About this episode:
“When you are going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill
When an emergency occurs in a live aircraft cockpit, it is unlikely that it is the first time a pilot has seen it. Because aircrew spend so much time thinking about and practicing emergency handling, when a danger occurs for real, they are equipped to understand what is going on and how they need to react. In many cases, the first action might be to do something quite simple but in the critical moments after the calamity, as the pilot works out how to recover their aircraft safely, it is crucial that they don’t make the situation worse. Like aircrew, senior leaders must rely on their experience and curiosity to understand crises when they occur. If they have invested in thinking through emergency situations before they are placed under duress, they should be able to draw from pre-considered contingency plans to mitigate their losses and leverage the assets that remain available to them. As they rally their crew to chart a course to a safe place, they must be ready to make difficult decisions before it is too late. Because time is such a key resource in crisis, both pilots and CEOs need to do everything they can to ‘buy it’ and never be in a rush to get to the scene of the crash.
In this episode, we cover:
- Contingency Planning – How to prevent self-inflicted damage and to mitigate unforeseen risks.
- The 4 Ps of Crisis Management – Planning, Pragmatism, Process and Practice.
- What can businesses learn from the aviation community about exposing people to crisis management?
- Knowing when to Eject.
- Why curiosity is so important when seemingly minor crises occur.
- How ‘Hitting the Stopwatch’ can be a great first action when an emergency occurs.
- The importance of checking everything and assuming nothing.
- Why there is no substitute for experience for leaders in crisis, and the key traits that they need to possess.
- The importance of the moral component in leading through danger and why the grassroots are so critical.
- The balance between being part of the team and remaining objective.