How do you know if you’re part of a shortcut culture? 👀
The answer is usually not super clear, because it’s a bit like pointing out water to a fish.
You don’t become part of shortcut culture because of one big decision.
It’s a series of choices that usually align themselves with the path of least resistance.
The problem is that shortcuts can work, until they don’t.
It’s a bit like what we discussed in our complacency article ⬇️
The line moves gradually enough that nobody notices it moving.
Until one day, something goes wrong… and everyone suddenly asks, “How did this become acceptable?”.
Experience can make this a slippery slope, as well intentioned professionals sometimes try to make things smoother, more efficient, and easier.
And aviation is particularly vulnerable to it.
Because the more routine something becomes, the easier it is for “efficient” to slowly replace “intentional”.
So the question becomes:
What are the signs of shortcut culture, why is it a bad thing, and what can we do about it?
💡 How Does Shortcut Culture Happen in 5 Steps?
Shortcuts don’t become the norm by accident. Let’s see what’s really happening:
1️⃣ A shortcut solves a problem
The reality is, there simply are situations where a shortcut can feel like it does make your task or workflow easier.
And that’s exactly the problem. This is the ‘hook’ that gets people in.
🔸 A software program that works better if you “just do x instead of y”
🔸 An FMS that is quicker with this little “trick”
🔸 Starting a turn below a minimum altitude to “be more efficient”
These can be as small or as big as you can think of, there are examples across the spectrum during a day of normal operations.
2️⃣ Nothing bad happens
After the shortcut or bad habit has started, the fork in the road will be whether there is a forced correction or not – i.e: will something go wrong?
If not, there’s a good chance that subconsciously we consider the shortcut to be ‘safe’ and the risk of it sticking around increases significantly.
That isn’t the case if you get caught out, in which case it’s easier to course correct and go back to what you initially thought was ‘more work than required’.
3️⃣ Others start copying it
If nothing bad has happened, over time, it becomes contagious.
You see a captain you fly with do it over and over again, and the aircraft deal with it,
The operation keeps moving, and nobody raises any alarms. Why would they? It’s starting to feel normal!
And that’s where something subtle happens: the shortcut stops feeling like a shortcut.
Especially for newer team members, who often learn “how things are really done” by watching others, not by reading manuals.
The dangerous part is that nobody involved usually thinks they are being reckless. They’re just learning from the environment around them.
4️⃣ The standards quietly change
After a period of time with more and more people adopting the shortcut, there comes a point where it quietly becomes the new standard.
The deviation no longer feels like a deviation.
The checks might have become less deliberate, the briefings don’t mention x or y anymore, and margins have quietly become smaller.
Usually there hasn’t been a specific moment where people realise “ah, we are now lowering the standard’.
It has just quietly crept in over time, and now it’s the norm.
But the danger is, “what everyone does” might be very different to “what the procedure intended to manage”.
That’s where the next and final step comes in.
5️⃣ An accident exposes the weakness created by the shortcut
The time it takes to get here varies massively. Sometimes nothing ever goes wrong.
But depending on what the shortcut is, it inevitably can go wrong.
When the difference between what is being done vs what was supposed to be done becomes large enough, the margins tighten and leave less room for error.
Accepting unstable approaches, taxiing quicker to make up for time, cutting corners, skipping checklist items ‘because it’s a nice day’, or starting turns too low to the ground. The examples go on and on.
Until one day, you get bitten, and even if you manage to get away with it, it sticks with you.
This is why accidents can be so shocking in hindsight, as external observers. But to those involved, what they were doing probably made sense to some extent.
Our best Notes from the Cockpit are only shared by email. Get them straight into your inbox, twice per month ⤵️
🔍 What are the Signs of Shortcut Culture?
Here are the things to look out for if you want to avoid shortcuts:
“We’ve always done it this way”
When you notice something that isn’t right, but the answer you’re getting is “we’ve always done it this way”, that can be telling.
Either the people around you don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing,
Or,
They’re trying to justify something they know isn’t quite by the book, but choose to do it anyway.
Efficiency is starting to win from intentionality
In what can sometimes feel like a world without enough time, always wanting to be more efficient can easily become a common thing.
It’s a curse and a blessing. But definitely also a curse.
It opens the door to more and more measures to optimise, wanting to improve, and shaving off workload here and there, but it comes at a cost.
Being intentional in what you’re doing, especially in aviation, helps you stay the course and do things properly. Always wanting to be more efficient can result in choices that you’ll regret making in hindsight.
What is being done daily no longer reflects Standard Operating Procedures
There are two things here:
What the SOP says
And:
What people actually do every single day
The bigger the difference, the higher the risk for mistakes, errors, and shortcut culture.
For most companies, there is always at least some small difference here and there. For extreme examples, SOP’s might be pure lip-service.
I’ve heard things like:
“The aircraft is like a car to me, I don’t need a checklist for that, do I?”
I’ve used that quote a lot during my time as instructor of how NOT to think as a pilot.
It illustrates the point perfectly. Sometimes, your thoughts and feelings aren’t relevant to an SOP that is often written in blood by those before us who made the errors and mistakes already.
All it takes sometimes is a reminder that we are standing on the shoulders of giants!
Speaking up feels uncomfortable
How easy is it for you to walk up to your captain, or your chief pilot, or colleagues, and call out the elephant in the room?
Would you be punished somehow, ignored, or would your feedback be embraced and taken seriously?
Small deviations no longer feel noteworthy
Over time, both the small and big deviation will stop feeling like a big deal inside a shortcut culture.
If you’ve gotten away with it for years, why would it even be noteworthy?
💥 What can You do to Address Shortcut Culture?
There are a few strategies that can help with actively addressing shortcut culture.
Verbalise intentions and checklists
One of the most straightforward ways to be deliberate is to voice your intentions and what you’re up to. Whether you fly single pilot or as a crew.
For multipilot operations, shared mental models are the building blocks of effective CRM, and can help with keeping each other on the same (correct) page.
But even flying by yourself, verbalising checks, briefings, and threats can train your brain to be deliberate in your actions.
Say what you do and do as you say!
Create an environment where speaking up is encouraged
We covered just culture before here ⬇️
If you foster an environment where everyone feels like they can speak up and challenge the system, you business will prosper because of it.
You cannot have a safe operation if people can’t express their doubts about what’s going on.
If you lay the groundwork to make sure concerns can be raised without fear, the system will take care of your operation!
Pay attention to small deviations
Even the small things matter. They usually tell a story about what happens with the bigger things too.
Not every shortcut causes issues, and that’s exactly the problem.
Because small issues don’t always feel like they need to be addressed to avoid a bad outcome, even if that’s completely untrue!
Small deviations can eventually lead to big deviations, and because there is no clear line of ‘where everything turns to $%^&” , this can be slippery slope.
Understand the WHY behind procedures
We’re obviously biased here on this topic, but understanding the why behind SOP’s can significantly help in actually adhering to them.
It’s harder to consistently do something over time if you secretly think “why the *&% do I even bother with this?”
Step 1 to avoid that place is understanding the why.
I’ve seen first hand that certain regulations in HEMS for example, weren’t very popular, until some of the pilots including myself actually understood why they were implemented, and what they were preventing.
Remember that speed is not the same as professionalism
Speed ≠ professionalism, I fell into this trap myself in HEMS.
It can feel like you’re improving yourself if you’re able to do things quicker. Or find out a way from A to B that’s way more efficient than the ‘normal’ way.
But the thing is, the resources and time it takes to do things by the book, is time and effort well invested 99% of the time.
Yes, we can probably shave off a few inefficiencies here and there, but when it comes down to it, you are gaining seconds.
Seconds, in an environment where tiny differences in how you do things add up to safety margins. It’s just not worth the risk just to save a few seconds here and there.
💭 Conclusion
Shortcut culture rarely looks dangerous while it’s happening.
That’s what makes it so tricky.
Most of the people involved are not reckless pilots trying to break rules. They’re usually experienced professionals trying to make things smoother, easier, and more efficient.
But aviation has a funny way of punishing small compromises eventually.
Maybe not today, sometimes not for years.
But margins quietly matter, even when nothing bad seems to happen now. It could happen tomorrow!
Our best Notes from the Cockpit are only shared by email. Get them straight into your inbox, twice per month ⤵️
0 Comments