When you encounter turbulence

“We are encountering some turbulence. Please keep your seatbelt securely fastened...”

Have you heard this public announcement from an air stewardess?

Expected weather conditions, unexpected clear air turbulence, and such predictable and unpredictable weather have become more frequent. When your business, your deal-making plan, and your global ambition like an aircraft enter a turbulent zone, what are you going to do?

One recent experience got me thinking.

I was invited to visit a startup park inside the Shanghai FTZ, and the park was dotted with lush greenery, well-cared perennials, and sparkling office buildings. In short, it’s the start-of-art modern life science park you may imagine seeing in any of the world-leading biotech clusters of Boston, San Francisco, and Oxford.

Navigating through the bush-lined path, I noticed that it was eerily quiet. I suspected that on a Monday at 11 am, hard-working researchers and office workers are all busy at their desks. But I also noticed another thing, the building opposite the one I was visiting is empty.

During the heyday of biotech startup boom, it has been unthinkable. Despite the company logo was still preeminently displayed outside, the building sounded like you could hear a needle dropping to the floor 鸦雀无声。

It may have moved to a bigger, sleeker, and more modern office building in next door, Zhangjiang Park for one. But it can’t be ignored that the economic downtown has impacted the once-booming sector and perma optimistic bio venture capitalists.

It feels like navigating through turbulence, what would you do when you are caught in a headwind and the path forward is no longer a smooth ride?

Just when I was contemplating the clear air turbulence (no blame self on my part for being an aviation aficionado), I came across this article from Airbus, one of the largest aircraft makers.

“Flying through turbulence is sometimes unavoidable despite the best efforts to prevent this. The flight crew must use the recommended procedure to limit the impact of the turbulence on the aircraft’s trajectory and limit the risk of injury to passengers and cabin crew.”?noted the Aircraft maker.

One of the key tips for everyone in a turbulent situation is:

1. Keep the communications open. Clear communications are essential to ensure the flight crew, cabin attendants, and passengers are informed of likely bumps during the takeoff, landing, and potential stormy conditions. First and foremost, ensuring safety and no injuries, translated into business terms, ensuring cash flows and key talents are the first goal.

2. Keep the autopilot on. That is somehow surprising to me. How come manually operating the machines in a turbulent condition makes less sense than putting it on autopilot?

“Autopilot is designed to cope with turbulence and will keep the aircraft close to the intended flight path without the risk of overcorrection.”?recommended the authors.

“A pilot may be tempted to “fight against turbulence” when manually flying the aircraft and may overreact to sudden changes in the trajectory in some cases.”

And, “The flight crew should consider autopilot disconnection if autopilot does not perform as desired.?”

It’s empowering to know that the best course in most situations is to stay the course, not change from autopilot to manual maneuver, over-projection, and over-acceleration to lead to more damage.

The system has built-in laws to encounter every possible scenario. Switching off autopilot, or autopilot disconnection but not restoring it on, most people make the mistake. They make their instinctive reaction of manually correcting a situation but are more likely to over-correct it.

3. Leverage all technologies you can tap into. Whether it is being AI, or machine learning, automation, use it to your advantage. In the case of navigating through a bumpy ride, the Airbus authors recommend that “the flight crew can still?utilize the advantages of the fly-by-wire technology to cope with turbulence”?even when the autopilot is disconnected.

So, next time you find yourself in a turbulent condition, stay communicated, stay on autopilot, and use all technologies you can leverage.

In summary, Stay the course.

For the Shanghai visits, I met great people, had insightful visits and the ride was smooth.