As an aviation geek I'm always pleased when I can use my hobby in my professional life. Short thread.

Flying has a thing called Crew Resource Management (CRM). This is a set of skills for effective communication, teamwork, problem solving & situational awareness. One thing it teaches is that good ideas can come from anyone, not just the leader.

On Jan 15 2009, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger & crew ditched an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River. Everyone survived. Just before impact he asked his First Officer "Got any ideas?" Here's what Sully had to say about that afterwards.

On July 19 1989, Al Haynes & crew crash-landed a DC-10 at Sioux City after triple hydraulic failure. 184 people survived, 112 died. In later simulations no-one was able to land it. Here's what Al Haynes had to say afterwards.

Today, we solved a problem that causes a service to eventually fall over. I didn't solve it; someone else did in an elegant & simple way I wish I'd thought of. My main contribution was listening to their idea & keeping my ego in check.

Wanting to have all the answers is a very human response. Perhaps even more so in tech where your value is often determined by how much you know. Applying CRM can be uncomfortable, but a conscious decision to let others give the answers can have a big payoff.

Or as someone else once said, "Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas."

Always worth remembering.