The SWAPA Number
The SWAPA Number
3 (Professional Standards, Jon Ross)
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Today's SWAPA Number is 3, as in the 3 step technique that Professional Standards recommends using for conflict resolution out on the line. Listen in to find out what that technique is and how to use it.
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Today's button number is three. And the three stands for me, we, and you. Break number conflict resolution in and out of the camera. Each one of those has an important way.
SPEAKER_02Increase team. I'm Matt McCanns, and I'm Gwyn Wickline. Here's our conversation with John.
SPEAKER_01Well, John, welcome back from our look at the Professional Standards Committee. And the important work that your committee does day in and day out, we have quite a few new hires on property since the last time we talked. And we're hiring several hundred more this year. We have an upwards of 600 pilots going to upgrade. And all that means a lot of people in a lot of new roles here at Southwest. So remind us, what does your committee do and why is it so important for the membership and a benefit to the entire pilot group?
SPEAKER_00First of all, thanks you guys for having me back. I appreciate it as always. Uh and in simple terms, uh we're here to make things safer, more professional, take care of each other. I tell people all the time, if we don't take care of each other, who will? We are our brothers and sisters keepers. And sole existence for my committee is just to make sure that we treat each other with a level of respect and carry each other through the day. I will give you a living example of the culture. I have 12 people on my committee. My competition or brothers and sisters, depending on how you look at it, at other airlines, brand X, Y, and Z, in excess of 10 times the size of my committee. Wow. They have and one crew base that I have on my entire team. I'm here to handle things at the lowest level we can, conflicts, challenges, whether it is between pilots, flight attendants, provisioners, ops agents, dispatchers, instructors, you name it. I probably have someone I work with in all those different groups. If they have a union, I probably have a means to talk to that group, along with folks outside of unions, just to resolve stuff at the lowest level, to keep it out of the management's hands. Generally, management fixes everything with negative reinforcement. I'm not here to do anything about negative reinforcement. This is just pilots talking to pilots.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell One of the things I like to tell the people I fly with is that when we're on the road, we're family, right? And so as a pilot group, though, how are the pilot members of the family on a pairing doing? How are we doing?
SPEAKER_00I think we're doing very well. My call volume will ebb and flow, and it's very much a function of what's going on in society, along with what's going on in the company. We all have lives outside of Southwest Airlines. Sure. And whether it's politics, whether it's you name the hot item for the month that comes to work with all of us. We're generally type A people, we're passionate people. So when that comes to work with folks, if it's politics or religion, I'm not going to change your opinion. And we're pretty supercharged up about that's a nice way of saying we're passionate about what we believe in. So those are still hot topic items. Politics have been, they've been in the forefront here for probably to the better part of three years. Everybody seems to think of the person sitting next to them as thinks the same way they do. And they start waiting into politics, and that's generally an area we don't we don't want to go. Things have slowed down a little bit over the last year and a half, thanks to the contract. I think before the contract, life was very challenging.
SPEAKER_01Last time we talked about three different distinct types of interactions that tend to cause tension in the cockpit. Those are issues that arise due to pilot technique or the additive factors like a scheduling disruption or something like that. That can increase tension on the flight deck. And then to some of the more common people-to-people issues, and then of course social media. But let's start with that first one, flying-based stuff. What are we seeing there? And what are some of the common issues that come up with your day-to-day interactions when you hear about captains and first officers, pilot flying versus pilot monitoring, and so on?
SPEAKER_00So the basic crew conflict, it's still alive and well. Okay. Matt, you and I are flying together. And I do something that frustrates you. And it's day three of a four-day, and you call professional standards and go, man, um, John Ross does this consistently. And I'm like, okay, I'll here's some tools that I want you to take away. I'll have a conversation with him. I have a conversation with the captain. Hey, you're doing this, this, and this. That's frustrating your FO. The bulk of the time, man, it's absolutely not my intent. I did not mean to do that. Sure. And I will absolutely take that on board. But the biggest lesson to come away from those standard phone calls is when I reach back out to you. Because you went three days in the pressure cooker with something that you could have probably resolved right off the bat. Let's talk about recentering the heading bug every time. Sure. You're flying and I'm monitoring, and every single time I'm constantly up there touching your panel. Okay. And it just spins you up. It's like, dude, you're you're killing me, you're smalls. Don't sit there and let that build up to where every time I do that, by the end of the third day, I could solve world hunger. And your perception is that guy's such a tool because he constantly is messing with stuff that he shouldn't be messing with. If you'd have told me right off the bat, hey man, it's really going to help me out if when it's my leg, you let me control the MCP. It's going to keep me in the game a lot better because that's that's kind of where they taught us in the training center. So if we could do it that way, it'd really help me out. I want you to be your own biggest advocate and teaching people to be their own biggest advocate is it's not an easy trade. Some people are not confrontational. And teaching those people that it's not confrontational. No. This is a professional discussion. And I tell folks all the time, when I fly with FOs, hey man, I'm going to ask you after I read, what could I do different? I probably know what I'm doing well. I probably don't know what I'm not doing well. Have enough respect for me. You're not going to hurt my feelings at all. It's going to make me a better pilot. Let me know what I'm doing incorrectly. Let me know if I'm doing something that frustrates you. Breaking that wall down early, instead of going the 72 hours into the siege, toward that point, hey man, I could walk on water and you would go, see, I told you you couldn't swim. And there are times that I will wrestle conflicts with two folks that are it is not clicking to the point. And they both are professional enough to recognize it's not clicking. How did we get to that point? And you you look back and it's early communication.
SPEAKER_01Let's steer back to you mentioned the training center there. We, the pilot group, have gone through so many procedural changes in the last, call it 12 to 16 months. I mean, there has been a lot. And you have folks have been flying the 737 for 20 years, and some have been flying it for two years or two months. So back to that kind of like, how are we doing? I think we preloaded this when pilot flying versus pilot monitoring emphasis towards the end of the year, new procedures start coming out at the beginning of the year. Do we have a bit of a report card on how we're doing with all that?
SPEAKER_00We're doing well. Okay. I will tell you that we adapt well. We don't adapt quick, but we adapt well. And and we have to adapt. So the beginning of the year, it was a nightmare. There was there was the I've done this for 20 years and it's very effective. So yeah. VNASP 360. That transition has been painful. And I've had numerous uh conversations with the old dogs going, hey, look, you have to adapt. You owe it to yourself, the organization, and the person sitting next to you to adapt. You can't go by the way of the dinosaur. You have to step up and go, okay, is it frustrating? You bet. And I completely and totally understand that. I do CQ in January every year. And this year was I'm like, oh my gosh. We got all these new procedures. And okay, here we go. As every time I go to work, I have the saint for an FO that has the patience of an angel going, it's okay, dude, we'll get it.
SPEAKER_02Let's take a little bit of a different direction here. And let's just talk about more standard stuff that every work group has, issues that uh interpersonal issues we face daily. Sometimes somebody's just having a bad day in the cockpit, and sometimes people just cross a line in the sand when it comes to what they have to say about something demographically related. How are things trending along those lines for the Southwest Pilot Group? Are you seeing an uptick? Is it about the same? Or how are people treating each other on, you know, the big three sex, religion, and politics? I think we're doing okay.
SPEAKER_00Again, it goes back to look at our society right now, and we are a cross-section of society that comes to work. So I think we're doing okay. Is that something we can always work on? You bet. That's certainly something we can always improve on. We still have challenges. It's not all rainbows and unicorns. And a lot of times it is a tough outcome.
SPEAKER_01Sure. And we're going to talk about that s'more. And there's some things that are in your lane and some that aren't. But to be clear for everybody, remarks about race, color, gender, creed. Out of bounds, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's absolutely, first of all, unacceptable anywhere, especially in your work environment. So if it is a race, gender, color, creed, religion, any protected organization or class that violates company policy and that needs to go to company.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk about some best practices. We've talked about what some of the problem areas are that there, and we we know what those are. But the follow-up question and the more important question is how do you deal with them? So you're the expert here. What are some of those best practices to building a better cockpit, a better team for diffusing that tense situation and providing some constructive feedback during a pairing that can hopefully change a not so great situation into a workable one that everybody just goes home at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. And it all starts in the first 30 seconds that you show up in the cockpit. And this old fighter pilot with a white mustache. When I sit down next to the 20-something, okay, that probably could be a handful. Right off the bat, you're there to break down the walls. And if you are an older generation person, you probably need to work hard at it to make sure that the walls are broken down before it even starts. So that's the beginning of it. Hey, my name's John Ross. We're gonna spend the next four days together. And unfortunately, you do the short straw, mediocrity sitting three and a half feet to your left. Establishing that relationship early that we're here to talk, we're here to communicate. If I'm doing something wrong, let me know. You have to tear that down that wall before it's built. Let's be realistic. You're assigned to fly with that individual. You look at their employee number. You may go look at, okay, hey man, how long have they been here and how old are they? That's human nature. You probably want to know who you're, at least who you're sitting next to. So there's going to be some walls built and some ideas established even before you get to the cockpit. So how do I make sure that I tear down those walls before they start being built? The other part is if someone's frustrating you're doing something you don't appreciate, do not allow that to build. Fix it. I promise you, I don't know how often I get the individual is very condescending. Okay. I call the individual, and when I talk to them, they could certainly come across as condescending. They're just very direct. It's not their intent to be condescending. They're just direct people. And explain to somebody, okay, man, we've flown two legs. Just so you know, you're coming across pretty edgy on me. Have I done something that's out of line here? Okay. A professional is going to take that and go, absolutely not, man. If I'm coming across edgy, I don't, I certainly don't mean to be coming across that way. I'm just a very direct person. So explaining what you're feeling to the other individual knocks down all those walls before they once they start getting built, they're tough to break down. So the conversations I have is it's just people not talking. And the different generations communicate differently. So communication's the key to all of it. So take the don't let the walls get built. Have a conversation before.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, John, we talk about this every time we get a chance to. But uh when I'm finally fed up with the other pilot I'm flying with, and you know, I've tried some of the mitigation strategies, and it's just not getting any headway. I'm tired, I'm frustrated. Why is it important that I give you a call and your committee a call? What can you do for me?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, first of all, I can give you some tools to maybe help you wrestle through your frustrations. You can call and invent, and I a lot of times people will call and just they got to get it off their chest. And man, I'm I'm here to listen. I get it. Um at the end of that, though, let's have a conversation to go, hey, here's some ways to mitigate why you're frustrated. Here's some tools to think about. Like I said before, some folks are not confrontational. They don't like conflict. And they view them pushing back as conflict and teaching them that that's you're not being confrontational, you're standing up for yourself. You're making it a more professional cockpit by having an open flow of information back and forth. Yeah. So I will give them some tools. If that does not help, I tell them all the time, I work for you. If you want me to reach out to the captain, I will gladly, or the FO, whoever it is, I'll gladly have a conversation with that individual. They're probably gonna know who called me, just so you understand that. But I'm here to work for you. If that's not gonna work, okay, we're at the point where this is just not gonna happen. I tell them, okay, if things have broken down to where you're no longer an effective team, then it becomes a safety issue. And if we're at the safety point, only you can make that determination. But at that point, you need to call crew scheduling.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and what does that conversation with crew scheduling sound like?
SPEAKER_00You tell crew scheduling, I am happy to fly, but for safety reasons, I need to be given another captain. They're gonna ask, they'll put the knock chief on the line, the scheduler well. I have a great relationship with the knock chiefs. The knock chief is gonna go, okay, what's going on? And just tell them, hey, for safety reasons, I'm happy to fly, but for safety reasons, I need to be given another captain. They're gonna ask, what's the safety reason? And the reason they're asking that is, okay, it's not something egregious. It's just a it's a crew conflict issue. At that point, they'll go, okay, they will generally reroute the person that calls them. In that same breath, they're probably gonna tell you, hey, call John Ross. Those individuals will get separated. I don't want them to call me till the trip is done, if I've already talked to them. I will say, hey, finish the trip. And at the end of the trip, if you don't hear anything from the chiefs in a week, give me a call. And we're gonna go down this road. The reason I say that is the knock chief is gonna separate those individuals, and most of the time the knock chief is gonna send an email to those individuals' uh crew base chiefs. It's just a hey, separated John and Matt and Just an advisor. Not not huge details. Okay. The base chiefs are gonna have first chop at it, and rightfully so, their management. If they want to address it, they will reach out to the individual. Here's what I tell folks, and I tell them when I talk to them about getting separated. If their base chief reaches out to you, before you call them back, call your rep. Yep. Get your rep involved. Your rep is basically going to reach out to the base chief and find out what are they reaching out to you about. Additionally, the rep is also gonna tell the base chief, hey, John Ross will handle this if you want him to. And if the base chief wants to go, you know what? He can have it.
SPEAKER_01And does that happen? Happens all the time. All the time, right? All the time. All the time.
SPEAKER_00Uh and here's you view it from a base chief's perspective. So let's say both of you guys got separated on a trip, and I'm your chief in base X. If I bring both of you guys in, there's gonna be designated a winner and a loser, right? So I have lost one of the people that I'm gonna represent in my base. That individual's probably not, I'm not gonna have any credibility with that individual anymore, for the most part, right? So I have a winner or loser. If I'm involved, I have no skin in the game. If the base chief sends it to me, the base chief, you guys are still gonna be, he's my base chief, treated the same way. If it comes to me, I mean, I'm just on the outside looking in, going, how can we be better?
SPEAKER_02One of the things that we brought up last year was the me, we, you technique is a method to move forward through this. Yes, sir. Could you refresh us just a little bit on that? Give me a little bit more of a recap on what that means.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Okay. So, Glenn, let's say you and I are flying together. And let's say every time I key the mic, I Sasquatch grip the yoke. And it is horribly frustrating from your aspect. Okay, you're hand flying the airplane and it's bumpy, and now you're wrestling me every time you key the mic, your teeth cringe every time you know that there's gonna be a radio transmission, and you're battling me, the airplane, and mother nature all at the same time. How do you bridge that gap to get me to knock it off? How do I cross that bridge? So it's all in the delivery and how you ask that individual or communicate to that individual you don't appreciate what they're doing. So we're gonna do this in three phases. The first one is the me phase. And what I mean by that is use yourself as the reason to change the behavior and go, hey John, it is really gonna help me out if from a technique perspective, when you go to use radios, if you'd use a console switch or the cow switch and a max, instead of grabbing the yoke, it would really help me out because whether you king kong the yoke every time you key the mic in it is tough to fly the airplane. That is as t ball as it gets, right? You're using yourself as the example, but you're also telling an individual, I don't appreciate what you're doing. You're just using yourself as the the datum for the conversation, right? Okay, so that's the the me phase. Two legs later, I'm King Konging it again. And it's like, dude, you're killing me. At that point, now it's time to ratchet this up. So now we're gonna make it a wee conversation. At that point, you go, hey, John, I probably didn't make this clear enough before, but I don't think we're functioning real well as a team because I I asked you from a technique perspective to not gorilla grip the yoke, and yet you're you're still doing that. So I don't think we're functioning real well as a team because you're discounting you discounted my input before. I would really appreciate it, and I think it'd be more effective from a safety perspective if you take on board what I'm I'm laying down. That's the we phase. Now we've turned the heat up a little bit, right? Again, all in the delivery. You're being very politically correct as you're going down the road. The third time, we're done. And now it is the you phase. Hey, dude, you're not picking up when I'm laying down. I've asked you a couple of times to stop grabbing the yoke when you key the mic. And from my perspective, it is now a safety of flight issue. You've discounted my input as your crew member and as your peer. I don't think we're functioning as an effective or safe team. And I will gladly remove myself from this trip for safety reasons if you can't take on board what I'm telling you. That's the Mi Wii U phase. So it's nothing. More than people communicating. That's not written down anywhere. I just created that over the years of kind of the best way to wrestle through challenges. I will say this up front. If folks are not getting along, the company will never fault anyone for doing what they think is safe. You may have to explain it, and that's okay. We can talk about it all day long. But if a crew is not getting along and it is now a safety flight issue, call me. If you don't have time to reach out to me, after listen to this podcast, you hear the basics. That phone call to cruise scheduling is a challenge, and I understand that. But you're not alone. You're not the first person that's called cruise scheduling to do this. It happens all the time. Reflect on yourself and go, you know what, this is the best thing for the organization. Make the call.
SPEAKER_02Let me ask you another question. And this might rely more on your experience as a captain than as much as your role as being pro-stands, but from a first officer's perspective, when you show up in your in your first 30 seconds of that pairing, what can I do as an FO to improve our relationship or get it to start off on the right foot to let you know I'm not a line check first officer?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. First of all, this is going to sound corny. It all starts with appearance, right? If you show up and look like you're squared away, that is a statement of how you operate. So show up, you look squared away, you look professional. That initial greetings is critical in the simple fact of you tell the individual, hey man, I did this all the way through, even now as a captain. When I would meet captains, I would tell folks up front, hey man, I'm a JV player. Don't allow me to create a varsity problem. I'm learning everything about this industry, not just flying the airplane, but about the industry. Anything you can show or teach me, I would greatly appreciate. A lot of humility up front goes a long way. Asking people and explaining to people, hey, I would really appreciate your help. That's a huge statement because now you're letting that individual know up front, hey, I'm open to conversations. I'm not here to have it all suitcased, man. I'm here learning. All the rules are a classroom. And the day you stop learning is the day I think you become dangerous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. If anything's super clear with this discussion and discussions we've had with you in the past, is your committee, it's not seat specific, right?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Not at all. Um, all these messages are meant for everybody. They're they're not zooming in on one demographic, one age group, one seat position. No, no, no, not at all. Everybody has different things that they bring to the table, and we all have our different roles to assume uh while we're out there on the line. But I want to save this last topic because it is not the online world as far as flying airplanes, it's the online world that is digital media, social media, chat groups, text messages, forums, all these things also can fall under your purview. And we've been talking about this for years, but we're going to continue to talk about this because you emphasized it last year. We've heard it from contract admin. And if there's one way to really couch this, it's that when you're having a conversation with somebody face to face, there's room for benefit of the doubt. There's some context, there's nonverbal communication, there's all these things that you you might be able to walk something that you say back because of what is happening in the moment. Now, when that moment happens digitally and it is imprinted into the ether forever, that context can disappear. That hesitation that you could have had in real life is gone. And now we start to remove some of the benefit of the doubt. And that does not play well. So, what do you want to talk about this year on that topic?
SPEAKER_00First of all, I'll state this there is not enough time in the day for my committee to wrestle social media. So I will not allow my committee to become the social media sheriff. Social media is a choice, it's not a requirement for work. That's a decision you've made. If you type it, I say this all the time, let it sit on the keyboard overnight until you hit the send key. Because a couple Roman Cokes into the evening, you type it up and you think you got the world suitcased. If it's still sitting there the next morning and you reread it and think think the second and third order effects of what's going to happen when you hit the send key, probably don't send it. Um once you've send it, you're accountable for it. And it goes out to God and country, and there's no taking it back. You bring up a great point. There's no human interaction in the digital world. You can walk stuff back very easily. If someone says something, you're like, Man, I don't know if you meant to come across like that, but that's a bit edgy. You're holding that individual accountable right there. And I will tell you most of the time, that individual individual is going to go, man, I did not mean that. Let me reword this in another direction. So you can't walk it back and you're accountable for it. And I will tell you, nothing good comes from bad behavior. If you're frustrated, call me, man. Let me hear it. I'll I'll I'll be happy to sit there and let you get frustrated with things all day long. If you're frustrated with an individual and you put it out, next thing you know, okay, everybody jumps in on this without knowing any of the facts. I'm going to tell you that over the years there have been times that the factual information of what was behind the social media was they weren't even in the same galaxies. They were so far removed. And it's absolutely absurd with what occurred because bad news sells, right? You don't turn on the news and hear about all the wonderful things people are doing for each other on the planet. All you do is hear about all the bad things we're doing to each other because that sells. Same thing with social media. Amen. The WhatsApp chat, okay, and then John Ross did this. And it becomes the John Ross Bass X when you don't really know the background of what occurred in the first place. And I can tell you this, I don't do any social media, I get drugged into a bunch of stuff. And every time this happens, as I go through this and I find out all the facts and the information that's gone on, if the people that were involved in this knew the reality of what was going on in the background, they would eat crow all day long. Because some of these folks I know, and I know that that's not their personality, that's not their character, and yet if you knew the information about what's going on, they would be like, man, that was a that was a bad call. So I understand great things come out of social media, and I get it. There's very much a generational, I think, need. That's where folks communicate, that's where they get their information. But I would also ask folks temper that. If someone's hammering somebody on social media, let that go. Don't jump in on that. Just let that person vent on the keyboard and okay. The one thing I'll tell you, the person that vented on the keyboard, you're accountable for that venting. You can call me and it's just a conversation. We all have plausible deniability. It was just us having a chat. You bash away on a keyboard and then hit the send key, you will own that in some form or fashion.
SPEAKER_02All right, John, wrapping up today's conversation. What's one thing that our listeners, the pilots of SWAPA, should take away from what we've talked about today?
SPEAKER_00The one thing I would like for you to take away is that, you know, we all came here, you you you live life under the golden rule. You know, treat people like you want to be treated. Take care of each other. The first step, if you're having a conflict on the line and you can't sort it out, the first step in taking care of each other is call me. You can always escalate it. You can always take it in another direction. But I'm here to try to give you the tools to make sure that we do take care of each other. Because that's why we work at Southwest Airlines. We came here to be part of an organization that it's all about their culture. It's about taking care of each other. It's a great place. Make it a better place.
SPEAKER_02We'd like to thank John for taking time today to talk to us about the important work the Professional Standards Committee does every day on our behalf and why it's so important to talk to them first before you call a chief pilot. We say take care of each other, and this is one of the easiest ways to do just that. So, as always, if you have feedback about this podcast or any of our comp products, we'd love to hear it. You can drop us a line at com at swap.org.
SPEAKER_01And finally, today's bonus number is 12,000. That's the total number of pilots on property at Southwest Airlines by the end of July 2026. That includes all of our new hire first officers and captain upgrades. Pro Standards is for both seats, and we encourage everyone to continue to make them your first call if you have an issue with a coworker.