Seaman's Guide to Human Factors, Leadership, and Personnel Management

Jose Rodriguez Cordon

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429516207
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Gesundheit & Sicherheit in der Industrie

Training and certification for Seafarers has been founded on technical aspects, but maybe the most important thing to do aboard a ship is dealing with people. This book, written with seamen in mind, covers areas of expertise that every officer should know to improve motivation, engagement, teamwork, and conflict handling; in short, to be a leader. This book also covers the new requirements for every officer or merchant marine and can be used in courses on this topic. It focuses on seafarers' needs and the language used, avoiding the excessive use of psychological terms, yet keeping the accuracy.

Features

• 
  
  

• Covers new requirements for every Merchant Marine Officer
• Written for and by a seaman, with the accuracy of a psychologist
• Presents knowledge on how to improve motivation, engagement, teamwork, and conflict handling
• Includes how to manage people in emergency situations and avoid the loss of lives, like the disaster of Costa Concordia and Estonia

1	Introduction

For years, technological advancements have fueled a real revolution in the field of navigation, far surpassing any progress on training and the preparation of crews, especially officers. Recently, at the second Atlantic Stakeholder Platform Conference, held in Brest (France), Cordon, Mestre, and Walliser (2015) presented an updated study on the merchant fleets of Euro-Atlantic countries and Canada, analyzing accidents and maritime incidents from 2012 to October 2015. They concluded that 85% were either directly caused or aggravated by human error.

Fortunately, international agencies are becoming increasingly aware of the huge importance of the human factor in shipping accidents. Additionally, shipping companies are recognizing that the training and preparation of officers do not represent a cost, but an investment that increases the security and productivity of ships.

In this regard, in 2010, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) clearly stated that:

The key to maintain a safe transport environment and keep our oceans clean is all sailors around the world observing high standards of competence and professionalism in tasks they perform on board. The International Convention on standards of training, certification, and Watchkeeping for seafarers 1978, as amended in 1995 and again in 2010, sets these rules, and regulates the granting of certificates and control mechanisms of the guard. Its provisions apply not only to seafarers, but also to owners, training institutions, and the national maritime administrations. (IMO, 2010, p. 9)

However, the greatest stimulus to developing this manual was certainly the latest revisions to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), which included, for the first time, aspects of non-technical training, such as personal, group, and leadership skills. These amendments, known as the “Manila Amendments,” refer to

• Bridge resource management
• Management of machine room resources
• Leadership and management skills

Introducing these amendments requires IMO member states to pursue policies of seafarers’ training focused not only on the technical aspects of managing the bridge, but also on other responsibilities performed on board.

The Manila Amendments, whose implementation is compulsory for all signatory countries, are being applied unevenly across countries. Some nations have specific preparation courses, master courses, while other countries include the subject as part of a regular training course. The fact is that no manual has been compiled that includes everything necessary to prepare these materials with the necessary guarantees, the norm being the dispersion of knowledge with no connection to legislation. This manual attempts to be a text written by and for mariners, but with the rigor of a psychology text. This has been the primary motivation for this work: the creation of a complete manual, with the thoroughness of a scientific psychology text, but with seafarers in mind, and specifically tailored to their needs. This book is not intended for psychologists (apart from those interested in work and organizational psychology), although it has been written by one. It is possible that for a psychologist some topics lack sufficient depth, but that is not its purpose. The goal is the merchant navy officer’s needs, in areas in which modern psychology can help them.

This manual has been authored by a sailor with seamen in mind.

Chapter 2, probably the most profound in psychological concepts, is devoted to leadership. This is because the Manila Amendments place leadership first and it is certainly one of the most important concepts that an officer must focus on. Lately, the study of leadership has become very fashionable, as the proliferation of the phenomenon of coaching and gurus has extended to all types of businesses, as if it were a panacea for almost everything in corporate management.

This has meant a veritable explosion of literature on leadership, especially since the modern approach is centered, above all, on transformational leadership.

However, as the reader will observe, this concept is not the most important.Instead, more attention is paid to models that might be considered more classic, or at least, not fashionable at present. This is because aboard a ship the leadership has restrictions that are not present in a multinational company. For instance, the teams are fixed and normally we will not train them at our will, nor will we make decisions about the governance imposed by companies, nor the embarkation periods, or many other factors that would be necessary if we want to apply the concepts of transformational leadership on board. That is why I believe that contingency models, where leadership adapts to circumstances, are the most useful for seafarers.

Chapter 2 also includes a section on leadership in emergencies, focused on passenger ships, where it is essential to understand the mechanisms of fear and how crowds behave.

Chapter 3 is devoted to teamwork and the study of groups and their phenomena, since it is difficult (as they do in coaching, for example) to explain how teams work without first understanding the dynamics that drive groups, and how people act when they are in groups. A discussion follows on how to build better teams and how to make them work, always with the ultimate goal of job satisfaction and productivity.

Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the Manila Amendments, I consider knowledge of multiculturalism essential to becoming a leader and being able to manage teams, because crews are increasingly more diverse and it is essential to understand how people from different cultures, some radically different, work together. I have also included a section on women and their role on board, since we are seeing an increasing number of women joining the fleet.

Chapter 4 addresses what I consider the most practical part of the manual, the study of the human factor on board ships, which would not be complete without an in-depth examination of the psychosocial factors that a sailor must face. If these are not identified, the rest of this book does not make sense, because it is on these conditions that life and work on board hinge.

To conclude, Chapter 5 looks at the Vessel Traffic Services (VTS), since many sailors become traffic operators. The VTS have some shared characteristics with the workplace on board, but other characteristics are logically different.

All recommendations in this manual are addressed to officers, shipping companies, and national administrations, from a psychological perspective.

I hope that maritime students find this manual useful in completing their studies in this field; included are some tips and suggestions that they can use in their daily lives on board ship. I also hope that teachers in the official training institutions will find all pertinent information in this book rather than having to search through multiple documents, and that it helps them in their teaching tasks.

References

• Cordon , Jose R, Jose M Mestre , and Jorge Walliser . 2015. “Human Factor: The Key Element of Maritime Accidents (PDF Download Available)”. In Atlantic Stakeholder Platform Conference, Brest, France.
• IMO. 2010. “STCW Guide for Seafarers.”

2	Leadership

Leadership is one of the most recurring topics in human resources literature today. For sailors, leadership is something that occurs naturally on board ship and it is probably the key concept in this type of organization.

If there is any workplace where the concept of leadership has been better developed it is on board a merchant ship, and in the military, where the hierarchy of personnel is even more pronounced. The characteristics of a seafarer’s work environment are so special that the concept must be adapted to each work place. The isolation, the interdependence, and the limited availability of resources make a ship a closed system where the concepts of leader and typical leadership that are handled in the conventional literature must be adapted to their own field.

2.1 Leadership on Board

Leadership development is an increasingly common concept in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in organizations, and in universities where many programs have been devised to develop effective skills for leaders of groups and projects.

Leadership development teaches potential leaders how and when to lead. It teaches them when to be a leader and when to be a follower, how to lead by example, and the dynamics of being a leader within a group.

Leadership development is for people who wear many hats. In the maritime field, leadership has always been a skill that must be learned on board, but with mixed results, since on many occasions there has been a lack of a good role model or simply insufficient inborn leadership skills.

Traditionally in the merchant navy, leadership is imposed by the shipowner who decides a captain’s and officers’ positions; however, this does not guarantee that the crew’s functioning as a team will be effective, espe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Author
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Leadership
• Chapter 3 Teamwork
• Chapter 4 The Psychological Challenges of Life on Board
• Chapter 5 The Case of VTS
• Index