[QUOTE=PMC;128316]Respectfully, I am having trouble envisioning a scenario where a captain is sitting down with a third mate to determine a course of action.
Before I became a mariner, I was in the corporate world. And before that I obtained an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree that both required taking a course called “Organizational Behavior”. After entering the corporate world I spent 20 years working with and for people who had similar degrees and had taken similar organizational behavior courses.
I can say with confidence that the “Organizational Behavior” I learned about in the classroom was a fantasy in the real world. At sea, I have found bridge management to akin to a quarterback calling a play in the huddle. The coach on the sideline and the QB on the field have made a decision and my job is to execute a pre-determined role.
As a green third mate, in my first contract, I was fired for not avoiding some bad weather. And then I was rehired after the folks ashore figured out that I had been the scapegoat for something beyond my control. No “shared mental model” there. Only a “reality model”.
In fact I am having considerable difficulty recalling any “shared mental model” in any environment where someone is the superior and everyone else is a subordinate or a subordinate to a subordinate.
But if my grade depended on it, I could write a freakin thesis about how it works.
In the case of the Bounty the coach on the sideline was nowhere to be found and the quarterback called a play that defied any logic. And had deadly consequences.
If only they had asked the third mate what to do…
Kumbaya[/QUOTE]
A good example of BRM is the Cosco Busan. The plan was (or should have been) to pass under the Bay Bridge between the towers. Instead the pilot steered the ship into a tower. Had there been a track-line on the ECDIS or chart, everyone would have been on the same page (shared mental model) and when the ship appeared not to be following that track (which is exactly what caused the C.G. VTS to speak up) someone could have or should have spoken up and asked WTF…
The pilot is obviously not going to ask the third mate what to do but the third mate can certainly look at an ECDIS display and determine if the ship is on track or not.
With the Bounty incident I agree that the captain is not going to sit down with the third mate to determine a course of action. However once a some kind of plan has been made it should be laid out in such a fashion that other officers can evaluate and question it. Once the plan has been put into action it needs to be monitored and if the plan is going off track the officers need to speak up.
My experience sailing as a junior officer is much the same as yours. When I first sailed third mate I already had considerable experience both on deck and in the wheelhouse as mate on tugs and other smaller vessels. A majority of the deep-sea academy senior officers had their heads too far up their ass to take advantage of my experience.