7 career and leadership lessons I learnt from Pete Allum and his canopy piloting course

Among skydivers' world, Pete Allum is a kind of legend and one of the most well-respected professional in the field. His name was repeatedly mentioned by a lot of the most experienced skydivers I've met all around the world long before I attended his course last week. I had high expectation with all the comments I've heard about him and his courses. Now I can say, it indeed worth all my time, efforts, including the 13-hour flight from Asia to Spain. But apart from the solid parachute piloting knowledges and skills I've learnt from him, Pete is also a very inspiring role model as someone who achieved excellence in his professional career, as well as being a great leader.

Below are the 7 things I've learnt from Pete, which are transferrable to career and leadership development in all fields out of skydiving.

1. Build strong fundamentals, master and build muscle memories for the very basics. During my courses, there were skydivers with thousands of jumps experiences, but I was surprisingly found Pete still emphasized to them or refreshed their memories about those basic maneuvers, safety rules, and aerodynamic knowledge with canopies. And people still found useful and valuable no matter how experienced they are. When we gradually gained more experience in our own professional area, we easily started to get bored and to look for more fancy and sexy things to keep our curiosity and fulfil our sense of achievements. But a lot times, we either did not build strong enough foundations, or gradually forget about the very basic principles, which in long-run would turn out to be an obstacle to our development, or even lead to irrational or dangerous decisions. Keep seeking improvement and changes is exciting, but do not forget to go to the very basics when we are hobbling forward.
2. Excellence does not simply build from your time spent and experience you had in the field, it comes from good preparation, frequent self-reflection, and being accelerated with scientific method. Every time when I arrive a new dropzone, I always spend a bit time using Google map to memorize the landing area from satellite view to help me landing more accurately. I always thought it was the kind of "not cool" thing that would only be done by some greenhand like me. Until I learnt that Pete not only does that, but also with a more professional version of Google Pro to even measure out every single spot on the landing pattern with a ruler, and would consider all possible scenarios of wind conditions with different speeds and directions. He told that every seemingly amazing performance or missions impossible, were achieved from detailed, sophisticated, and sufficient preparation like such. Same as Alex Honnold's Free Solo, see how much practices, experiments and notes he took before he actually went free solo. Every light-lifting gestures are actually from repeated practice, reflection from mistakes, and only take very well-calculated risks.
3. Keep open-minded, keep curious, keep learning. I was amazed to see someone with Pete's experience, who started skydiving more than four decades ago before the first family computer was released, uses so much technology and even data science to support his performance and to guidance our improvements. Pete uses various kinds of apps and devices to support our piloting and track our performance data; he observed our glide ratio, pattern, speed, dig into details to help us identify potential issues and guide us with necessary improvements supported by data. He mentioned his team is also developing a VR kind of device to help skydivers to identify the best flare spots. It is not coincidence how someone become excellent and someone is just reasonably good.
4. As a leader, you do not just simply give instructions or conclusions; there is a tolerance level of errors to encourage experiments, creativity, and give people some patience to learn -- but maneuvers against basic safety principles are strictly forbidden. Senior like Pete in the field, he can simply tell us you do this in case A, and do that in case B... and people would generally feel appreciated and follow it. But Pete does not easily give answers, and a lot time, he would say I do not know the answer. Rather, he gives us basic principles and tools, and encourages us to find out by ourselves, to experiment and practice, to reach our own conclusions under different scenarios. And a lot times, there is no fixed answers, there is only general rules to follow, and to use those tools to accommodate different and more complicated environment and circumstances. I could not land accurately in the spot Pete assigned us for a lot of my jumps, he kept telling me I did a good job and kindly helped me reframe my landing patterns. But when one of the most experienced trainee used his rear risers to land without any previous practice (instead of cutaway immediately when he found out his brakes did not work), it was the only time I saw Pete spoke with a bit harsh tone and warned him the risk he was running - with just one-second difference, he could have broken his back already. I do not know Pete's leadership or people management credential, but I found it has some similar way with my first department head, and lifetime mentor Matthew Hosford , a senor banking professional with abundant people management experience, and a Harvard MBA graduated similar time when Pete started skydiving. When I began my banking career in Matt's team, I was very fortunate to be mentored by him. Same as Pete, Matt did not simply give instructions, he gave us tools, and encourage us to learn and make decisions by ourselves. As long as the overall direction was correct, Matt did not stop us from the way you were doing things - there was a tolerance level of mistakes or not being perfect - he wanted us to experiment and learn and reflection from mistakes. By this way, what the skill Matt helped us to developed is transferrable and lifelong; and many times we can be creative with solutions and exceed his expectations.
5. Worst leader lead with authority, average leader lead with good technical skills, good leader lead with a development plan for the team; great leader lead with vision, passion and charisma. Being the course instructor and senior professional in the area, Pete never gave us such feeling of authoritarian pressure, or made orders. His course content could be heavy, but the atmosphere was light and cheerful. His experience and knowledge, meanwhile his humbleness, curiosity and career aspiration, brings us inspiration and strong self-motivation to discover, and to enjoy what we do. We were happy to try, to make mistakes, to share, to achieve small milestones together, like friends, but with respects and admiration. It reminds me of Jorge Tapia -- another great leader I've encountered in my career, and the toughest and most demanding boss I've ever had - in a good way :) -- their passion, vision and personal charm, gives the teams the strongest motivation and drives to seek excellence even during most difficult and uncertain times. When I attend MBA in INSEAD a few years ago, there was a leadership development grogram we were mandatory to attend. We were grouped into teams of five, and assigned multiple tasks. As all smart ambitious MBA students were confident that themselves should be the leader of the team and all started this role-playing game to "lead" the other team members, it became to some extend chaotic. We later learnt the lesson that the best leadership skills is to lead without using authority or power. It is a kind of respect and influence we earned through what we do, how we behave, what we share and bring, both as a person and as a professional. The leadership does not only applies to our subordinates, but also our peers, co-workers, and our bosses. You could not see it explicitly, but you are leading.
6. No matter how good you've already been in your area, do good marketing for yourself. Pete's sound reputation has already widely spread by word of mouth by all the skydivers he has trained, but Pete was never lazy in sharing his passion in the sport and promoting the flight-1 courses. He is a brilliant user of social media, as well as with great interpersonal skills to build connections with his existing and potential students.
7. Always have fun with what you do, make yourself be surrounded with great community and people with passion and energy! Echo the Leading with Heart lesson from professor Gianpiero Petriglieri from INSEAD Reunion earlier this month, Faith and Friends!