Jordan Wareham

Sr. Director Regulatory Compliance / 119 Director of Safety, Spirit Airlines

Jordan Wareham is the Sr. Director of Regulatory Compliance and the 14 CFR Part 119 Director of Safety for Spirit Airlines. Prior to Spirit, he was the Sr. Director of Flight Training at Hawaiian Airlines, where he oversaw pilot training on four aircraft programs (A321, A330, B717, B787) and supported the development and delivery of pilot leadership, command, and mentoring training for captains and first officers. He also chaired and facilitated the 2022 11th Annual Human Factors Roundtable in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Jordan has extensive experience as a ground instructor, simulator instructor, and FAA examiner. In addition to his 17 years of experience in commercial aviation training and safety, he holds a Master of Science degree in Organizational Performance & Workplace Learning (OPWL) from Boise State University. He is currently completing a doctoral degree in Organizational Development & Change (OD&C) at Bowling Green State University, focusing on conflict mitigation strategies at the organization, team, and individual levels. Jordan’s past conference presentations include “Death by PowerPoint – Reversing the Curse” at the 2017 International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI) conference in Montreal, Canada.

Generating Essential Conflict: How Creating Resilience Strategies Against Destructive Conflict Increases Operational Safety

While extensive training attention is paid to identifying and managing threats as part of the threat-error-management framework, little attention is paid to intrapersonal derailers, which threaten Interpersonal cohesion, team effectiveness, and the ability to maintain a mission mindset. This presentation looks at how individuals on aircrew teams often get distracted by failing to distinguish between essential and destructive conflict. Essential conflict is needed to rapidly and effectively address technical, mechanical, or human errors, omissions, or confusion. In the presence of strong power dynamics, essential conflict is often delayed or suppressed. This delay morphs essential conflict into destructive conflict.

When destructive conflict emerges, trust is lost. When trust is lost, safety is degraded as crewmembers are less willing to be vulnerable, identify threats and errors, and self-disclose when they are uncomfortable with an emerging situation. This presentation looks at ways to normalize the practice of essential conflict and prevent the slide into destructive conflict. Furthermore, it identifies proven personal resiliency strategies used in essential conflict situations. Lastly, it provides practical suggestions for restoring team effectiveness following destructive conflict and team breakdown.

These concepts were central components of pilot leadership and command training developed and delivered to a major United States airline. As part of the training, we successfully tested a theory and model of social resilience with flight deck personnel. We are now expanding our application to other areas impacting safety and performance. Specifically, we see an opportunity to create greater safety and resilience by linking the flight crew to cabin crew, dispatchers, and maintenance control, to respond better and anticipate disruptions.