The idea came from Professor Rui Tato Marinho, who has so often exchanged team building experiences with TAP Captain Arlindo Martins, but Professor João Coutinho embraced the proposal and considered that it was important to apply to medicine some of the leadership rules that make aviation the safest profession for all.
A TAP captain with more than 20,000 accumulated flight hours, Arlindo Martins also trained other pilots for 9 years. It was about this experience that he came to the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Medicine on 9 October, where his audience was mostly made up of doctors and teams from Santa Maria Hospital.
But how important is it for a pilot to pass on his knowledge to a group of clinicians?
If at first it may seem that the fields do not cross, then this initial misconception easily disappears.
A gastroenterologist for the past 35 years, Rui Tato Marinho introduced the guest as a counterpoint to his 25,000 emergency hours and reinforced, as Director of Service, that “leadership is a management of humility”.
The answer to the question posed above is that it is in experience that the first answer to success lies. Second, it is in authority that experience leads to success. Bad grounds for defending authority? Maybe you will change your mind at end.
If in the past aviation accidents were mostly due to technical reasons, today 75% of the cases originate from human error. Which means that out of every 4 crashes, 3 of the planes were able to get from one destination to another without error. It is then important to ask what is the acceptable level of error by a captain. None! Or almost. Let's see, it is estimated that the sky currently has about 11 million people flying about. Almost none are heard of because they left and arrived safely. And safety means that there was efficiency in a team managed by a leader, the captain.
According to the captain, the error is due to attitude, often caused by the blind spot phenomenon (internal myopia), i.e. the lack of ability to be self-critical and to conduct proper behavioural self-analysis. To guard this ego “blindness”, rigid rules are created whose consequences in aviation, for example, reach such a degree of responsibility that they become a crime if they are not fulfilled. Rules must be followed, such as the report, personal and/or confidential, to which captains are bound in all flights. And it is precisely this reporting culture that motivates them and makes them accountable, for they feel that there is always feedback, but also a permanent repetition of the rules, and, therefore, a return. This allows to know the limits and the consequences clearly.
“Safety is then an attitude, either one has it or not,” says Arlindo Martins, because it is the assumed stance that will almost always dictate the ultimate success of ensuring that lives are intact. This is where the need for the authority given to a leader, who will circumvent the natural tendency for carelessness or laziness and ensure the following step by step. It is no coincidence that the acronym KSA - knowledge, skills, attitude - is used to explain that attitude can, in fact, spoil even technical competence. Safety does not, therefore, allow for organizational error, and so this only leaves the rest of the error, where the low probability of problems that cannot be circumvented humanly fits.
But then, why do human errors still occur? The captain explains that they always come from behavioural procedures, are a reflection of communication obstacles or indiscipline.
Only by standardizing the rules can one always lead to the success of the action, when one looks back and realizes that one would do everything the same. But “let there be no shame in assuming weakness” he says with great emphasis, for therein lies the true humility that can prevent negligent behaviour.
Will medicine have something to learn from this brief explanation? We can go further and say that in every organization, the method could, should, be applicable, because it is behaviour that generates success or neglect and that has consequences for everyone.
It makes sense, doesn't it?
The audience thought so, cheering a captain who is also a great speaker and who has left many messages that can apply daily to the dynamics of any team, perhaps anyone.
To paraphrase Arlindo Martins, think of the 16,000 words you say on average per day, how many are pleasant words? And what attitudes will you generate next in your routines that intersect with others? It may not cost anyone's life, such as in aviation or medicine, but it may be long-term in the lives of organizations and inherently in people's well-being.
Congratulations to the Surgery and Gastroenterology teams, precisely for their attitude!
Joana Sousa
Editorial Team
