Reflections from 30.000 feet

Last week in the flight from Helsinki to Oslo, as I looked outside the window, the sky looked clear, refreshing and serene. Nothing unusual at those heights. But this time I could not help clicking a picture. Thank you, dear iPhone. The flood of sunlight in the background made the view very clear and beautiful.

During this journey as I felt a bit too exhausted to write my usual office mails or even read the in-flight magazine, I decided to stretch a bit and take it easy. "Do nothing, stay calm", I muttered to myself. With a lovely view of the lonely sky to my left, I could not complain.

Aircraft's window is a great place to reflect. Much better than the noisy office desk.

The first thing that came to my mind were the words from John le Carre who had once said "A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."  Maybe the aircraft window was pushing for a parallel with the desk at the office? Clearly the words from Carre got me thinking. As I stretched even more and relaxed, some completely disconnected thoughts passed me by.

• Human mind: Nothing but human genius keeps a capsule weighing over 600.000 lbs flying steadily at 30.000 ft. We sip our coffee comfortably as in our home and completely indifferent to the strong winds outside the aircraft. This mundane experience that we take for granted is not just
  
  amazing but magical if you care to learn about the wind speeds and what it takes to control the aircraft. The best part of genius is that it has standardised something as complex as flying that it can be offered as a training to the millions of staff, pilots and engineers worldwide. 

• Connect & disconnect: Even though the weather in Oslo was cloudy, the view from 30.000 feet was completely different – bright, shinning and calm. Did this somehow point at the usual disconnect across various layers of managements? Most definitely, yes. Another lesson was this - the pilots in the cockpit manage such uncertainties by keeping in continuous contact
  
  with the ground control for information on weather conditions, wind speeds, traffic situation etc. They not only collect these inputs but act on them, for e.g., change flight path, decide on precise landing time, etc. How often do the top managements collect such raw inputs from the "ground zero" (within and outside the organisation) without the usual political filters of the middle management?

• Communication: Have you noted that all the communications in the aircraft (from the pilot or crew) so predictable? The same is true for their in-flight services. These consistencies are key to building trust with passengers. Our minds work in simple patterns. If you frequently offer "new patterns" to the audience, e.g., new style of communication and worse, new messages – you really do not offer a steady-state platform to build trust. For e.g. in large
  
  organisations, you can never really repeat your strategy and plans enough - but do you really care to repeat it after one ritual big-bang? Not really.  When managements experience “trust deficit” with rest of the organisation - they must check the consistency in communications, both in style and substance. Styles create first impressions and they are crucial. Substance is super critical, but that is the second step.

While style helps to inspire, substance helps to act.

• Solitude: The window seat is certainly much less noisy than the office desk with no distractions from friends dropping by or those movements in the foreground and background. The moments of solitude that a window seat
  
  offers are really wonderful in reflecting on how things are, how they are going, especially the complex, challenging and softer issues that skip our minds. In addition to a great feeling of relaxation, the view from window also pushes us to consider the "big picture", more stakeholders and in turn this offers us much richer insights and ideas for next steps.

• Have fun! Window seat is also great place for appreciating the mother nature. At 30.000 ft. it can be a heavenly feeling - something we do not get to experiece in traffic jams or the noisy workplace. And once the flight has descended more and we can see the small toy-like cars and buses moving around - the world looks like a little beautiful lego toy - in full
  
  motion. It also reminds us of our childhood and playtime, that we believe has left us for long time. Not really. All you need is one minute of unbroken view of the "baby like buses and cars" moving from (maybe) 5000 ft. in air. Not to mention the late evenings or night time landings and how beautiful the colourful city lights look. The window seat is so full of fun. And this refreshes the mind.

So many benefits of a window seat? Actually there are many more.