Be reliable - your life may depend on it

It was one of those days when I came to appreciate the reliability of the teams I worked with.

The Gulf of Aden in 2010, we were on a morning flight looking for suspicious ship movements as part of the EU's anti-piracy mission. A mission we had done so many times before. The weather that day was, unfortunately, as so often at this time of year - it is monsoon season, rather mixed.? It was rainy and the clouds were overcast.? This kind of weather in the gulf doesn’t really make you want to go flying. And the probability of discovering pirate activities does not increase under these conditions either.? Anyway, the mission was clear and the merchant ships relied on our presence to offer protection.

So in the early hours of the morning we went airborne - technical term for take off for a flight - and flew west along the Gulf of Aden. A good hour after take-off not much had happened. We were focused on the mission and were watching the air and sea space for anything that looked suspicious, when suddenly a strong smell of fire streamed through the cockpit. It smelled like scorching cable insulation. Penetrant, you may know this smell. It rises deep into your nose and makes you wanna puke. Now, a cable fire in the cockpit or in the aircraft, no matter where, is not the best news, no matter where you are currently in flight. A good 80NM - about 150km - away from the only safe landing site - your own ship - in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, with Yemen on the one hand and Somalia on the other, this quickly develops into a delicate situation. Extinguishing a cable fire is a challenge even under “normal” conditions on the ground. The fire extinguisher that we had on board was more like a “toy” in view of the task of extinguishing a cable fire. Somewhere - we didn't know exactly which cable burned where - behind the dashboard - technical term for instrument panel - something was going on and we better find it right quick. And usually electricity also flows in the cables, which is needed for something on board the aircraft. At least most of the time.

So what to do??

The good thing about our flying was that we had good emergency procedures for all sorts of emergencies.So it smelled more and more of cable fire and you could slowly see some smoke rising behind the instrument panel. Very bad!? Ergo, action required!

Emergency procedures were applied, the checklist was taken out to check that all the necessary steps had been completed, the flying pilot was given - yes, in this case I was sitting on the left and was responsible for the navigation, radar etc - the rough direction towards mother - technical term for own ship with a landing deck. Off to mom - a flippant technical term for your own ship with a landing deck. In the hope that the measures we had taken could contain the cable fire. That was not certain at the time. You have to know that we did not know the exact position of mother at that time. It was too far away to be seen on our Radar. Here we are slowly getting into the real subject. We had to rely on the fact that Mother would be at the planned and agreed position for our return, which we discussed in the pre-flight briefing - technical term for agreement between ship and helicopter before the flight about who, when, what to do and where to go after the work is done.

What if not?? What if mother is not exactly in the agreed position?? What if Mother is not reliable?? Then our problem would quickly have become uncontrollable and therefore complex. An emergency landing in Yemen was just as unattractive as one in Somalia, the four of us agreed on that.Only option was to find mom. We had to rely on our skills and on our arrangements with the ship.

Reliability became vital.

After many more minutes of flight, the weather was still bad, we got radio contact with our ship again, made the obligatory emergency call and again relied on Mom to pick us up. The childhood sends its regards, mom will sort it out.

Fortunately, it seemed as if we had operated the right switches and taken the right measures to stop the scorching cable from stewing and developing into a full-blown fire. One less burden, we hoped.

Meanwhile mother confirmed our emergency call and steamed towards us at top speed. 30 minutes later we had them in sight and began the preparations for landing, which in this case were carried out more precisely and carefully than under normal circumstances. We still had to account for the worst to come. An engine failure during landing or approach due to the cable fire would have made our day.?

The rest is history and we found ourselves safe on board after a gentle landing. Packing gear and cleaning up.The tension eased and the high fives were exchanged. Back for Tea and Medals as we always said in the UK.

Of course there is more in the story than just reliability but let′s just stay with that for the moment.

In addition to our ability, our knowledge and the trust we had among us, reliability was a strong pillar of our cooperation. Imagine what had happened to us if we had had to worry about the ship being not there to pick us up. It would have taken a lot if not all of our brain power needed to fly the helicopter and complete the mission. The reliability of the ship and its crew saved our lives. Already at the start of the mission it gave us the certainty that someone is there to look after us. Someone whom we could rely on. That gave us security and confidence. And this security and this trust allowed us to focus on our mission, our task. We didn't have to worry about getting back on board safely because the ship - mom - wouldn't be where it should be. Like mom back in childhood. Mom was always reliable. That gave us security as a child, let us grow.?

As banal as it may sound, reliability is key to trustworthy and efficient cooperation in teams and today's leadership.

Because it gives the security to focus on the task. Reliability allows trust to be gained, and trust creates the basis for cooperation. When your colleagues and employees trust you, the effectiveness of the entire team increases letting high performance arise.

The principle is easy and foremost, it works. If we could build on reliability in the missions back then, why shouldn't we as leaders not do this in our everyday work with the teams? What reason is there to deny this to the people with whom we work. From my point of view, reliability is also indispensable in everyday business life and leadership and a component of good, trusting and goal-oriented cooperation.

Dear executives, leaders and managers, be reliable. Stand by your word, do what you say. Sometimes it is painful, not easy, but it gives everyone safety, which builds trust and boosts team performance. The less your employees and your teams are concerned and burdened with uncertainty, the more “brain power” there is to cope with achieving the objectives.

You can do this! It is worth a try…..