Training programs for pilots sometimes debate the merits of testing pilots on their ability to recover from “unusual attitudes”. Now I know what you are thinking; “unusual attitudes” these days in the airline industry could be a cabin staff who actually enjoy working for their airline. But I don't mean that.
An unusual attitude is when a pilot finds his or her airplane moving in a direction that is, well, suboptimal. All of this falls into the usual FAA lexicon of euphemisms which include remarks like "controlled flight into terrain" - otherwise commonly referred to as a crash. If the plane is pointing down, up, left or right to a considerable degree more than is "normal" it's an unusual attitude. You can think of normal as being simply defined as a condition where the pilot doesn't need to do anything radical to avoid executing a "controlled flight into terrain".
At first glance, the idea of training pilots to recover from that situation seems to lack controversy. But you would be wrong! The logic goes like this (and I will translate from FAA to English as we go): Any pilot whose skill level (lack of skills) is such that he or she is capable of creating the conditions (losing control) by which a plane enters an unusual attitude (ohmygodwearegoingtodie) is unlikely to posess (or suddenly develop in the 3 seconds of panic and terror they have to react) the skills required to recover the plane safely. Therefore, examiners and trainers would be better off investing the time spent training recovery into time spent avoiding the unusual attitude in the first place. The same argument is made around spin recovery, another nasty little aeronautical maneuver that rarely results in happy endings (passengers walking off the plane after it's re-introduction to the ground).
Data would suggest that many companies, indeed some industries, find themselves in the business equivalent of an unusual attitude, perhaps even a spin. A significant NPS gap between you and your competition could be the equivalent of the flashing light in the cockpit warning "eject! eject!" - although a more accurate analogy might be the cabin staff reporting that the majority of passengers have already grabbed parachutes and left via the rear exits.
The problem, from a change management perspective is this: can any management process whose approach and skill level is such that it has put the business in such an attitude, be capable of saving the business before it executes the economic equivalent of a plane crash?
Based on our study of five years of Net Promoter programs (the best practices of which are codified in our upcoming book) we believe that this issue gets to the heart of success of failure in your program, and here’s why.
Successful programs start from a perspective of change management. Leaders recognized that the behavior that put the company in their current situation would have to change significantly in order to facilitate a recovery. Sometimes, this change of heart is a result of a crisis in their business; in other circumstances it is a consequence of new management arriving. Interestingly, these two represent the most frequent circumstances under which the Net Promoter program is initiated in a manner that links to longer term success. Rarely, an existing management team in smooth and level flight, seems to have the foresight to create a disruptive program in anticipation of challenges ahead.
If a “change orientation” drives success, what’s the best way to describe the opposite condition? The most frequent case seems to be the gradual co-option of the new program by existing programs or team members, leading to a program so severely compromised that it melts into oblivion. That’s quite a mouthful, so perhaps you might think about it as the “organizational antibodies” successfully mounting a defense against the foreign invader. These programs die with a whimper, not a bang, as the organization absorbs them into the status quo without any real explicit decision to do so.
When the economic thunderstorm hits, recovery might be beyond the skills of this organization; customers and shareholders both might be looking for the “eject” button.
Richard - A daring and yet, spot-on, analogy! If this is any indication of what's to come in your book--I need to update my delivery status to NEXT DAY.
Posted by: Rebecca Secor | December 02, 2008 at 11:34 AM