Judgment
11-17-2013, 08:41 AM
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Judgment
JUDGMENT
Learn to listen to your gut: it knows something you don't
excerpt
Learn to listen to your gut: it knows something you don't
excerpt
…
Questions in respect of judgment in line operations are seldom addressed academically. What is judgment? How does it work? Is it a valid guide? What is its role in decisionmaking? Can it be measured and qualified? How is it measured and rated and by whom? What affects judgment? Where and how do we use it? These questions are rarely asked, let alone answered. Yet judgment is routinely cited during legal, enforcement and disciplinary actions.
So where do we go from here? To try to explain judgment is futile. It cannot be done: one cannot explain the inexplicable. It is futile to try to conceptualize a hypothetical working model in the absence of operating principles. The best one can hope is examine judgment, note observations and infer mental activity. To expect more is unrealistic. However, even such a relatively simple task could fill several volumes, an undertaking far beyond the scope of this work. Therefore, the intent here is not to exhaust this topic but to touch lightly on judgment and its role in decisionmaking, and to suggest arguments the line pilot may find useful in support of his position whenever his judgment is called into question.
Examination of cases in which judgment is at issue reveals that it is often confused with risk assessment. On the line, risks are routinely calculated and accepted. But whenever they result in a loss, judgment is often blamed even though the loss was the consequence of accepted risk. Such thinking is no more than an attempt to backtrack from the effects of probabilities after the results are in by shifting the responsibility to an "inexplicable mental defect." The true loser of such attempts is not judgment but risk assessment because it is denied consideration. The apparent need to shift blame to "bad judgment" is so strong, it often produces absurdity. Even when it is recognized and confirmed that risk assessment—not judgment—was the causative agent, and that it was sound(39), the line pilot continues to be grilled about the quality of his judgment, as if such attacks would somehow buy Management better "odds" in the future.
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In practice, judgment is validated every time it becomes a consideration in decisionmaking. Whether or not it is incorporated in a decision is irrelevant at this point. If it is considered, it becomes a potential guide. Its potential, however, is not always exploited. But should it be (exploited)? Should judgment be a factor of any, some, or all decisions? It is proposed that there are times when judgment should not be allowed to influence decisions. There are also times when it ought to be an integral part of decisionmaking. And there are times when only judgment can guide our decisions.
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(39) Probability calculations were correct and the accepted risk was within policy limits.
(G.N. Fehér, Beyond Stick-and-Rudder, Hawkesbury, 2013, p. 136-137, 161)
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