How private pilot training helps in business
As different as becoming a private pilot and my day-to-day life in business may appear, I quickly noticed something. As I went through both my theoretical studies and practical training to become a private pilot, there are a number of transferable lessons and learnings that are applicable to improving in a business environment. Here’s my top six:
1. Keep calm in difficult situations
Difficult situations happen, whether you like it or not. In pilot training, you learn about these in theory but have to handle them in practice as well. Those could be unexpected turbulence, an engine shut down, or a stall (when you’re about to “fall from the sky” — not usually a likely scenario but it’s something you practice).
The first order of business is always to stay calm — because panic never helps! Approaching a difficult situation with a calm and logical mindset then helps to address the issue. Unravel what’s the core issue, and proceed quickly to address mitigating the issue.
2. Go through an overwhelming amount of information quickly and understand what’s important
The theoretical part of pilot training is extensive. It ranges from topics such as aerodynamics (and ultimately physics), to human performance (including psychology and physical limitations to what our bodies are capable of), meteorology, air law, and so on…
What I appreciated so much about this theoretical training is the fact that I get to apply the knowledge directly in a practical setting when sitting in the cockpit. It makes me immediately filter through “the noise” to keep the most crucial details handy.
Especially in the world of data overload, and “big data” for that matter, this skill is more important than ever to retain clarity in the business environment.
3. See things from a distance and at different angles
Physical distance can surprisingly easily result in mental distance. Simply taking off and seeing the world from above can help in thinking about the world “down there” in a different way. Having control over flying around and seeing something from a different angle helps to do the same — albeit even only mentally — for day-to-day issues and challenges at work. Take some distance, look at it from different viewpoints, and it will help to gain a different and often better, as well as more holistic, understanding of what’s going on. (This is, by the way, why I wholeheartedly champion a liberal arts education, to gain a ‘multi-methodological’ or multi-discipline viewpoint on things — a topic for another post.)
On yet another site node, this is also a common experience told by astronauts, oftentimes reporting how seeing the world from above and as one has made them understand things better and feel more connected to the people on earth, among other things.
4. Multitask in a complex environment
On one of my practice flights, while I was about to take off from the runway, at the same time the passenger door unlatched and opened, and a call from the tower came in with a request. I had to immediately react to keep the balance to not go off-runway and take off safely, while luckily my flight instructor sitting on the co-pilot’s seat was able to close the door, and I managed to respond to the tower within a few seconds later.
Multitasking in the cockpit is the norm. You learn to prioritise, have an overview and respond to differing inputs in parallel. With receiving constant calls and emails, tasks and challenges left and right, with everything being seemingly “super urgent” — multitasking and prioritising is ever more crucial in a business environment in just the same way as in the cockpit.
5. Quick decision making
If you’re afraid to be decisive, flying is the wrong activity. In this sense, business is rather similar — all too often decisions need to be made with an incomplete set of information to make a fully informed decision, right now. Things need to move on, even if you don’t know 100% what’s going on.
When I fly and get that audible warning signal, I’ll have a few seconds (ideally) to make up my mind on what I think might be going on and how to mitigate it, presenting an actual life or death situation.
6. Know when to trust others
Lastly, what I learned pretty quickly first in my theory on ‘human performance’ as well as through flying later on is that our human senses are rather modest in their capacity to function. When flying, our bodies are so easily tricked into believing one thing, when really something else entirely happens. Slowing down the takeoff? your body is convinced you sink.
In cases like these, I can’t rely on my body as convinced as it might make me feel and I need to acknowledge that I have to trust others more. In that case, it’s the combination of several flight instruments, combined ideally with a view to the outside, to make sense of what’s really going on. In business, it means acknowledging that there are many other people out there who know much better than me how to do certain things.
Key takeaway — find relevancy in whatever you do
The takeaway here shouldn’t be that you all need do a pilot license to improve on some general skills for business — though I can unreservedly recommend it, as it’s an amazing, challenging and absolutely fun experience. For those that stumbled upon this article considering doing a private pilot license — the transferable skills you learn as mentioned above should be yet another reason on why it’s a great idea to do the license!
But generally speaking, the key takeaway here should be that you can find relevancy in everything you do. When you look at your CV and worry about that year of backpacking, the months of no work, the difficulty of overcoming a sickness, or the odd extracurricular… — look for those transferable lessons and learnings; there always are some and oftentimes a lot more of them than you might think if you really look for it!
Post originally published on LinkedIn.
