I woke up this morning thinking about the moment in the movie Top Gun where Maverick, the fast flying risk taking hot shot, moves in too close to another plane and when they split finds himself in the other planes “wash”.
As a jet plane flies it creates a zone behind it that consists of both turbulence and low pressure. When another jet plane flies into this zone it can spell disaster.
In the movie it does mean disaster. Maverick and his co-pilot Goose’s plane looses control and begins spiraling out of control crashing into the ocean.
The thought occurred to me: How many managers and leaders fly into a wash (high turbulent dangerous situation) and begin spiraling out of control leaving a wake of a mess behind them?
A marketing coach of mine, Ed Rush, is a retired F-18 pilot for the Marines. He walked me through the situation once and explained why a well trained pilot will avoid catastrophe in that very same situation.
He say’s that there is a reason why pilots must be properly trained. “Once you enter into a situation like the one in the movie your previous training kicks in on auto-pilot, because you just don’t have time to learn what you need to learn to survive in 30 seconds”.
As I was thinking about the implications of these moments and being a leader. Something that separates the great leaders is their ability to “think on their feet” during crisis situations.
I believe it is not that they are better at thinking on their feet, they are more prepared and have invested in the best training so when those moments happen, they go into auto-pilot.
What are you doing to train yourself for these moments? Got a great idea…post it so others can benefit.
