Decision Making
In this year's annual Ethics Forum at the Coast Guard Academy, the S/V Bounty incident was used as an example of poor decision making.
[Michael] Tougais tied together lessons he’d gathered from survivors and rescuers he’d interviewed over the years with a narrative of the HMS Bounty replica rescue during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
As the Bounty made preparations to depart New London, Connecticut, for Florida, Claudene Christian, a Bounty sailor, felt uneasy about sailing into a hurricane, as her e-mails to family later showed. But, the captain had offered for anyone on the crew not comfortable sailing to meet the ship in Florida, and the entire crew declined the offer. The Bounty ultimately sank off the North Carolina coast in the midst of Hurricane Sandy, and Claudene did not survive.
“Never ignore your intuition,” Tougais cautioned, explaining that intuition is a clue that comes from your subconscious. “We ignore our intuition at our peril.”
The Bounty had been through hurricanes before and as the captain prepared for the voyage, he felt his ship could go around Sandy, not realizing it was too wide to circumnavigate. As Tougais warned cadets, there were two very important lessons to learn from the captain’s mistakes.
First, “do not project past outcomes to a current situation,” he warned.
He encouraged the cadets to analyze even the most subtle elements of each situation, even if it is very similar to a past circumstance.
Second, “Sticking to a plan can lead to a disaster,” he said.
The plan was to sail to Florida; a hurricane was not a part of the plan. Tougais advised that it’s better to be adaptable, so you can respond to new information, instead of staying so focused on the original goal that you ignore the new information.
Some good points made at this forum.
While instinct is based on experience, good decisions are based on an good evaluation of the facts.
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