Conversation Aviation – Talking About Safety

The EASA Together4Safety initiative was set up to help organisations across Europe manage some of the common challenges in safely delivering aviation in its many forms.

If you are a safety professional or a person with safety responsibility, this is one of a number of articles designed to help you deliver on the key intention of Safety Management. As a community of aviation and safety professionals we want to involve you in sharing ideas, challenges, good practices, and importantly conversations about safety and how to do it well.  We welcome your inputs, frustrations and comments on how we can together keep the skies safe now and for future generations. This article is the start of a discussion – join us on the journey

Safety Buzzword Bingo – Using big words or jargon when little words should and could do 

Clear communication: Are we all speaking the same language?

You will have all experienced it. That moment in a meeting or conversation when you do not understand what is being said because the person speaking was using complicated jargon, buzzwords or abbreviations that they clearly understood (or at least thought they understood), but left you totally confused!

Aviation, like many other industries is complex, technically advanced and highly professional.  Like many specialist fields it has a language of its own, and perhaps far too many TLAs (three letter abbreviations).  When it comes to managing safety, you see complexity everywhere you turn. Words like ‘resilience’ and ‘anti-fragility’ are thrown around like confetti, not to mention all the different meanings that people attach to the word risk these days.  How often have you heard a team say a phrase like, ‘We can afford to take some risk on this one’?  So, in a situation like this, are you really sure that everyone knows which risk it is they are talking about? What is the consequence of that risk? Who is taking responsibility? How is the risk being controlled? How are we going to sign it off?  What it even refers to? Everyone thinks they are talking the same language, but is that really the case?

In this type of situation, you might think that everyone is talking about the same thing. If that thing is even the shared or understood subject of the conversation, then everyone will make the assumption that the audience has clearly understood what is being discussed – but what is the reality? After all, the person communicating understands what they mean, why not everyone else?

Let’s take the word ‘resilience’ as an example.  Is this talking about personal or organisational resilience?  If organisational, does resilience refer to the resilience of personnel or to business systems, or perhaps even to business continuity?  If we fail to be clear about the context because we just want to use the latest buzzword, are we just causing a bigger problem?  Assuming everyone is thinking in the same context can be dangerous and may create even more confusion.

Do you talk to different types of people in different ways?

Buzzwords and jargon can be especially challenging when you start engaging with the different types of people in your organisation and the world outside.  If you are briefing a board or executive committee, or talking to a group of pilots and trainers, to office staff, or to those working in the incredibly busy and challenging environment on the ramp - Do you adjust the way you communicate with each of these audiences, to help them understand the point that you are trying to make? If you are talking to an audience of non-native speakers, it might provide an added confusion that can be made easier by using plain and simple language.

One colleague recalls observing someone trying to explain the intricacies of safety risk management (SRM), and in particular hazards, threats and tolerability to front line operators.  Picture for yourselves, the reactions of the audience when the individual presenting finally paused for breath!  Afterwards, not one person from the audience clearly understood the difference between a hazard and a threat. The bigger question as a safety professional is whether you are trying to push the buzzwords and theories too far in the workplace in the hope of ‘making things safer’ without really considering the practical realities of a situation. Did the people really need to understand the difference between a hazard and threat in technical, almost academic terms? Would it have been simpler to help them identify which things were dangerous, and how they can go wrong? How those dangers impact the operation and perhaps, most importantly, what can they do about managing the effect?

So what can you do – what can we do as an industry?

If your role as a safety professional is to enable safe operations - in whatever size and shape they take - then your role is to communicate, educate and inform. To do so effectively, you need to use the language of those you are addressing.  It is important to find a common ground, rather than forcing your language upon others – just like a finance director talking EBITDA (or just about his “bottom” line) as if everyone understood them - no offence to those finance professionals out there! 

At Together4Safety we believe in speaking at work as we do with our friends. Sometimes we might be described as having a ‘potty mouth’ and use crude language at times - this stems from the fact than many of our collaborative team members have many years of military as well as civil aviation experience. We find that when we talk in a more relaxed, social fashion it is amazing how suddenly everyone understands the point, and the conversation opens up.  Sometimes the common ground can be found in the simplest form of language, or the common analogy that everyone can relate to.

How can we help?

So a plea perhaps, or a challenge to you all as dedicated and engaged safety professionals. How can you simplify your own language, to use appropriate, simpler words rather than complex definitions that are understood by a select few? How can you avoid using too many pronouns that might restrict the understanding to an audience of one, the speaker? The last thing you need is people switching off from talking about safety because of the language  you are using.

As we go about our work, we should ask ourselves these questions:

• How often do we check that the words we use are clearly understood by our audience, in ways that show that they understand the context as well?
• Are we using the latest buzzwords because we really understand them? Are they the best words to use in that situation? Or are we using them because we think they make us seem more knowledgeable, or even because it helps our own self-importance?
• How often do we ask others to clarify, to simplify, to make it easier for everyone to understand the point we are making?

So, if you can relate to this article and you think that it was worth a read, then thank you!  If you feel it talks down to you, that we are over-simplifying a complex industry or than we don’t understand - we apologise. You may be right, we don’t have all the answers. 

Take care, and stay safe.

If you found this useful, please do look out for more content, and also answer (here) a few questions which will be a key opportunity to help you guide us on where you want our support.  Short, impactful and confidential, your input required will allow your voice to be heard on the key frustrations when it comes to implementing Safety Management and to drive the future content from Together4Safety.  As Safety professionals, we work hard every day to help keep our skies safe, let us work together and guide each other so that we may all soar.