Chapter 10 

Teamwork – working with others– pressure management

The teamwork start from toolbox meeting emotionally and rationally.

To learn the control the operation of the ship and care for persons on board is the purpose of HELM training.   Teamwork is something about control of the operation of the ship by all members on board. Most shipboard operation is well defined. We don’t need to go through any brain storm to find the solution. We just need our ordinary precaution to counter the risks and threats expected in our daily practice. A team can solve a lot of things. But anything is out of control it will need every member in it to dedicate their efforts and wisdom. When they come to the decision time, the team effort must be glued by mutual trust in the account of accountability. Not all things are fair enough to weight the risk and compensation equally. The team members have to take the consequence of the decision whatever is decided by the team’s efforts.    

The teamwork is well defined work done by experienced members. These are the cases happened in most ship board Engineer department. Due to the working environment in ship’s engine room is full of noise and vibration and heat and bad oily smell sometimes. Working inside the E/R posed a great healthy hazard. Everyone just wants the things be done in sound and clear order to save the team’s efforts. If we said it like kind of battlefield it won’t be exaggerated. The technique of briefing used in battlefield become a necessary means to achieve coherent in an engine room team. Sometimes we called it toolbox meeting. The meetings might cover these topics

l   Behavioral Safety: topics on behavioral safety.

l   Confined Space: Confined space oriented toolbox topics

l   Electrical Hazards :topics associated with electrical, power tool, welding, grinding  hazards

l   Fire: Fire associated topics in Engine Room

l   Personal Safety topics: Fatigue, shift work, lifting, slips, trips, falls and work hours related topics

l   General: Hazard Communications, Hearing Conservation, personal protective equipment and associated issues.

l   Environmental: Air Pollution - SOx and NOx control, Ballast Water management, Greenhouse Gases emission, etc...

The points to make the toolbox meeting before each day’s work include information on specific safety topics that should help encourage safe work practices could not be possibly addressed here. Usually the well defined works had their own Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) to be followed; the points in the meeting should cover the current environment which deviated from the standard operation norms. An SOP checklist might need to facilitate the work. In any way to fully conversant all the risks is required before the toolbox meeting begin. That is the obligation of our school education and cadet apprentice have to well prepare us for these moments or shall we say it is the obligation of the worker to be familiarized the potential risks and threats he might face in someday lied ahead of his career.      .

The following advice is given for the conduct of these meetings by George Robotham -

l   Find a quiet area free of distractions

l   Lead with enthusiasm, passion and your own personal style

l   Begin the meeting by asking the well being of their personal.

l   Present topics that are immediately relevant to the work.

l   State your objective for the meeting, 

l   Reinforce responses to questions and comments positively

l   Define responsibilities of the parties

l   Use open-ended questions to get their oral commitment first

l   Audience interaction is always a good idea

l   Avoid lecture style presentations wherever possible

l   When you cannot answer questions raised ask other opinion

l   Topics can include a review of incidents, observations on practice, safety alerts, legislative updates and safety initiatives

l   Manage disruptive behaviour

l   Be wary of people “saving up” their safety concerns until the tool-box meeting. Encourage prompt reporting of all safety concerns

l   You must create a no-fear, no-blame environment where people are prepared to honestly speak their mind without fear of recrimination

l   Summarize key points at the end of the meeting

l   A bit of humor does not go astray

The meetings can be general safety training, an explanation of a new safety initiative, a review of existing work procedures or a general safety motivation tool. Our contribution to the team on board is only doing the parts others expected from us. No more and no less, even the goal seems simple it is may not an easy job if we did not possess necessary skills of how a team is working. The meeting should begin with care of person than done with safety of the operation. This toolbox meeting could solve some misunderstanding and handle anything that is unusual to common practice. But any work can be done it must be done by people, we need to check each man physical condition first even the work is a routine one. Get the team member oral commitment first is important as this is part of human nature in consistency. Once you get their oral commitment they will have an automatic impulse (to follow his commitment) to accomplish the job at hand with their own efforts. Why they want to make commitment to you verbally? Because you will give him a good name for his efforts, either it is a compliment from you about his excellence in working ability before the job assignment or it could be the good result you are expecting from his work. 

The toolbox meeting begins with the care of his well being in human basic requirement physiologically and end up with self-actualization of the fulfillment of his oral commitment. If we have this kind of meeting techniques we can always consider it done of every job on hand. And it is not always bad to have the toolbox meeting everyday as everybody keen to fulfill all his need in this chance. Consider it done even the work had not actually start.           

Working with others : communicate effectively and interaction affectionately

The most important teamwork skill is the ability to communicate effectively (see Chapter 3). Being an effective team member starts and ends with communicating. It is crucial to be able to communicate openly and honestly about ideas, recommendations and concerns with other team members. It is just as important to be able to listen attentively and respond objectively with helpful feedback. The shipping today with multinational crew is facing with even more complicated situations. We need to set up new communication culture as Chapter 3 had mentioned. But we can also approach from the fundamental of all human nature, the psychology. Mr Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (USA, 1988-1955) had done the necessary research for our reference in his book. “How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.”

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.

3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

5. Let the other person save face.

6. Praise every improvement.

7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

9. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.    

The communication line is not open only before the work in a team. It opened all the time only if we know the importance to keep the relationship going is important. The indirect is the key point to affect people without resentment in communication. It needs a lot practices in western cultures as the teaching since the childhood is “Honest is the best policy”. The honest is not necessary strict and harsh. The willingness to try to make others feeling better and happier in our communication is obvious to every member in the team. They will appreciate your efforts although it might be not very prudent of your communication skill in their point of view. This is new quality of our personality needed in this new age. Be a nice guy. If we did not have necessary communication skills at least we have necessary relationship with them who has the willingness to communicate further. Most of us did not have enough time to practice the necessary communication skills when we join the shipping business.   

Commitment to the team

Commitment is one of the critical factors in building teamwork. To elaborate the commitment of your team member here are some aspects. All other teamwork skills are useless without a commitment to the teamwork. With this commitment to the team, members should be willing to take on any role necessary to accomplish the required tasks, whether it is a leadership role or a subordinate role.

•Team Choice: We can get team member's commitment much easier if they are participating by choice. In a mandatory team we can get more commitment when the employees in the team are given the power to set direction, establish goals, and make choices. To get the member’s oral consent (by their free will) of their part first in team work will solve any problem within their power. This is the property of consistence in human nature to keep up with his promise.   

•Work Goal Is Clear: Do team members believe the work is important? Team members want to feel as if they are part of something bigger than themselves. They need to understand where their team mission falls in the bigger overall leadership vision. This is the sense making of their jobs in the team. If they feel irrelevant to the team goal they won’t devote their whole heart.

•Team Members Feel Valued: Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers?  They want to be respected. A double win is accomplished if team members find themselves valued by the team and also receiving the chance like growing and developing their skills (or finding new mentors who are committed to their growth).

•Challenge, Excitement and Opportunity: Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity? This is also part of human crave to be stimulated especially on board the ship while the life is long and dummy like a robot.  

•Recognition: Does shipboard keep a tracked record which provides recognition for their success and their team goal had accomplished. Almost everyone likes some form of recognition. Praise every improvement. Make sure recognition is available at every successful level.

Making decisions with objectivity and discipline

Most team conflict arises during the decision-making process. The teamwork skill of effective, responsible decision-making is crucial. Effective teams have members who can make decisions objectively after careful deliberation and debate. The major drawback of teamwork is the illusion of diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is when a team leader makes a decision that most (if not all) members have their own way of interpretation and carry different priority. The leader of a team need to think intelligently and rigorously through the situation before making an informed, objective decision is still the sole responsibility of him although team member’s participation in the process of decision making is welcomed.

Ability to support other team members

The teamwork outweighs our personal achievement and efforts by the power of multiple interactions with the team members to have wider and higher abilities. If we did not have the skill and ability to monitor others contribution and progress in their part we may have lost our situational awareness of teamwork. Although teamwork consist of different job assignment and function needed we also have to divide our own attention in the ways of others doing. For an inexperienced team member this is not an easy job for he can only concentrate his job at hand and had no idea or structure of what the part of his in the bigger organizational plan. He is in the process of establishing his long term memory or his skill yet. The more experienced team member desire to commit to a shared team goal will need to give his hand while the young man is in need. What time to step in and what time to let go is the art of mentor or team leader. This ability to monitor and help is apparent more often when members are committed and comfortable within the dynamics of the group as the team leader not necessary always comes from top management like last chapter the discussion of leader could be any body inside the team.

Case study : Report on the investigation of the contact between Pride of Provence and The Southern Breakwater, Dover Harbour, eastern entrance on 18 April 2003

M.V.”Pride of Provence”, a ro-ro passenger ferry with 641 persons on board, made heavy contact with the end of the southern breakwater at the eastern entrance to Dover Harbour on 18 April 2003 at 1724. It was daylight, the weather was good and the visibility clear. There was a strong north-easterly wind and a southerly flowing tidal stream across the entrance.

At the time of the accident, the ferry was approaching the port, having completed one of her regular cross-Channel passages from Calais. The vessel’s master had the con and he was supported by a full team of officers and ratings. The master intended to turn his vessel as he passed between the breakwaters, and then to run down the inside of the eastern arm before swinging and securing stern-to on No 2 ro-ro berth. However, his heading at the end of his approach to the entrance, was such that, as he turned the vessel, her stern collided with the end of the southern breakwater.

The principal cause of the accident was poor communication and passage planning, and disorientation of the master. Although the master briefed his bridge team on his intended approach and pre-berthing manoeuvre, the briefing was rudimentary and did not give key team members the information they needed to monitor the approach.

The master’s approach was not planned in detail and was flawed: he did not show positive control of the navigation, and did not allow sufficiently for the effects of the tidal stream and wind.

Our comments:

l   Master took over the con too late at 1718 hours. no time for toolbox meeting.

l   Master order to steer towards southern B/W end regardless the wind and current effects at 1720 hours. No one remind him about this.

l   C/O did his part in a team asserted to Captain of the distance and speed at 1722 hours.

This is the only time to make thing right again and is the “point of no return” where the ship is at 6 times of ship’s length distance from the breaker water entrance.

l   At 1723, the master started a swing to starboard as Pride of Provence neared the entrance. 

This is too late for the turn. Please beware of the ship’s position setting to south quickly from 172200 to 172300 hours two ship’s width which is half width of the B/W entrance. 

Reader are encouraged to measure 6 ship’s length and two ship’s width (advance and setting from 1722 hours) by a ruler to realize the importance of Chief Officer assertiveness.

Pressure Management inside a Team

Pressure usually refers to the feelings a team member has about performing his job while he experienced as a compelling or constraining influence on the mind, or an urgent demand that must be met. It is our internal reactions felt in our body reaction. Our heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and our senses become sharper. Pressure is a feeling that is created by ourselves, when we react to particular events or situations. Pressure isn’t necessarily bad – it can enhance motivation, concentration and stimulation we need.  Pressure can come from a variety of internal and external sources. For example:

•Expectations to perform

•Other people’s expectations 

•Preparation for the job

•Importance of this performance 

•Anticipated difficulty or importance 

•Individual readiness to perform 

•time available 

•our physical conditions

•lack of self-confidence

•implementing a new technique in job

•repeated errors

All in all the decisive factor of the pressure is the timing. If the time to adjust to the change is abundant the pressure is less. If no time to adjust to the change we feel pressure. The way to deal with pressure most effectively is by teamwork. As long as we have a team we don’t need to fight along. This will reduce the pressure of everybody. For the aims in controlling the operation on board the ship is as simple as keep it safe and punctual. Everybody share the same working goal on board we should not hesitate to express our concerns and worries of things ahead. This is not an incompetent case of us; we just need more time to set up our long term memory which need two months time to fix it in our brain by the psychological researches had shown.    

Pressure is an illusion!

The most important concept in dealing with pressure is to ask for help while you are in it. This is not a rational calculation of us. It is an emotional reaction which is no right or wrong about it and no one can judge us by the nerves we had. There is no such thing as pressure, except what we make of it in our mind. Pressure isn’t something that happened to us – it is something that is manufactured by our own feeling. It doesn’t have a form, a colour, a smell. Pressure is simply how we perceive the situation we are in and we don’t need to apology. Nevertheless, as a team member we all have the responsibility to help each other. In nowadays they said “to see our obligation in others expectation is our accountability”. The man under pressure will need some help if the time is limited. The help from us will be more valuable to him for the suffering he had now is the motivation to improve himself. No pressure no learning is true for some people always keep optimized mind-set. If the time is abundant we should give him some time to think and examine what he had learnt and what he had been told. The challenge or change under no pressure can only be called the motivation of “learning”. 

Pressure Management for a Team member

For an individual in a team we can not rely on other team member help only. We need to develop our own skills under the pressure. The skill we used to have and the skill we had under pressure are two different things. Once the pressure felt our blood pressure rises which will also rise our brain pressure. The pressure on our brain will compress the memory we had. Please refer to the pressure and memory chart as below:

The more pressure we felt the more compressed our memory will be. Our heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and our senses become sharper. Under the extreme pressure we freeze into motionless. If this is the case they will be a very very big problem to all members on board. For example, if we had a good time in Pusan Korea night club with a lovely lady who called herself Susan and she gives you her cell phone number (0938-good-38) in the first meet. You are happy and content for the night you had. When the ship sailed out of Pusan port breakwater entrance at midnight it is your watch. You look into the water and you see sea smoke is gathering due to very cold air moves over warmer water. Every vessel whether it is small or big was floating in the air. You forgot the cell phone number of the lady you met tonight immediately although it is easy to remember when you first heard it. After few rounds on the bridge to check out the visibility and smoke high there are some fishing vessel with lower elevation in height totally invisible from our visual contact. You are nerves and Captain also. For the clues of visual lookout are all missing and in the midst of the fishing season we have to pick up the dangerous target by the ARPA only. You cannot know whether the ship you see is at 6 miles or 12 miles and does this small vessel is the target trigged audible collision alarm in ARPA display. This is a torture to the man on bridge. The night is calm but the tension is high. When we last time met dense fog like this it was not so close to the land and we also had the choice to sail to open sea. But now we are in Tsushima Strait, the famous fishing ground between Japan and Korea. There is no place to hide and no place to run. Do you still remember the lovely lady’s name now? If you can still recall her name it would be at the cost of neglect lookout now. God bless you then. This the moment we lost our short term memory at work.     

We need to at least knowing what time to ask for help by ourself or through other members on board. 

How should we prepare for Pressure

■ You must practice pressure situations in your mind-set, so they become normal and easy to handle.

■ Ensure you have good preparation in knowledge which leading up to your profession.

■ Pressure situations require enhanced communication – practise this in your learning.

■ Learn to focus on the right thing at the right time, discuss it with your superior.

■ Often we rush things under pressure.  Slow down.  Even though you may feel under time constraints, it’s better to slow down and get some opinion from others than to rush it and make an error.

■ Some people will benefit from engaging in some relaxation exercises to help them to feel calm and focused.

■ no negative thoughts..., think positively.

■ Share how you feel with others – talking about how you feel can help you to deal with it.  However be careful of who you choose to talk to, you don’t want to put ideas of pressure into your teammates’ heads!

■ Strive for excellence, not perfection.  It is okay to make mistakes under pressure, just as it is alright to make mistakes in training – so long as you are supervised by your superior.

■ Focus on the skill you had.  Pay attention to the things you have practised – they are familiar so they won’t feel pressured.

■ Have good error recovery strategies – people tend to make more errors when they perceive they are under pressure, so you need to have a good strategy to deal with them without them affecting your confidence.

■ Remember, it’s not about your feelings, it’s about your actions.  Take the focus off how you feel, by putting your focus onto what you should do. Your actions affect your emotions so go through the right actions (pretend if you must) and you will feel better.

■ Identify the actions/skills that suffer most when you are in a pressure situation.  Put extra time into understanding those skills and knowledge so that you feel confident in them in any circumstance. The appropriate action must be practised to the level of a conditioned response (it must be automatic like part of your working habits).

■ Increased fitness helps you deal with pressure.  Make sure your fitness in the body.  When you’re fatigued go asking some help.

We are like some world class athlete in shipping. The pressure is something our subconscious aware before our rational conscious. In subconscious level everything are mixed up as feeling only. By the change of your vital sign, heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, we know we are on it. If our physical condition is good, these vital signs changed can be tend more comfortable which can give more calm and confident in our rational process to solve the case. The preparations for pressure need to be approached from both sides of rational knowledge/skill and emotional well being of our body.   

Complacency while the pressure is low.

Pressure is a relative term to each person. Sometimes you feel pressure mounting and sometimes you feel it is OK. If you felt the pressure it is a good thing. At least you will try to do something about it. If you felt no pressure or just a little bit of disturb. You might in the stage of complacency where“false status of security mentally although the physical threat is still present. Mentally, the conscious is under low aroused status and feels self –sustained without any solid ground of reason, almost in an unconscious status.” This is the definition of NASA at “Complacency” after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986. The pressure we felt is like the emotion we had it is a feeling from our subconscious and it can do things in a peculiar way to ruin it if we did not know how to deal with it. The pressure we felt need to be just enough for us. Often the complacency needs to be taken care more closely to the pressure case. Please refer to Chapter 4 for risk compensation, complacency discussion. 

Root Causes of teamwork Complacency

Many common assumptions and behaviors promote complacency in a team. These are the most important: 

■ EXCESSIVE RELIANCE ON PRIOR SUCCESS: The more often a particular routine achieves a successful outcome, the more likely people are to develop an unwarranted belief that success is assured. This is part of human nature we all need the structure (the routine) to follow even it is in a teamwork. This is the reason why the civilization developed where people can use his skill and knowledge through the same practices over and over again.   

■ ARROGANCE OF EXPERTS: The fact that the Captain can handle the situation more efficiency than young OOW can lead to the illusion that he is always right. Young OOW finds the trust is very convenience for his own development. The captain did not realize his practice might introduce some risks in critical situation that he had no longer control, like the vessel had not enough room to finish his turn in Chapter 7.    

■ OVER- EMPHASIZE ON ACTION: Management is encouraging action plan. The mind-set for action that is necessary for getting things done which may discourage listening to non-believers or any doubts, even when their points of view have some merit. Nevertheless, most valuable knowledge may lies in negative statements that reveal the pitfalls, difficulties, and obstacles that lie in the way of process. These statements from young OOW can be seen as a threat to voyage plans and objectives, fear of negative career consequences can hamper their assertiveness. 

■ OVER-RELIANCE ON EXTERNAL RESOURCES: Marine Technical department in the office have a tendency to believe in the infallibility of their resources, particularly in areas where they have some external knowledge and analyses. This can be a serious problem for ship board operation, which can generate a false sense of infallibility also. On board the vessel the situation will never be the same as they had expected at shore. Captains have to use his own discretion to best guide the ship’s safety not rely on Company instruction only.   

■ THE “BLACK SWAN” BIAS: People tend to underestimate the possibility of unprecedented risks. Because all the swans they have seen are white, they assume black swans do not exist. A black-swan event is beyond the realm of normal expectations and tends to be underestimated, even by experts. The difficulty of learning from black-swan events is compounded by the fact that they rarely repeat, like the Captain found his vessel inside the pocket of 6 vessels in Chapter 6 where he has lost control of vessel’s turning movement. 

■ GROUPTHINK: Groupthink occurs when people are involved in a group decision process overrides the realistic appraisal of any alternative could be taken or asserted by any individual, including illusions of invulnerability and a sense of superiority; collective rationalization and stereotyping of outsiders; ignoring contrary data; suppressing alternative viewpoints; and denying leadership from dissent. 

The root causes of team complacency also lie deep in the human psyche, there is no easy cure. Various team strategies for reducing the impact of complacency may be adopted, including changing the leadership structure (like we did in last chapter), adjusting the mind-set ( like HELM did ), revealing the techniques blind-spots ( professional training ), getting ready for the unexpected meteorology, and aiming for different culture inputs. The real strength a team can get through the study of complacency is to keep the open mind to any new clues and signs.

End of Chapter 10