The Second Book The 84th Chapter - Professionalism and Flexibility

Dec 3/17

How do you increase the your level of leadership?  Do you apply a combination of flexibility in your day when your leading yourself and others?  What is your current organizations culture in regard to being autonomous in your flexibility decisions?

Recently I experienced first hand a combination of both flexibility and professionalism. that was on a recent trip with WestJet Airlines.  Everything was going to plan with the typically loading of the plane, safety demo complete and the in flight service was just about to start.  It was at that moment the normal process met a minor mishap.  The flight attendant came to me first, as I was sitting in the front of the plane, and asked me what I wanted for something to eat or drink.  I replied with, what are the choices?  She went to the seat pocket to pull out the menu and there wasn't one there.  She went to the seat beside me and looked for the the menu in that seat pocket and it wasn't there either.  She realized on the second look there was not menus in any of the seats.

What happened next was a great example of professionalism and leadership culture flexibility.  First of all it was probably someones task to put the menus in the seat pockets but currently there were all up in a storage compartment wrapped neatly in the original packaging.  She quietly returned the menus to the storage compartment and disappeared to the small galley in the front of the plane.  Not long after she returned with a neatly stocked tray of examples of all the food that was available on that flight.  She proceeded down the aisle asking each person what they wanted and completed the in-flight service without a hitch.

This quick redirection by the flight attendant was effectively corrected without anyone else on the plane noticing except for me.  The acceptance of her reality and execution of a new plan happened in quick succession with a net result of the passengers not experiencing any negative outcomes.  Kudos to her skill and also the environment that WestJet has created for the execution of live critical thinking problem solving skills.

Great people allowed to be great within a large organization.  A balance of standard process needs to exist to provide consistent service quality but the unexplainable magic has to be created.  That magic is what we all strive for in our life, as that magic injects excitement into our life.  Most of us have to work for a living so its important to make choices where work can be fulfilling and fun.  Not only fun but the organization has created a work environment that encourages your growth and development.  An environment where you feel comfortable to exercise your autonomy is something to strive to have in your life.  Or if  your a leader to be able to set that environment for your people to have autonomy so that outcomes like this can happen.

Create an environment of magic that people will feel value and are contributing more that the bare minimum.   By doing this the needle of commitment will grow to a point it will appear to become a living organism of positive culture.  The results of this culture will then start to erase all the typically problems many mangers will discuss and not sure of how to solve them.