Confidence

The saying goes, ‘where there is smoke there is fire’. And we all believe in that, right? It can also be said with certainty that where there is a problem, there is a solution. That is just logical. If solution is not instantly available, immediate assistance from other parties is sought for. If immediate solution is very elusive, time will help to solve it as long as the problem is acknowledged and accepted by the parties involved in it. The problem will take care of itself over time.

As I mentioned in the last issue of our newsletter, we believe there are still measures that we can implement to mitigate, if not remove, the incidents, to prevent accident and to improve the overall safety and quality of life of our shipboard colleagues on-board our managed vessels. MMSM believes that the management of the vessel is not a one-way affair coming from the office alone. The vessel’s management is a 2-way traffic and a concerted joint effort between the shipboard staff and the shore staff. A huge dose of transparency, strong clear understanding and cohesive relationship are a must in order to create a bond of healthy and productive partnership. Therefore, it is necessary that both parties grow in management skills at the same time. While we are exerting all efforts to train and elevate the management expertise of shore staff through formal studies and specialized tutorial training’s, it is also my full belief that similar training and education shall be accorded to our seafarer colleagues. Otherwise a management imbalance could exist: no matter how excellently educated and trained the shore staff are, the absence of equivalent knowledge from shipboard staff will create quite a huge gap in the much needed good relationship and cooperation between both sides that could possibly result to gross misunderstanding and unwanted poor management which will obviously jeopardize the safety of crew and vessel.

I explained in the last issue the purpose of our standing invitation for the senior officers to sit in the office for familiarization, training and equipping them for each of their specific shipboard assignments. In this issue, I would like to explain another measure in MMSM’s strategic talent engagement program that we have started implementing this year : the Vessel Officers’ Workshop, aka VOW. This program is specifically catered for the senior officers and is limited to 8 officers per program. The program is composed of 2 phases: Phase one is the assessment of the learning needs of the participants, discussions on individual development plans and preliminary overview of the training; Phase 2 is the module composed of 2 full days and 2 half days engagements. The following are tackled during these four days: Leading with Confidence, Managing a Team’s Productivity and Cohesiveness, Meeting/Training Facilitation and the Culminating Activity. We as well now also include a half-day Personal Financial Management by professional institutions in order to educate our crew of the importance of proper management of your hard-earned money. The training, however, does not end in these four days, mates. MMSM will incessantly continue to monitor how each trainee has practically applied his learning onboard. Who will benefit in this dauntless task? Of course, all parties : your personal growth, your colleagues satisfaction in your good management, the safety of the crew, vessel and environment, your MMSM counterparts and, more so, the ship owners MOL, in general.