas, the prospect of sudden death was not on her mind. When the elevator car shot up with the door still open and Ms. Hart in the shear zone, bystanders could only look on in horror.

We want to believe safety is assured as long as we aren’t reckless. But this victim’s untimely death was like a lightning bolt out of the blue. Can we make sense of it? Were maintenance procedures skipped or the inspection schedule exceeded? Whatever it is, a cause will be found, a person will be blamed, and procedural changes will be made.

Can we make sense of it from a human tragedy point of view? Yes. When you cut corners, eventually someone gets hurt or killed. That is the tragedy we should anticipate when we allow our safety culture to deteriorate.

Filed Under: safety

Free Study Guide

January 17, 2012 By

Every high-risk enterprise MUST have a culture of safety to minimize accidents. Well, how do you do that? A culture of safety is developed through personal responsibility, procedural compliance, and appropriate leadership at every level. The Pulling Through Study Guide provides a framework for developing that kind of culture.

The study guide can be used alone as a safety training curriculum, but will be greatly enhanced with the program entitled, “Pulling Through Every Time” available from this site. In this video, Jeff “Odie” Espenship describes events surrounding the loss of his brother in an aviation accident.
Your company could benefit from this study guide and optional DVD if:

• Teamwork and personal responsibility matter,
• You cannot afford shortcuts in procedures,
• You need to set and maintain high standards of personal conduct in daily operations.

Follow the “sign up” link on this site to receive a huge discount on any of our DVDs.

Filed Under: business

About Tenerife

October 25, 2011 By

In the Tenerife accident of 1977, two routine international flights had their destination changed. This unplanned diversion introduced a raft of new problems to be solved:

  • a new place,
  • too little ramp space,
  • different traffic controllers,
  • fatigue,
  • duty limits,
  • health and safety of crew and passengers, and
  • unpredictable weather.

In our 16 minute video on the accident and its lessons, we break these “changes in work activity” down into the place, plan, and people involved. But Tenerife is only a story, a framework for sharing universal lessons that apply to your industry as well as aviation.

Changes in work activity should raise caution flags in each of our minds,
and just like a NASCAR yellow flag we should slow down
and stay behind the pace car.

Here the pace car represents our checklists, procedures, and personal comfort level. The situation might call for a delay and huddle, or it might call for stopping the job to get further clarification. If you have people who ignore changes and mindlessly perform according to habit, you too may find yourself gliding like a rock toward an unforgiving sea of trouble.

So if your business involves changes (and I bet it does), try out a DVD copy of Leading Indicators: Tenerife Tragedy. You can check out the trailer here to get an idea whether it will work for you.

Filed Under: Airliners

The habits that served us so well . . .

October 1, 2011 By

just screwed us to the wall. Read on, because it can happen to you.

BAD Day: You just took off from LAX and cleared the airport boundary fence as the land underneath you turns to ocean.  Suddenly the airplane’s engines get really quiet. The flight attendants begin instructing passengers to put on their life vests and “Brace for Impact”. Oh, and the small boats out the window are getting bigger fast.

WORSE day: You are the captain who just INADVERTENTLY shut down both engines in a moment of brain flatulence.

This is the power of habit without thinking. It kills people, or at least rearranges their life’s priorities. (In this case, the engines were restarted 500 feet above the water.) Gulp! A minor thing happens and we react out of habit.

“I see a problem, flip these switches, NO WAIT, the other switches!”

The muscle memory that served us so well for so long suddenly has a knife to our throats. Habitual action is dutiful, but not adaptable or wise. That is why we have checklists. Work activity can change in a second due to factors outside our control. We cannot know how or when it will change, we only know it will. And we MUST

  • Prepare in advance by training for abnormal situations,

  • Having guidance close at hand, and

  • Having a proper team concept to QC the actions of each other.

Filed Under: Airliners
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