Responding to crises like an Air Force pilot

As I think about how to maintain my balance in these tumultuous times of politics, war, wild stock market fluctuations and more, I’m reminded of the mantra every US Air Force pilot learns at the beginning of pilot training:

1. Maintain aircraft control
2. Analyze the situation
3. Take the appropriate action

When you’re going hundreds of miles per hour and your engine catches on fire or you hit a bird (see the picture), it’s natural to start freaking out. On Day One of pilot training, however, the Air Force teaches pilots to remember their priorities. 

In just one example, we were flying our C-17 at low level (300 feet above the ground) at about 350 mph when I saw a tiny speck that I quickly recognized as a bird. The bird was circling exactly at the same altitude as the windshield of the plane. As quickly as possible, I pulled back on the control stick and started the plane toward a climb.

Big planes like the C-17 (the size of a big airliner) don’t maneuver quickly so all I really did was rotate the plane. Instead of the windshield, the 5 lb. turkey buzzard went through the metal exterior of the plane and hit so hard it adhered itself to the nose gear door. 

(You can see it, still stuck to the gear door, in the background of the picture as the maintenance personnel look in the hole it made.)

Now what? We’re still going 350 mph, we’re still dangerously close to the ground and now there’s a hole in the plane. Two seconds of overreaction could force the plane into the ground, killing everyone onboard.

Instead, I fell back on the training instilled in me. “Maintain aircraft control” in this case meant continuing a gradual climb away from the ground to a safe altitude. We “analyzed the situation” by asking another crew member to assess the damage from the inside of the plane. The jet was still flyable. We then “took the appropriate action,” flying back up the east coast to our home base in Charleston, SC.

Just like in an airplane, these principles apply to business as well.

1. No matter what’s happening around you, keep flying the airplane. In business, this means keep taking care of your team, keep taking care of your customers, and stay aligned with your values.
   
2. Take a minute to figure out what’s going on. Is your market really falling apart or have you just received bad news from a couple customers in a row? If you have a service issue, what is its root cause?
   
3. Fix the problem. You don’t have to do 10 things at once, you just have to fix this problem. Get yourself out of trouble and live to operate your business for another day.