Imagine. It's pitch black.
You're in the cockpit of a helicopter, taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Your only places to land within 500 miles are either the aircraft carrier you just took off from, with the deck completely stacked with aircraft and other gear, or one single destroyer trailing the carrier a couple miles away.
As you turn away you can already see the sailors on board the carrier stacking pallets in the spot you just left from, preparing for tomorrow's events.
Boom. Hiss. Whine.
Sounds that you have never heard before can now be heard over the usually dominant engine noise coming from the right side engine.
You look down at the gauges in the cockpit to see that the engine, although still running, is not working normally.
So now, at night in the middle of the ocean, you are flying a helicopter that has a deteriorating engine, and, without two good engines, has lost its ability to hover.
All this, with only one place to land, and that happens to be a single ship with a landing deck not much bigger than the helicopter itself.
Stressful to say the least.
But as a military aviator you deal with the situation.
You have been confronted with a problem – a problem that if not solved quickly could result in the death of all onboard and the loss of a $35M asset.
You set-aside the thoughts of dying, and your spouse and children at home, and you start figuring out the best way forward.
You make a plan and then act on that plan without hesitation.
Eventually you land the helicopter, shut it down, let everyone know what happened, fill out the required paperwork and then, only when you are alone, take a breath and realize just how close you came to disaster.
But when it was all happening, your total concentration was on the problem at hand and how to solve it.
Isn't that someone you want on your team? Someone who can take charge of a stressful situation, identify the problem, provide a solution and then follow-through? All the while doing it with integrity.
Sure, most aviators don't have the specific business experience or are “Lean Six Sigma Black Belts” that you so desire in the ideal candidate, but those are things that can be learned.
But all military aviators have a proven track record of learning.
Heck, they obviously learned to fly and learned enough about the complex/expensive machine that they are strapped into to be given the keys and the responsibility for the equipment and the lives onboard.
But they do have the key ingredients for the making of not only a standout employee, but also a leader at your company.
So, what does business need that pilots bring to the table? These are just some of the many things they do.
Persistence and thick skin: You don’t make it through any military flight school or get an advanced qualification without screwing up or getting told, “you stink” on more than one occasion, and then having to push through it.
Owning your mistakes, integrity and honesty: Pilots that don’t own up to their mistakes are unsafe pilots, and unsafe pilots don’t last long in a squadron, company or whatever you call your team.
Pilots, like any other military members, want to come home alive and make sure everyone else does as well. This means that you share and own up to your mistakes with the group in hopes that nobody else will make the same mistake.
Ability to communicate, coordinate and foster relationships: Beyond “wiggling-the-sticks” (i.e. flying the aircraft), this is what military aviators do.
Every facet of every mission is predicated on the fact that we are able to communicate, coordinate and foster relationships both inside and outside the team to complete that mission.
Without these abilities, many a mission would fail miserably. All military aviators are great at this.
Confidence: Have you seen Top Gun? Ok, not that. That is borderline arrogance. But have you ever met a pilot that wasn’t confident in themselves and their abilities?
The answer to that question is probably no. You don’t commit to many years of training, or strap into an aircraft, without thinking that you are more than capable of completing the assigned task.
Ultimately it comes down to this: if you are looking to fill a position that needs an honest leader, with the guts to do what is right, the honesty to admit when he is wrong and the tenacity to pick themselves up and try again when they are faced with a failure, then pick a military aviator to fill that position. You will not be disappointed.
