Flying People
The Flying People podcast explores the skills seen as essential by aviation recruiters, but largely ignored in training. These so-called 'soft skills' often prove the hardest to define, let alone develop. They are not only essential for successful job interviews, but also the key to long, safe and happy careers.
But they are far from well understood - it's one reason that aviators are struggling to find work despite a global pilot shortage.
With expert guests, we break down the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills that are the bedrock of successful aviation careers, and uncover the science, research and industry expertise behind them.
In each episode, we are joined by experts from both inside the cockpit and beyond, from industry recruiters and instructors with responsibility for selecting and training new pilots, to researchers and specialists in fields ranging across the human sciences.
We touch on topics including pilot workload, cockpit design, training methodologies and much more. And we go deep on the skills that pilot require, regardless of the types of aircraft or the part of the industry in which they fly. Communication, decision making under ambiguity, resilience, leadership and more; it's all up for discussion.
Through it all, we aim to learn about the challenges that face the aviation industry in finding the right people, and the skills that aspiring pilots can equip themselves with to maximise their potential.
Flying People
Behaviour analysis in pilot recruitment and career choices
When did you start behaving like a pilot? In this episode, we uncover the importance of human behaviour in pilot selection, recruitment and career pathways, and how behaviour could be crucial to finding the right fit in an industry that offers almost limitless choices.
Leah Fennema, a behavioural scientist who specialises in safety-critical industries, explains how behaviour is central not only to the specification and design of pilot selection, recruitment and training processes, but also in the choices that pilots make as they navigate their early careers, and even the very decision to take up flying in the first place.
Beginning with a discussion about the evolution from traditional pilot training practices, to evidence-based and competence-based approaches, Leah shares her insights on the importance of developing non-technical skills through realistic training scenarios. These modern training methods emphasize specific competencies, offering a more inclusive and effective pathway for aspiring pilots by prioritizing skills over mere flight hours.
We go on to examine the challenges and advancements in diversifying pilot recruitment, and dissect how considering behaviour is key to an effective selection process, both for the employer and the individual.
Finally, we address the resilience required of pilots who might feel like industry outsiders, tackle the societal norms that shape career trajectories, and discuss the significance of building robust support systems to ensure career success.
Welcome to the Flying People podcast, where we discuss the hard science behind the soft skills that make better aviators. In this episode, we ask how behaviour influences pilot selection and what this means, particularly for those that may feel like outsiders to the industry, and what might improve their success. My name is John Duke. I was an air traffic controller in the Royal Air Force and a helicopter pilot and flying instructor with the Royal Navy over a 20-year career. I still fly and I now work for a company that provides specialist situational awareness software to mission-focused aviation teams. My co-host is Matt Harding. Matt flew helicopters with the Commando Helicopter Force and was also a flying instructor helicopter force and was also a flying instructor. He now flies for a UK-based airline.
Speaker 1:As well as providing his deep knowledge of human factors and safety management across a range of industries, today we're discussing the role of behaviour analysis in designing the processes used to select, train and assess pilots, the importance of clarity in defining the characteristics required of pilots, and why some aspiring pilots may feel like outsiders to the aviation industry. What they can do to overcome those barriers. Providing the expertise on this episode is Leah Fenimer. Leah is a behavioural scientist, a researcher with extensive experience solving problems across safety-critical industries, including aviation, by applying the science of human behaviour. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in behaviour analysis, an MSc in psychology, and is working towards a PhD specialising in competence-based training and assessment in safety-critical industries. Leah is a board-certified behaviour analyst and director of the board of the uk society for behavior analysis, where she sits on the executive committee. She is also a director at lux consulting leah.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for joining us on the flying people podcast you're very welcome um, I wonder if we can just go straight into it then and and sort of start with a question there of what? What is it that you do and what has it taught you about pilots?
Speaker 2:oh, okay. So, um, what is it that I do? That's difficult to describe because it's an unfamiliar, uh, job, I think. So my, um, the easiest way of describing it is I'm kind of a management consultant, but my expertise is in the analysis and design of behavioral systems. So my degrees are in behavior analysis and psychology. So what has it taught me about pilots? I guess the type of person that is, that are types of people rather that can be pilots for sure. That's been a fun thing to informally study, and the things that I've done more formally are focused around the international guidance on the way that you train and assess pilots, which translates into the national regulation. So I've spent a little bit of time reading ICAO's docs 9995 and 9868 on EBT and CBTA. So I think, probably with pilots, that's what I've done the most work on, and development of non-technical skills in particular seems to be of interest to a lot of pilots.
Speaker 1:Okay, and can you break that out for us a little bit?
Speaker 2:So EBT I hope I get this all right. Everybody should fact check this for sure. Um, ebt sort of emerged because traditional pilot training was, as all traditional training, based around hours of experience and the assumption was if you do something for long enough, then surely you'll get good at it. And it also was really focused on what you'd probably call technical skills, so the things that are really easy to see and to measure. And then there you know, you'll all be familiar with the spate of accidents, sort of over the 70s, 80s and 90s. Of course Tenerife is probably your most famous one. But long story short, people started noticing that human beings were crashing airplanes, whereas in the past airplanes used to crash themselves, if that makes sense. So in an attempt to make clear what were the sorts of behaviors that were required behaviors that were required, aka those sort of non-technical skill areas they created a draft framework of what those competencies would look like and suggested also that training scenarios were based on more updated scenarios as opposed to the same ones that you always do, sort of your V1 engine cut for every assessment. So there were two main ideas around EBT. One, which was actually the first one, I think, was the idea that probably we need to update the training scenarios and make sure that they're informed by evidence from actual operations. Great idea, and the other bit that got swept up in that was the importance of the non-technical skills. So that's EBT.
Speaker 2:Cbta just stands for competence-based training and assessment. It's not specific to aviation, it's more of just a way of thinking about training and assessment. That suggests that maybe it's not just the number of hours you do something. Maybe you should focus on what skills you need to perform the job and make sure that you prove that you have those skills, uh, regardless of how much time that actually takes you, whether it's less or whether it's more. So it's more of a philosophy, um, than it is a specific uh document, if that makes sense so gotcha in in aviation, then that's, that's your nine or so pilot competencies, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Your manual handling, automatic handling, knowledge, communication, all that sort of stuff. So that's what ICAO has done with the CBTA side of it, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so those competencies you'll actually find in both of those ICAO documents. So those are the agreed pilot competencies. And if you are feeling really nerdy and curious, I would direct curious people to Rona Flynn's no-text framework for the way that those sorts of frameworks are intended to be used. So it's a behavioral indicator framework. So the idea is we think these sorts of skill areas are important and if you have those sorts of skills, skills, you'll probably be seen to engage in some behaviors like these. And those are the indicators. Yeah, not that you have to engage in exactly those behaviors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but, you probably, if you engage in those, you probably have these sorts of skills right so we've yeah, I was gonna say I've seen that used a couple of ways.
Speaker 3:I've used that scene in preparation for training where you say we're going to go and do this stuff, what sort of which of these competencies do you think are going to be involved? How do you think those competencies will come out so you can do it? Not so often, but I have seen it used sort of at the start. I've definitely seen it in the debrief phase. Yeah, it in the debrief phase. Yeah, we'll look backwards and go right, how did that work? Which skills were at play? You know which which um markers of those of those competencies or skills were there. And then, most importantly, because it's great to give yourself a pat on the back and say that went well, but it's also great to go okay, where could we've improved? And you know, where did one of those competencies?
Speaker 2:did it, let you down, or was there?
Speaker 3:yeah all that kind of. So it's quite fascinating actually to sort of think about where the genesis of that comes from, because I've seen it from right at the kind of user end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and that's proper CBTA If you're clear on the expectation and the criteria before the training and before the assessment, and then it informs the content, obviously, of the training and it's what you're assessed against. That transparency and that sort of linear relationship um is is that's kind of the point of of cbta, um, ebt, it. It came from the idea that we need to make sure that we understand what's actually happening in the operational environment and we need to test people on that sort of stuff. Okay, so it was literally the idea that evidence should be sought out to inform those training scenarios. It sounds really obvious. Yeah, but that's what was so special about EBT. What's interesting is it also came. I think sometimes there's confusion about what are the different concepts in EBT, because the idea that I just described is technically separate from the idea of using competence-based training and assessment or using that, that particular framework okay there's.
Speaker 3:There's an interesting, I'm gonna say, dilemma. Maybe it's maybe you don't see this as a dilemma, right, but there's an interesting dilemma with something like ebt because by its very nature, it's going to evolve, right. So, as as things happen, as you learn more about the operation, the environment you're operating in, the way the operation looks, you're going to get constant new information and say, right, we need to train this, we need to adjust this, and that's amazing For a training system. That's what you want to be really, really effective. But then the challenge comes potentially with the assessment side of it, because then you have constantly shifting assessment guidelines and anybody who who operates professionally will know that things like the, the infamous v1 cup that has survived, right, that's, that's there every year, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 2:Even works every time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, must be, super valuable yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:So how does so in your experience from a regulatory perspective and from looking at an assessment perspective? Are they meshing EBT well into perhaps your more formal assessments, or is there perhaps some work to be done there?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, um, I think it is very difficult to overstate how much expertise is required in instructional design, in human behavior, um, in in sort of learning science, to be able to set up these systems, to use these systems, to validate these systems.
Speaker 2:And I think and this is not unique in any way to aviation or to pilots, but the idea that you have, in pilots, obviously, a wealth of experience and knowledge around what's a good pilot do and what do they look like, but that's not the same thing as a wealth of knowledge in human behavior, in training, in assessment. And I think it's probably we're probably not doing ourselves any favors in that there are requirements for instructors to be aware of how to use the guidance and the regulation, but I might boldly suggest that, um, there's room for improvement, um, if, if we're going to get the best out of our instructors, um, which we need to get the best out of our, our students, to get the most valuable training time, to get the most accurate and valid assessment. There's quite a gap to fill there and because of that, I think it's probably fair to say that the way training and assessment is done throughout the world is highly variable.
Speaker 1:It's also interesting that you mentioned um, that you mentioned that that context, and earlier on you referred to um sort of the. The instructing carder is in a way that I don't know I can't remember the exact phrase that you used, but it but it made me think about where we draw our instructors from and and the context of their experience getting to that point. I only have experience instructing in in the military and operating from. You know um professionally in a military context, so I'm a little bit limited in in that regard, but it did make me think that certainly in the instructing that I've done, um, I arrived with my understanding of, as you said earlier on, what good looks like as an instructor and also what good looks like we have a better we had, I think, a better metric of what could look like as a student. So we had a better metric and a better set of a better way of defining what good like good looked like as a student than we did as an instructor.
Speaker 1:We also operate in an environment where the only person who's getting the real feedback on their performance is the student in real time. So the student's getting feedback on their performance, but the only feedback that the instructor's getting is how well the student is doing. And I'm reminded of the Daniel Kahneman I think it's Thinking Fast and Slow where he cites the Israeli Air Force, I think, who tried this experiment where one set of instructors were nasty to their students and one set were kind and they observed absolutely no appreciable difference in their performance. And it just makes me wonder about how do we address that problem.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the military in my limited experience working with military instructors versus commercial or general instructors I think military have a couple of things going for you, if I'm honest. One is you are really clear on expectation and you're quite a homogenous group, right? So if you are, you know you are, you are, you are fast jet pilots okay, or you are Chinook pilots, or you are Puma or whatever you are. Um, you, you are a homogenous group that usually are familiar with each other and comfortable with each other and what I would I would call properly motivated to do what you're being asked to do the way that you're asked to do it In. Also, in my experience, the military tend to be much more flexible, and I don't know if it's that they're more incentivized or if they're just more agile, but, um, the military seems to evolve more comfortably than commercial that's interesting isn't it?
Speaker 2:I thought it was too. You'd think it would be the opposite. Yeah, um, but I think in in commercial um, if, if you suggest that there is a better way of doing something, you're simultaneously suggesting you're not currently doing it the best way, which is a bit of a legal scary zone. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah yes, whereas in the military you can put your hand up and say I have a better idea, I think we should do it this way and if you can prove that it works, you're you're going to have um less to fear, um in. In coming up with that, in identifying that opportunity, I think, than many times people would in a more commercial setting yeah, now I I suppose that sort of that sort of um, that kind of makes sense and and that does.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you talk about the homogeneity it's even a word of the military carders as well as military pilots, sort of writ large. It was interesting to observe that firsthand in my experience teaching at the elementary level because of course you had pilots from lots of different fleets, pilots from lots of different types and classes of aircraft all coming together to teach the same syllabus, and I hope that my former colleagues would not mind me saying that there were differing approaches to even the very um sort of structured way that the training was, was supposed to be delivered. Um, it's the differences in mindset and and the subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences in behavior that not only sort of manifest themselves sort of in the, in the general sort of teaching environment, but also have a huge influence on the students as well. And a number of times I would observe students who had obviously picked up either a manner of thinking or even sometimes a manner of speaking that you could tell which instructor had taught them at a particular stage in the course.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's an interesting thing to think of really, because you know, in the military you remove for the most part some variables that you just can't remove from the commercial sphere. Military culture, um, whereas uh, and and that's probably almost all also the same national culture, um, and so even when context varies, you'll have that as as something to to um, to get you more on the same page, whereas in commercial who knows, you could have a variety of national cultures, you could have a variety of organizational cultures on top of that, and you could have a variety of variables that make it more difficult to say there is one right way to do something. So you know, from the military, you can't do that in the military anyway, because there are many variables, and then you just introduce even more when you are in a less homogenous setting.
Speaker 3:Surely that variability is a really positive thing. So when I look at my military experience the fact that we were both in the same flight school, we were both instructing, we came from relatively similar backgrounds but there were a whole bunch of people from very, very different backgrounds and it inspired incredibly healthy debate amongst the instructional card. But it meant that, like that, nothing was off limit. We were always talking about the syllabus. We were always looking at how can this be taught, how do you teach that? Where do you emphasize this? And so a helicopter pilot would have a different view than a fast jet pilot, than a multi-engineer transport pilot, and so on, and it made things really interesting. So I definitely learned I would talk to guys from different backgrounds and I would come away sometimes thinking, nope, but there'd be plenty of other times I come away thinking you know, actually these guys really have a point and if you remain open-minded, yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 3:And so my experience in the commercial world and maybe it's it's a little bit now about in the commercial world and maybe it's it's a little bit now about culture, but you know, I have been fortunate enough to meet a bunch of people from very different backgrounds. So exactly as you describe. You know, working for different companies, working in different sectors of aviation, flying different types of aircraft coming from different countries, different cultures. You know, even, I dare say probably a slightly healthier blend of men and women in the workplace compared to the military, and actually my experience of that is similarly positive. And the important point is that that learning culture is there where we say, well, you know, like we deliberately we employ a bunch of people from loads bunch of different backgrounds, with all these different experiences. We want to kind of assimilate that into the hive mind and end up at the best place we can be. And as more differences come in, we have to understand those and be open-minded about them, because they might just be better. So yeah, so I so.
Speaker 2:I think if you look at the difference between agreeing on a standard of performance or of competence, um then, uh, then the military. You've got benefits, right, you've got advantages, um, that you don't have in the commercial world. But I couldn't agree with you more. What you have going for you in the commercial world is multiple exemplars, right, and unlimited multiple exemplars. So when it comes to coming up with the best way of doing something, or you know techniques, I think, sadly, that could be where so much evolution and advancement comes from. Yet I think the military are slightly more comfortable with testing and trying and improving their techniques.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting. I want to pick up on that point about the. I guess not so much the demography but the variety of cultural contexts, the variety of cultural contexts and sort of. I'm assuming that in terms of the selection, and I'm sort of interested in this, in the question of whether the selection of pilots is driven in the same way as is the training of pilots and whether there is a risk that, although we have, although we have you, know, we have a greater representation of women as pilots now it's still only, I think, the news this week 10% in the UK, so still way below where it would be ideally.
Speaker 1:but sort of the lines are moving in the right direction. But it's interesting to see what a struggle it is to recruit people who don't fit the mold of the stereotypical pilot and I wonder to what extent that is to do with the same issues that we have in the problem we talked about earlier on with instructing, where we have an idea of what good looks like and unfortunately that's the complete picture rather than just behavior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think you're very much on the right track there, I think, okay. So if you think about selection, how should it work? Well, most people are relatively clear on what a competent pilot is like and what a competent pilot can do, and those are precisely the things you should be selecting for. You should be selecting for those characteristics and those capabilities which are not obvious when you just look at somebody. However, to come up with a really solid selection method, it requires the same amount of expertise required every other step in that process. And so, depending on the organization, some of them I'm sure are doing really well. I'm sure they're selecting for precisely what they're going to go and train and assess you on later. Maybe Not all of them for sure, In fact, probably not many of them are making sure that their selection methods have been validated to a standard they're comfortable with.
Speaker 2:And so, yes, I think the Caesar test does take over. And you look at them and it's either yes, thumbs up, or, I don't think so, thumbs down. I mean, it's tough not to do that, if I'm honest, because you know I've spent not a ton of time around cadets in their ab initio training, but the time that I have spent. I can see it happen, I can see it in action. You just got a certain type of kid that looks the part, and they often do act the part, and so, because that is fitting the expectation, they are being selected and we're not always put in a position where we need to ask ourselves if it could look a different way. Yeah, and I think unless we do that on purpose, then human sort of you know, the way that we're all wired is going to continue to have an impact on how people are selected, and we shouldn't be surprised by that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I had an opportunity to see some of that when I worked in part of the Navy that dealt with the selection of pilots. What does that look like then, from the point of view of somebody who is clearly an expert in behaviour analysis? What would good look like from the point of view of selecting people that have the right technical skills, for sure, but also recognizing that the non-technical skills and the interpersonal skills and the, the, the self-analysis and the and the understand the ability to absorb learning methodology as well as the learning itself? What does good look like in terms of, um, the behavior analysis necessary to select the right people? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I think the this is going to sound like a very flippant answer, but the best answer I can give you is it's always going. It could always be different depending on the context, um, but there will be principles that will always apply. Um, so it's so well, kind of accepted. I think now that, um, some things you're looking for are characteristics, uh, or we call them characteristics, and some things you're looking for are more in the realm of somebody's sort of motor skills and aptitude. Yeah, so if you're really clear on what it is that you must select for and what it is that you can train, then you just backwards chain from there. So, if there are certain characteristics you're looking for, you need to be clear on what they are, you need to validate what you think they are to make sure they actually are those things, and then you need to use one of many available methods unless you feel like creating a new one to find out whether or not those characteristics are likely to be present in that person that you're interviewing.
Speaker 2:Whether or not those characteristics are likely to be present in that person that you're interviewing. You know an example would be like behavioral event interviewing. So in this situation, what would you do and you know kind of what you're looking for as a response. That could be a way to test someone's characteristics. Or there are innumerable psychological assessments that claim to do similar things. Um, you know but but I think you can. Even in that response you can see that that's pandora's box yeah um, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so you, you have to first be really, really clear on what good uh, what characteristics? What characteristics do you want and what technical um aptitudes are you looking for? Because with characteristics we can change your behavior over time, but probably not a ton. We're not going to change things. We would call your personality quite as easily as we could train you to learn how to get that thing down on the center line yeah, it's interesting that there is.
Speaker 1:There is a um, I'm sort of given to believing, I suppose and I hope this is true because this is kind of the way that I've I've approached things um, given enough chances to try something, you can improve a technical skill. Um, it's just that flying training by its nature is expensive. So whether you're paying it, whether someone else is paying for it, eventually you run up against a. Well, I need to do. I either need to do 50 reps or I need to do 500 reps, and 500 reps is unaffordable for the taxpayer, the customer or the individual.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, interesting, um, interesting about the non-technical element and the idea that you know you have to select for the right characteristics. You have to validate the characteristics that you're looking for, presumably you're looking for. You mentioned behavioural event interviewing there. I'm assuming that that is looking at behaviours, to try to infer characteristics from those behaviours. So if we take the example of somebody who's presenting for an interviewer for an airline, you can take pretty much as read that their technical skills are going to be up to scratch because they're going to be holding a licence.
Speaker 1:That says that their technical skills are up to scratch because they're going to be holding a licence that says that their technical skills are up to scratch. But during the acquisition of that licence there is almost no formal focus, certainly no expert focus on their behaviours and their characteristics. Literally, anybody can walk into a flying school if they want to and pay their way to get that licence. If they have the technical ability, they'll end up with a licence. Pay their way to get that license. If they have the technical ability, they'll end up with a license. And I'm interested to the extent that it is possible to incorporate into that training process the means for the individual to understand whether or not they are likely to be successful at the end, based on their behaviors and their what I will call their personality, and you will hopefully correct me.
Speaker 2:You can call it that if you like.
Speaker 1:It depends on you know what which school of psychology you come from, but that's not a million miles off now. Okay, so not to put too fine a point on it, how screwed is somebody if they don't have the, if they're not exhibiting the right behaviors at the start of their journey in training? Because I think people listening to this will will think we'll be just thinking at this point okay, what are the behaviors and how do I acquire the behaviors?
Speaker 2:and then I'll be more successful interview yeah, I think that if, if, if there's no other, um, good, I think probably the simplest response is um, there are many things you can do, but that doesn't mean you should do them.
Speaker 2:Do you know? So, so and it and it's not just with pilots, it's with any career you're always going to have those in in any given role, in any given area of expertise. That it comes very naturally to, and they fit right in and it feels like home for them and work doesn't feel terribly much like work, and that's probably because they are a good fit for that context and for that group in terms of their own characteristics. That would be my best guess. So if you want to know, if that's likely to be you, I would ask yourself, when you look at the people who already are doing what you wish to do one day, are those people you want to be exactly like? Do you come from people that are very much like those people, or do those people feel like people that you would want to go to a pub with?
Speaker 2:And if they are, you're probably on the right track. Honestly and this is why it's such a problem changing the face of aviation, because right now, if you are a woman and you look at the, a lot of other people who agree that look like you. So it's a difficult problem to solve for, because kind of the only way to solve for it is to just make reality different and then it will start to be a more comfortable fit. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, start to be a more comfortable fit. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah, and it it? It kind of reminds me a little bit, um, of my own experience early in flying training. So I think we we talked about this when, um, when we spoke beforehand. So I, uh, when I began my flying training with the air force, I was selected to go and um train to be a fast pilot. I very much wanted to be a fast jet pilot. I had been around other fast jet pilots who had been at the other end of their career and who had maybe had a chance to chill out a little bit, and you know, that's the crowd that I thought I wanted to be part of. And when I started training, I found that I was having to do an awful lot of pretending to be like the people I was around, and that is a struggle and as a result, I was unsuccessful.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness I was. I probably saved my own life, if not somebody else's.
Speaker 2:But think about what you just said. You just said you were unsuccessful, which is such a value judgment when in reality, you just weren't on the right track. Right, but we do say people are unsuccessful, and I know that this sounds like I'm taking you down a rabbit hole, but I think it is so much more impactful than people really care to try to understand, really care to try to understand. And this, this is for any role. People feel like, if they get accepted into a role whether that's, you know, as a manager, whether it's as an instructor, whether it's as a fast jet pilot they wanted that position, they wanted that role. So when they find themselves in the role and actually they're miserable because the people around them aren't like them, we view that as a failure. But that's not a failure, it's just not the right spot for them. And so if we were clear on that, if we were clear on the idea that there are certain types of personalities that love being a fast jet pilot, you can't pick them by what they look like. Some of them, many of them, I'm quite sure, are female. Um, but we are not looking for them and we currently don't have an environment where they would ever feel comfortable um to to, to attract them to.
Speaker 2:You know, your original question is how are they going to know if they're going to make it in terms of those characteristic criteria? And I could give you answers. I could say you know well, look at the existing competence framework and ask your friends if they think that that describes you. And you could do that and that might be a great exercise and it might work and it might not, because that competence framework may or may not accurately reflect the people that actually are in that job and chances are not fantastic, if I'm honest, most of the time, that they do.
Speaker 2:So. You're exactly right. You're going to have to be a scientist, you're going to have to mess around and find out, which inevitably means trying something and not liking it, and trying something else and not liking that, and then trying something else and kind of liking that and then changing your tack a little bit. But yeah, and it because we look at those things as a series of failures, I think we can dissuade people from from having the resilience to continue that journey, because it can be. It is frustrating if you feel like you're having to pretend, but I think the idea of having to pretend is something that it would be great to normalize as a concept if we do really want a more diverse group of pilots.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So there was something you said and I want to come back to it because it got me thinking, and you were saying that a way of working out your likelihood of success is to look at the people doing the job and then work out. Do I want to hang out with those guys?
Speaker 2:Is that my?
Speaker 3:crowd or not, and I get that, but what it it makes me think of? You're in this kind of chicken and egg scenario. Now, right, yes, and I'm going to upset a load of people by saying this I'm really sorry, but it's not like being an accountant, right, like people get to a stage in their life where they think I need a stable job, I need a decent income, I'll go and become an accountant. I can do maths, it's gonna be fine. You know, you don't just sort of wake up one day and think I'll just have a go at being a pilot. As a rule, again, someone, someone will prove me wrong, but you know so.
Speaker 3:So what I'm getting at is like you've got this. I think you've got a workforce made up with people who, from a very young age, have decided that's what they're going to do. They focus on it. They then spend probably decades of their life shaping themselves like, by the time they get to the point of applying for the jobs, like you can't imagine being somewhere else, because that's, that's the mold you've cast for yourself from the beginning. So does it not become somewhat self-fulfilling that you probably come from people like that, like fate, accomplish self-fulfilling, yeah, all of those things.
Speaker 2:Because you have to ask. Ask yourself as little, matt, why? Why did you think that you, of all people, would be successful and or would want to be a pilot? And the short answer is because other pilots look like you and so and so, yes, over time you would. You would feel comfortable telling people you wanted to be a pilot, you would feel excited about doing things that other pilots do, and part of that might be because you came out, you know, you entered into the world with those with those aptitudes, and the other part of it is you probably did develop some of those skills over time because you had that image in your head.
Speaker 2:So, if you think about what that means for everyone who wants to become a pilot that doesn't look like the existing average stereotypical pilot, average stereotypical pilot, what we're asking of them is to feel uncomfortable, possibly every day, in their job, as you noted, jonathan.
Speaker 2:So imagine how, on top of all of that, um, you know you, you were a woman, um, and what that experience would feel like every day. And and because you're so right, this is chicken and egg, but the but you know, if, if, if, this is how it works right. If we pursue things that we think we should pursue because we think we'll enjoy it and part of that is because of the type of people we think enjoy it Then how do you solve for that? You have to change their perception of what a pilot looks like and what type of person might be a pilot, and the only way to do that, like we said earlier, is to change reality, which means dropping a bunch of people that may often feel rather uncomfortable in that position long enough to attract other people that would previously have felt uncomfortable but now will feel more comfortable because there are a few people like them instead of none.
Speaker 3:See that's raised so many questions and thoughts in my mind. So let me, I'm going to try and put it together into one coherent but probably multifaceted question, right? So I'm going to start off as you were asking me why did I think I could do it? Actually, there's one answer that came to me, which which is I don't think you you said in the way that you wrapped it up now the the notion of being a pilot occurred to me before I had a concept of failure.
Speaker 3:I've got two young kids and I've watched them grow up and I've watched them get to a stage where, all of a sudden, like they're afraid, like before they jump on their bike and when they fell off it was a complete surprise to them Whereas then they get to the stage of like, oh, if I get on my bike I might fall off. You know you watch these sort of processes and I'm aware that by the time I was at the age where I've seen them exhibit fear and fear of failure, like I already knew, I wanted to be a pilot, like I'd already, and I'd already told everybody. So I wonder, first of all, first part of my question is is I wonder if there is something about when this notion occurs to you, because people who generally do it have been wanting to do it forever. Like, by the time you're afraid, you're prepared to consider failure as a possibility. Like you're old enough to think about that, if you've already considered that this is what your future holds, actually fear of failure doesn't play a part, because it's already part of your accepted future vision. So that leads me on to then say well, does that?
Speaker 3:Or what can be done to those people who imagine that you grew up in the wrong background, you've got the wrong accent, the wrong chromosomes, whatever it is, and you're sat there going oh, you know, this is the people who do this job. Speak differently to me, they live in different postcodes, they have different surnames, et cetera. And by the time you reconcile the notion that this is something you want to do, you already are able to sort of envision, envision failure. Uh, understand that you might be an outsider. So it feels like there's a little bit of kind of like mental programming or something or something that you have to wrap your head around support support is required.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually um, when I know we're talking about, about pilots, but I can't help but think I've got a daughter who's a footballer and she is. You know, I'm obviously very biased, but man, she's good and she's been sporty her whole life. Still, even though women's football is, you know, having a great moment and on the rise and hopefully will only continue to move upwards. But we have very frequent, if not daily, discussions about the fact that, you know, the men's team is better resourced and that means that she's not going to get the opportunities that they have. We have to talk about the fact that, even though she's already on a second team for a championship women's team at the age of 16, she will still have to go to university and she will still have to get a job and have a proper career alongside it, and that's a fact for her right now.
Speaker 2:But because, but, but she's, she's the equivalent of. She feels as strongly about football as you did as a child feeling about being a pilot, and the way that we continue to keep her on the track she wants to be on is just providing a lot of support and a lot of discussion to bolster her resilience, because without that support and without that open discussion about the fact that some things are not fair and some things are not as we wish them to be right now, without that, I think she would have thrown her hands up. I do so. I think it's on an individual basis as well.
Speaker 1:That's a super interesting. There's a super interesting dynamic in there to me. So my own experience when I decided I wanted to be a pilot, I remember, I remember being interested in airplanes at the age of six, the age of seven, my dad put me in a glider and sent me off to have a flight in a glider and it was the most magical thing. Still remember the takeoff and that was the point that I became interested in, not just in airplanes but in being a pilot. And you know, everything after that point was kind of taking me down that, down that road. But they reached a point where I decided I wanted to be a pilot and I didn't have any other. I didn't have a backup plan. I left college after a very unsatisfactory set of A-levels, somehow managed to get into the Air Force. Like, if that hadn't have happened, if I hadn't have been fortunate enough to be selectable at that period in history, I'd have really struggled because there wasn't a backup plan.
Speaker 1:And I'm struck by what you said there, which is having to hedge against a greater likelihood of failure. Yeah, um, because that's those are, you know, realities, and I wonder whether it's like I hear time and time and again. Again, I hear people say about aviation like it's like it's some sort of um genie's lamp, like you just have to want it enough. And and I've, I've always struggled with that because you don't just have to want it enough. You actually have to study a lot, you have to put a lot of effort in, and there is a bunch of other stuff that you have to do, some of which we've talked about, but you have to.
Speaker 1:If you have the capability and the trust in, in the societal norms that exist in that community, that you want to go and be part of that, you are similar enough to them to to be able to go all in. On that, you have a massive advantage over somebody who's having to hedge. I spent all the time I should have been doing my a-level homework at the air experience flight, smashing the flying hours in, and I still couldn't make it through training successfully. So how, what chance does somebody have who's having to work on a backup at the same time as wanting it enough to go out and do all these things, none of which, sorry, none of which takes us anywhere near behavior or um but, but this, but this is all, this is all behavior and and this is all um related to.
Speaker 2:you know, do, are you the type of person that is likely to be um put to go, all in Right, and I think we've discussed a lot of really important angles on that question and, and this one is probably it's tough to talk about for a lot of people, because a lot of people um, you know, good human beings, these are not stupid humans, these are not bad humans. Okay, but do truly believe that.
Speaker 2:you just have to want it and are unaware of the fact that they just had to want it because they had every system's advantage they required, and also the capability. So the only missing piece for them was the desire, and that's wonderful. But that is not the case for everybody, not for being a pilot and not for anything you choose to do with your life.
Speaker 3:Well, your daughter is. You're talking about football. She's incredibly fortunate to have the support of you. You know which is amazing. Now, is this unique? I think it's probably not. I imagine sports people, musicians, you know, doctors, whatever, any kind of highly aspirational career. I imagine that these themes are common. So that's the first bit to discuss that. But then you are supporting your daughter in her football ambitions. My parents knew nothing about flying, but were really supportive of me in my aspiration, so we've got two fortunate people there. What about all those people who don't have that support? So what can the industry or the profession do? Is there any exemplar out there where we can say, oh, look at this line of work or this profession, they are actually hoovering up people because they're supporting them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So for your first question, yeah, you're right. No, there's no difference. Aviation is not special any more or any less than any other industry or role, but what we all have in common is we all feel like what we do is a dark art, and it is what it is. So are the principles any different? No, of course, they're not any different, so that's the short answer.
Speaker 2:Now, in terms of a support network, I think you've touched on something that is unbelievably powerful for people to understand. Powerful for people to understand. If you want to attract people that are naturally going to have a more difficult time fitting in, they require an enormous amount of support, and that support can come from within the group, it can come from outside the group, but it has to be there. And if you don't plan for that, if you refuse to acknowledge that that support is required and many people do then you cannot begin to arrange for it and you cannot begin to to test whether what you've arranged is being effective or not. But I think you know if, on the long list of amazing things that could be done for aviation, I think discussion about this topic is is potentially incredibly powerful for what the industry looks like in the future.
Speaker 3:Is it a rabbit hole to go down and try and discuss what that support might look like? Is that way out of the scope of this?
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know the answer to it, I can tell you my thoughts on it, you know. I know that people need to feel comfortable being themselves, and it's really quite difficult to feel comfortable being yourself if you're around a bunch of people that aren't anything like you. So you might want to pay attention to that. Also, if people have to live day in and day out in a group of people that don't understand them, even if they are kind to them, even if they do their very best to accept them, the toll that that takes should never be minimized for that person and should never be minimized in terms of planning. There is no way to experience otherness on the daily and not have it wear away at you.
Speaker 1:So if there's no plan in place for how you're going to cope with that reality, if there's no plan in place for how you're going to cope with that reality, or if people refuse to acknowledge that such a plan may be required, then you're in a bit of trouble kind of related um, I'm struck by something that you said earlier on, which was along the lines of if you want to be a pilot, you need to, or it's not a bad place to start to look at the people who occupy that profession at the moment and ask yourself do you want to be around those people?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We talked about that being a chicken and an egg situation and, in a way, a little bit of a paradox, because anybody, frankly, who doesn't look and sound like me looking into the airline industry is going to see themselves as being at least a little bit different. I mean, this goes. So this goes hand in hand with the idea that that your success is likely to be, um, dependent on you sort of being able, having the time and having the capacity to model yourself on those people, that, that, those characteristics that you think that you will need in order to be successful, having the time to do that and all the rest of it. But is your likelihood of success dependent on, well, one thing in overall, or overall else really, which is picking good examples, like not the pop culture idea of what a pilot is, and also probably not on what most pilots will tell you what being a pilot is oh yeah, let's yeah.
Speaker 2:Should we repeat that for the people in the back? Yes, I couldn't agree more. I think, um, if, if we're really clear on on actually what um are the characteristics, um and abilities of of a good pilot? Um, as far as I'm aware, there's no reason to believe that those characteristics and abilities are particularly common um in any packaging. So, if we does, that make sense. So we're talking about things like you know. Again, this is a terrible oversimplification. But let's just motor skills, right, I'm sure, motor skills ability. There's a spectrum of ability in every individual walking the earth. So what's the requirement for pilots and how do we test for it? And that's what we need to test for. Or quick decision making, maybe we say is important Again, amongst the people walking the earth, wide variety of ability. What is it that we require for pilots?
Speaker 1:And if we're really clear on that, and if we talk about for pilots, and if we're really clear on that, and if we talk about what are pilots, what are good pilots, using those words instead of what do they look like, then maybe we start to increase the chance that people will pay attention to those characteristics and abilities and people that don't look like most pilots look yeah, I mean that sort of rolls out quite nicely, actually, given the time, on the sort of the big question that I have for the end, which is how does somebody who is looking into the industry now and is concerned that they don't look or sound or behave in a way that they perceive, for whatever reason, a pilot pilot should, how does somebody in that situation go about preparing to enter that industry anyway, because that is what they want to do, because I think there are a lot of people in that.
Speaker 2:so in that situation, who at the moment won't be supported yeah, I think what we've discussed today is probably where you'll you'll find parts of what I think is probably the answer um, so, if you know, if you know that you probably um, don't look like, think like, have the experience or come from the group, whatever it is, of what you think is a stereotypical pilot. I would first say there are lots of different types of pilots. So first, you know, familiarize yourself with the myriad of ways in which you can be a pilot and don't assume that commercial, you know, is the only option, or military is the only option, because even in looking at the different types, you're already going to start to see the different types of people that are going to do well. And once you, you know, you look at the different ways in which you could be a pilot. So, do you, do you want to be in the military? No, okay, well, that's that gone. Then, okay, rotary or fixed wing Well, that's another choice. Okay, you know, have an opinion on that Anyway. And then, once you sort of ask yourself those deep questions that you know most people will, quite frankly, struggle to answer accurately, but you got to start somewhere Then try to find people, as few as they may be, who did do that, who do have some of your other characteristics in common, and find them, seek them out, find them on LinkedIn, ask them to have a chat, see if you're right, see if they really do have anything in common with you and if they do, ask them if they're happy about their choice.
Speaker 2:And when you finally find you know you're feeling like you really know what you want, then and you're happy on the direction you know. Just understand that that person that you talk to is probably the best person to talk to about how to insulate yourself as you pursue that goal. So they'll be able to tell you, you know where, where is it best, where is it worst? Um, when things go well, what do they do? When things don't go well, what do they do? Who do they talk to? Um, looking back on their career, um, what support worked best? What did people try that failed miserably? Um, yeah, you're going to, unfortunately, lived experience, I think, is the best we probably have right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a very full answer to the question and also almost the perfect summary of everything that we've talked about, which has taken the taken the wind out of matt sales. I can. I can sense that he was about to do what to do. The summary. So you've stolen his sandwiches. That's. It's really interesting. And, aside from, and well to, because I'm conscious of the time and there's a, there's a chance I'll end up down a rabbit hole here. First of all, um, I'll do the thank you. So thank you very much for for agreeing to come on the podcast when there's no evidence at all that, um that it would be any good. So thank you for taking that risk and and taking the risk of our failure, um, by by coming on. We appreciate that a lot, um no, it's, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 2:I hope that you two are successful so do we?
Speaker 1:yeah, but if we fail, at least we'll have learned something right, there you go maybe, maybe a really good uh sort of early on.
Speaker 2:Uh considering where you are in this journey matt, round us off any final thoughts I have nothing that's not going to take us down a complete rabbit hole.
Speaker 3:So, no, I I think that sums it up really, uh, really neatly, and it's fascinating. And it's just got, I suppose, the takeaway from my point of view, because I'm in a different place to we're asking about people entering the industry, aren't we? That's where we're kind of looking at this from, but I suppose the bit that that I'll take away from this is thinking well, with me now being on the other side of the glass, what can I do differently? How could I affect that? How could I make, how could I make my environment more welcoming to those people who are aspiring to be here? And what? What influence can I have? Um, yeah, to try and, and in particular, if nothing else, provide support to those people who might find this a difficult place to be, even though they really want to be here yeah yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:There's so many different directions that I would love to, that I would love to explore and, if you're willing, and if we get viewers that or listeners that warrant it, um, perhaps you'll consider coming back and exploring some of those rabbit holes, because I would love to talk about things like imposter phenomenon. I would love to talk about so many, so many other things, um, that we just haven't got time for, but, uh, it's been really fascinating to to talk to you, uh there and get the get the benefit of your perspective. So, thanks again, um, very much for coming on.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to explore rabbit holes anytime. It's my favorite pastime.