For many businesses owners, travel is a part of life.
As I’m flying right now from Florida to Boston, I thought….Why don’t more business owners, high level managers and leaders take flight more often?
And by that I mean, get fired up, accelerate, and fly!
Let’s look at airplanes for a moment as an analogy.
As you sit in that not so comfortable seat, cabin door just closed, mic engages and you hear a ton of rules, FAA policies, the weather, and that standard statement, “Please obey the seat belt sign when illuminated!”
Taxi begins, slow, steady, with what I imagine is a series of checks and balances in the cabin. 3-4 minutes pass as you start to power down your devices and ensure that your seatbelt is fastened tightly around your waist.
Check…..We’re ready to fly!
You feel Power push to the engines, the tin cylinder, that is your plane, begins to ease forward, increasing speed with each foot.
You get sucked back into your seat with the power of the engines.
We reach flight velocity and the nose lifts up. We are now putting our faith in the systems, processes and equipment of this aircraft including the fact that we trust the leaders in the cockpit to be competent, diligent, well skilled and certainly knowledgeable to pilot this plane.
As we progress along our planned route we are soaring like eagles. When necessary, power is pushed through the engines to create more thrust. Resulting in greater power and speed to our planned destination.
As the soaring continues, you begin to relax, as it is more clear with every minute that passes that your trust in the systems, processes and mechanics are working as intended.
Is your business taking flight?
Do you have a flight plan?
Do you run through your checks and balances to ensure a safe, somewhat predictable flight?
Do you build in fail safes in case you have challenges?
Do you apply thrust and power and gain momentum and speed before you attempt to take flight?
Do you advise your team with a similar announcement to “Ladies and Gentleman please prepare for takeoff”
When you get to the destination do you let off crew that is not in alignment with your flight plan?
Look, you need to trust people, process, and your products, to ensure that you can soar with the eagles, building a great business. Trust your people. Verify that they are doing the work, ensure that they have the proper procedures in place to be successful. When someone isn’t onboard with your goals or flight plan you need to make changes and remove them from the aircraft.
These are all tough decisions, but you need to do them in order to be successful. This whole process is about taking action…..TODAY!