How to Use Flight 1549 to Teach Team Performance

January 19, 2009
Category: Uncategorized

As a teacher of leadership, I’m often asked about ideas for team-building exercises. A great one dropped right out of the sky on Jan. 15. US Airways Flight 1549’s successful emergency water landing is rich with lessons on:

  • Leadership styles
  • Communication
  • Collaboration
  • Critical thinking
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Systems and standards
  • Training

I thought about this while watching a TV report that took note of the entire flight crew’s performance. Ace pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger didn’t single-handedly save 155 lives. The epic success was built on a series of correct decisions and actions by people inside and outside the crippled Airbus A320.

I much prefer deconstructing successes than failures, and Flight 1549 is a perfect opportunity for teams to take a look at how they perform, both under pressure and every day. Here’s my suggestion for an exercise for your assembled team.

First, create a comfortable conversation. Bring people together in an informal setting. You might involve your management team or a mixed group of staffers who are interested in improving team performance.

Second, state your goals: To identify what worked so well in this dramatic event, to look for windows into your team’s strengths and challenges. From those lessons you can develop action plans for reinforcement of “what works around here” and repair of “what needs work.”

Third, brief yourselves. Here are some tools for your session, courtesy of excellent news reporting.

To understand the challenges of the pilot and crew, read this ABC News report “Black Boxes in Hand, Full Story Emerges” about the moments between takeoff and crash landing. Note details in this powerful paragraph describing what happened immediately after the plane’s windshield was filled with birds:

The crew said they smelled burning birds, and the jet lost engine power. At that point, Sullenberger, a 28-year veteran of the airline, took control of the aircraft. Skiles began working to restart the engines. Investigators say the engine restart checklist is three pages long and usually is undertaken with a jet flying at an elevation of 35,000 feet and with much more time � not at just 3,000 feet and single minutes to act.

Make sure to watch the ABC News video report embedded on the page as well.

For insights into how passengers reacted, read The New York Times story “After Splash, Nerves, Heroics and Comedy” by Michael Wilson and Russ Buettner, which begins:

Some passengers screamed, others tucked their heads between their knees, and several prayed over and over, “Lord, forgive me for my sins.” But a man named Josh who was sitting in the exit row did exactly what everyone is supposed to but few ever do: He pulled out the safety card and read the instructions on how to open the exit door.

To learn about water rescuers, read the Associated Press report “Commuter Ferries to Rescue in NYC Crash Landing” by Richard Pyle. Note the age of one of the key players — important because while other stories highlight the age and senior-level experience of the plane’s flight crew, leadership isn’t reserved for veterans:

“It was hard to stay with it,” said Brittany Catanzaro, the 20-year-old captain of the New York Waterway ferry Governor Thomas H. Kean, who picked up 24 survivors. A sister ferry, the Yogi Berra, commanded by Vincent Lucante, retrieved an infant and a toddler, and when they started to cry it was “the best sound that we could hear,” he said.

For visual impact to focus your conversations, display all or part of this photo gallery “Unbelievable Pics of the U.S. Airways Jet Crash” from the New York Daily News. The YouTube video of the landings is also helpful:

If you’re receiving this via e-mail newsletter and have trouble viewing the video, please use the video player on the SuperVision page.

Now, how do you conduct the exercise? With everyone briefed (the articles and videos really take very little time to review), ask people to volunteer to put themselves into the shoes of various people in this event:

  • Captain
  • Co-Captain
  • Flight Attendant
  • Passenger in exit row
  • Passenger sitting farthest from exit
  • Ferry boat captain

With each person in a role, review the events, and ask each person some questions. Recognizing that their knowledge may be limited only to what they have read and seen, ask them to do their best in answering some questions:

  1. What are the most important skills you must call upon at this time?
  2. What do you rely on when making decisions?
  3. What do you need from others on your team right now?
  4. How are you communicating?
  5. What are some of the worst things you could do right now, if you aren’t careful?
  6. What training is critical for your role?

You can ask each question round-robin style, so everyone replies to each one. Listen carefully for their insights. You will hear a lot about skills, styles and values. 

This can lead you into a great discussion about “what do we need in our own organization to make sure we’re always at our best?” You can arrive at that with some questions for individual and group reflection:

  • How calm am I under pressure?
  • When is a “command and control” leadership style imperative and when should other styles (more democratic or coaching) be used?
  • How clear are we about our roles and responsibilities?
  • How well do we communicate?
  • How much attention do we pay to training for our key responsibilities?
  • How willing are we to go above and beyond our normal duties to help each other in tough times?

It’s not enough just to talk. This “Flight 1549” exercise should lead to some action steps — a commitment from staffers to identify and work on individual issues and a commitment from you to address the systems, communication and training issues that surface.

The story of Flight 1549 will evolve as the National Transportation Safety Board investigation proceeds and the flight crew faces the media. Emerging facts might lead you to edit the preparation materials, the questions and the conversations. That’s fine. Just use this remarkable event as a teaching tool. And keep your seat belt fastened.