On your next flight, would you feel safe if just before takeoff it was announced that instead of a licensed pilot, the lead engineer who designed the plane would fly the craft?
Or what if they announced that you’d just boarded a plane designed and engineered by the pilots in the cockpit?
Such scenarios are absurd, which is why most of us fly with confidence.
Organizations that struggle to flow products from concept to customer, however, are often in perpetual, destructive power struggles:
- Pilots think they’ve flown enough planes that it qualifies them for final approval on technical aspects of the aircraft;
- Engineers who’ve developed countless airplanes succumb to the belief they can be trusted to fly them.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is real: a cognitive bias whereby people believe they know more than they actually do.
A pilot insisting they can successfully double as an engineer (or vice versa) jams productivity and creates excessive risk. Quality is put in jeopardy as a battle of expertise vs masked incompetence rages.
Caution: 5 signs you may think you’re the rare pilot and engineer, the next Leonardo da Vinci:
- You argue with people in multiple functions or disciplines.
- You believe the “you’re-the-greatest” stories told by people who report to you.
- You use rhetoric or passion to convince or persuade others.
- You distort facts to fit your perspective or beliefs.
- You disguise your career ambitions as an expression of customer-centricity.
Seamless communities deliver the right product, at the right time, at the right cost or price, because peers finish their collaborative efforts by yielding or acquiescing decision rights to those with the necessary expertise or qualifications.
It’s worth discussing in your community:
- Do we have pilots thinking their engineers (or vice versa)?
- Where and when do our pilots and engineers need to collaborate more effectively?
- And where and when do they need to collaborate less… and trust those with proven expertise to make decisions?
Fly your perfectly designed plane with excellence.
Hat tip: AT
