What Managers can learn from Aviation

Last week I was flying my single-engine airplane from Eastern Italy when one of the large summer storms started to develop. Every pilot learns that this is a no-go area but once you are up in the sky and find yourself in this situation, you have to deal with it.

You have to start making decisions.

Decisions that are pretty black & white: Continue flying or land immediately, bypass the storm left or right, etc. There are many models to help pilots to make decisions but essentially, a rule of Perceive-Process-Perform is followed. It all starts with perceiving that something had changed, here I noticed a quick development of storm clouds. Secondly, evaluating its impact on intended flight, in my case the storm was moving in my way. Lastly, defining and performing course of actions, so I decided to climb and bypass the storm on the left side. And again, Perceive-Process-Perform. Repeat until solved.

A parallel to the business world

In my debriefing of the flight it struck me that Business Managers many times fail already on the first one: perceive that something had changed and the impact the change implies. A lot of data is being analyzed and presented in the most creative ways but the lack of impact assessment and actions amazes me. The interpretation into actions is what matters. Actions that are executed and monitored in real life, not just in a presentations, so the business can develop. Even if the action chosen is no-action at all.

The importance of deciding and acting

During that flight I made several decisions to act and requested change of course several times but also made decisions not to act but kept monitoring impact of those decisions too. And here is my learning point: Regardless if a business decision is To Do or Not To Do, it has to be made, implemented and monitored for impact.

“ No decisions, no development. Keep making decisions !”