International award for Waikanae resident

For the past 30 years, Werner Naef has been working with airlines and other high stress sectors helping them to train staff on how not to “crash and burn”, both literally and figuratively.

A Waikanae resident, Werner is a specialist in human factors training, which is all about being able to detect early warning signs of stress in others, and then helping them turn the corner psychologically back to being a contributing member of the team.

Werner is himself a former international airline pilot, and a fighter pilot from the Swiss Airforce. He started studying engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and during a career of 32 years was a pilot, instructor, fleet and training manager with Swissair. He became involved in human factors training since taking a postgraduate degree in psychotherapy, and since then has worked with many companies worldwide, including German Rail, Lufthansa, Swiss Rail, Zurich Airport, Maennedorf Hospital, and in Australasia, Aviation Services, NZ Civil Aviation, Ministry of Civil Defence, NSW Railcorp, and Sydney Ferries. Last month in Spain, he received a prestigious award from the European Association of Airline Psychology in recognition of excellent achievement, only the second individual ever to receive such an award in the Association’s 28 year history.

Mr Naef says that it was quite clear that despite the professional training which may be poured into pilots, train drivers, doctors, and engineers, and even members of the defence corps, traumatic accidents still do happen.

“Why is this?” he says. “Research tells us now that despite hours of training on the job and in the simulator, individuals under stress often make strange decisions which can lead to disaster. A strange dominant logic guides them, and most of this is developed in early childhood.

“Some people call it reverting to ‘type’ but it is much more than that. This logic takes over and people make decisions which sometimes result in catastrophe,” he said.

“Using a programme called process communication, I have been helping people who work in those critical industries to recognise when they and others are under stress and how they cope with those situations. Often we can actually predict how they will behave, and this is where the research findings are so important. By being able to predict likely behaviour, we can contribute to solutions which stop that happening, and thus reduce the risk of accidents or catastrophes, such as the Chernobyl disaster.”

Mr Naef says that everyone gives off early warning signals when they are stressed. This may be the way they speak rather than what the actually say. It can be their demeanour or their behaviour. It can be the way they react to other people or to situations…. A key to this is to understand their personality, which is part of the process communication model.

“Once we understand their personality, we can predict how those people will behave in stressful situations. It is clinically definable and we can take steps to reverse the process, so that the person moves out of the stress and back into the ‘I’m ok, you’re ok’ mode, contributing again as a positive member of the company team.”

The process communication model has been so successful in the USA and Northern Europe that is now attracting attention in Australia and New Zealand.

“The programme was originally used by NASA, to ensure that astronauts had good compatibility and could cope with stressful situations when they were thousands of miles away from the world, and working and living together in very close quarters,” Werner said.

Now the programme has moved on to corporate business when managers and employees often develop problems simply because they cannot communicate to each other in the right language and at the right level.

“Understanding your staff, communicating with them at the right level, and then motivating them can contribute to huge improvements in productivity”, he said.

“New Zealand productivity is among the lowest in OECD countries. We are below both Australia and America in our productivity yet everyone tell us they are working flat out. The key is to work smarter and motivate people to increase their output, and the right communication is the key to doing that.”

Swiss born Werner and his wife Andrea moved to New Zealand in 1983. “We came to New Zealand as part of a conference speaking opportunity, and we took a short tour of the country while we were here. The result was that we were back within one year, and settled in Waikanae.

“Coming from Switzerland to New Zealand was like combining two paradises – each country has its uniqueness and we very much enjoy living in the Kapiti Coast region, although we do still have business interests in the northern Europe and travel frequently,” he said.

Mr Naef said that his award is a lifetime achievement for him. “To be officially recognized by your colleagues and contemporaries is the highest compliment of all, and to me, it charges my batteries for the continuing task we have of bringing human factors training to the forefront in the minds of managers in Australia and New Zealand.

“It is a modern trend but more and more managers are now recognising the value of having healthy, happy and motivated staff to deliver superior output and better results. They understand that people management is different from project management and that they need to have a sound understanding of fundamentals of the way people operate,” he said.

 

For further information, please contact Werner Naef, tel 04 905 0084 or Geoff Mowday, tel 09 480 8960. Go to www.eaap.net  for the full award announcement from EAAP.