Teamwork makes for safe landings

I’d like to introduce our guest writer for this blog post - Reg Garters. Reg has a long history in Management and Leadership. But far from being a “one show” man, Reg has a few side hustles which keeps him super busy. He is an entertainer, author and lay canon, amongst other hats he wears. But more than anything, he has a passion for good leadership. and good leadership means recognising good team work - especially in tricky situations. Over to you, Reg!

Reg Garters

I have never piloted an aeroplane, the nearest I got was when my kids gave me a voucher for my birthday to have a go in a simulator, that wasn’t very successful, I ended up crashing. 

In my business career I spent hundreds of hours sitting in planes, assuming that the captain up the front had all matters in hand and at times I would naïvely wonder, that with all modern day technology, why could the job not be left to one just pilot, surely the rest of them were just there for the ride. 

This naivete changed completely when I started to watch those air crash investigations programmes on television. My initial curiosity was around how, in the enquiry they acquired the facts pertaining to the crash and how they were disseminated.  

My career has been in management and leadership consulting and naturally I have had a great interest in the factors contributing to successful organisations. 

Inflight teamwork

In looking at the air crash programs I noticed the cause of the crash would often be attributed to technical malfunctions,  but not always, the phrase, pilot error, would come up from time to time and this brought me round to concluding that an inflight operations were really no different than the operation of an organisation, and for it to be successful the key ingredients were leadership and teamwork. As in the case of poor performing organisations these were the lacking ingredients in the case of pilot error crashes.  

A few years back I had an interesting conversation with the much esteemed All Black and rugby coach Robbie Deans about the subject of teamwork. Robbie’s coaching of the Crusaders in those days was legendary and I was anxious to pick his brains on the things that he considered made up successful teamwork. He shared an interesting acronym that he used with the Crusaders at that time and I got to thinking just how relevant it was to executing a safe aeroplane flight. Robbie used the word teamwork as an acronym. 

T= together, everyone is there for each other. 

E= equality, there are no prima donnas in a team – football or aeroplane. 

A = attitude, everyone has a total commitment to success. 

M= meshing, the parts and actions of all compliment each other. 

W= We not Me. 

O= organisation, Robbie pointed out that the back-office was just as important as the front row. It’s the whole plane, not just those up front. 

R= role play, everyone in the team has a role to play and everyone in the team commits to assist all team members to play their role. 

K= kindred spirit, there is a joy in the team from working with each other and creating synergy. 

Use all the great minds on the flight deck with you.

Getting back to the air crash TV programs there were wonderful examples of crews working together to get them out of the disastrous situations. The much publicised QF32 in 2010 was one where we witnessed this extraordinary leadership and teamwork. The A380 flight from London to Sydney via Singapore had an engine blow up on its port side, apparently caused by the breaking of the stub oil pipe. 

This culminated in extensive damage to the fuel system landing gear, flight controls, engine controls and a fire in the fuel tank. 

This flight had a big team up front, in fact there were five pilots in the cockpit because in addition to the normal crew there were additional check captains. 

This offered great potential but also potential for great catastrophe – too many cooks can spoil the broth as the saying goes. But the leadership of captain Richard Champion de Crespigny in utilising all of the talent and applying all the steps of the Robbie Deans leadership acronym was amazing and undoubtably saved the lives of all on board. Richard’s book ‘QF32’ Is a must read for any enthusiast. 

 It’s when the chips are down and the backs are against the wall that defines just how good the leadership and teamwork is. There is no doubt that technology is the life giving blood of every commercial airline but without leadership and teamwork it can so quickly bleed to death.