3: The wrong lever

During the Second World War, the US Air Force had a serious problem - military bombers were getting damaged after landing. 

The frustrating thing was the missions had been successful - the bombers landed safely. 

But then, whilst slowing down on the runway, the landing gear would retract, causing the planes to collapse onto their undersides, wrecking the fuselage.

After malfunctioning equipment was ruled out, fingers were pointed at the pilots - the hypothesis being they were distracted, careless or unskilled. Solutions focused on training, in the hope they'd stop making the mistake.

But accidents continued.

Enter Alphonse Chapanis.

Alphonse was a psychologist working with the US Army. And he noticed something intriguing - these accidents were mainly happening in bombers, and specifically in the B-17 bombers. 

Coincidence?

Alphonse examined the accident reports, spoke with pilots and compared the cockpits of different aircraft. 

And he noticed a pattern - the mistakes were occurring more often in planes with a particular arrangement of controls. After landing, pilots needed to retract the wing flaps. But in the B-17s, the controls for the flaps and landing gear were right next to each other and looked and felt identical. So, a pilot intending to raise the flaps could accidentally move the landing-gear control instead. The wheels would fold back up into the plane whilst it was still moving.

To test his theory, Alphonse redesigned the controls. He attached different shaped handles to the landing-gear control and flap control.

Whether it was their changed look or feel, pilots could now quickly distinguish between them. 

And guess what? Accidents decreased.

So, why are we talking about landing gear?

Well, I'm sure you've already connected the dots, but this story shifted attention away from the pilot and towards the environment. Instead of trying to solve the problem by improving the pilots, Alphonse changed the aircraft controls. 

The pilots weren't more skilled. They hadn't memorised a new procedure. They weren't trying harder. 

Their environment changed.

And this story provides a similar paradigm shift to that which L&D needs to make.

Are skills important? Yes, of course. 

But when it comes to performance, they're secondary to the environment, both in importance and order of implementation.

And as we enter a world in which performance is not only down to humans but also AI, this represents a change in how L&D must start thinking.

Yours,
- Ant