Hold What You’ve Got
Avoid abrupt inputs and distractions
Most commercial flights, especially those involving airlines, operate under IFR (instrument flight rules). According to the Federal Aviation Administration this is defined as “Rules and regulations established by the FAA to govern flight under conditions in which flight by outside visual reference is not safe.” Basically the pilot is only looking inside the aircraft and not at anything outside.
When flying IFR, pilots are often following a particular heading (direction) towards a radio beacon or transmitter. This is analogous to a compass where a magnetized needle points north. In the aviation case, the needle is tuned to a particular radio frequency. As the aircraft gets close to the radio transmitters, the needle pointing the way starts to bounce back and forth. Following the bouncing needle is a good way to fly in circles around the beacon instead of straight over it like you want.
When you are learning how to fly this way, the instructor pilot will often say something like “hold what you’ve got.” This means ignore the bouncing needle and just fly the heading you’re on for a few more minutes. Once you cross over the beacon the needle will flip (pointing back towards the beacon instead of towards it) and then settle down again. I find this is often true in business as well. As you get close to launching something, closing a deal, wrapping up a quarter, etc. there is often a lot of noise in the signals. It’s very tempting to follow that noise but more than likely that will lead you in circles.
A long time ago, I had a boss that would walk around the office everyday with a new idea. It happened so predictably that we nicknamed it, pretty uncreatively, the “idea of the day tour.” If we weren’t careful it was very easy to get distracted by all of these “ideas” or the needle bouncing back and forth. Most days, I would follow behind a few minutes afterwards, helping remind people to stay focused.
I’m a big believer in the power of focus. In any decent company, there are always too many good ideas, good opportunities, good paths to follow. A rule of thumb is that if you aren’t saying ‘no’ to ideas that you really love, you’re not focused enough. When you get it right, the power of focus is amazing. When a diverse group of talented people get together to accomplish one thing, it’s awe inspiring what can be done. I’ve seen this time and time again throughout my career. When Etsy decided to migrate to the cloud, the engineers had the marketplace running in GCP within 9 months with the entire migration of every service taking just another 15 months. They demonstrated an immense amount of focus to accomplish that so quickly.
The delicate balance for leaders is that you need to choose a path, an opportunity, or an idea and follow it until you decide it’s no longer viable, no longer the best approach, or time to pivot. That is one of the many burdens of leadership. You have to be the one to decide when to stay the course and when to turn. Pilots are challenged with this same decision all the time. They need to know when to stay the course because the dancing needle is just noise and when to adjust because the needle might really be telling them that they are off course.
When I was first learning instrument flying, my instructor taught me to cross-check multiple instruments rather than fixating on just one. A single indicator might give you bad information, but when three different gauges tell you the same story, you can trust it. The same principle applies when running a business. Watching daily sales numbers or weekly customer feedback in isolation can send you chasing ghosts. The trick is establishing a balanced set of metrics that collectively tell you whether you're still on course.
During the early days of Netflix’s transition from DVDs to streaming, they faced immense pressure to respond to market fluctuations. When new streaming competitors emerged, some analysts urged them to increase content spending dramatically to stay ahead. But Netflix didn’t just react to a single financial signal. Instead, they focused on a combination of key metrics, subscriber growth, engagement time, and churn rate, to gauge the real impact of competitive moves. When major studios began pulling content to launch their own services, Netflix didn’t panic. Their data showed that original content was keeping subscribers engaged, even as licensed content declined. By sticking to their long-term strategy instead of making reactionary moves, Netflix solidified its position as a streaming leader, while some competitors overextended themselves chasing short-term trends. The needle will always bounce as you approach your target, the discipline lies in knowing which movements matter and which are just noise.
Just as pilots rely on co-pilots, air traffic controllers, and ground crews to ensure a safe flight, great leaders know they can’t, and shouldn’t, go it alone. A common failure mode in both aviation and business is task saturation: trying to do too much yourself, leading to missed details, slow decision-making, and burnout. The best pilots trust their crew to handle their responsibilities so they can focus on the bigger picture. The same applies to leadership. A CEO who insists on personally approving every minor decision or second-guessing their team’s expertise quickly becomes the bottleneck rather than the enabler of progress.
A well-documented example of trusting your crew comes from Alan Mulally’s tenure as CEO of Ford. When he took over in 2006, Ford was on the brink of collapse, losing billions of dollars. One of Mulally’s first moves was to implement a disciplined system of leadership meetings where executives had to report the status of their projects, red for trouble, yellow for caution, and green for smooth sailing. Initially, everyone showed up with only green indicators, afraid to admit problems. But when an executive finally reported a red, the kind of honesty Mulally had been pushing for, he didn’t punish them. Instead, he thanked them for their transparency and asked the team how they could help. That moment changed Ford’s leadership culture. By trusting his crew to share the real data and solve problems together, Mulally led Ford through a remarkable turnaround without requiring a government bailout, unlike some of its competitors.
When leaders fail to trust their team, they stifle innovation and create environments where people are afraid to speak up. But when they empower their teams, set clear expectations, and foster a culture of collaboration, the results can be transformative. Just as a pilot must trust the crew to monitor instruments, communicate issues, and execute their roles, leaders must delegate responsibility and rely on the experts around them. The most effective leaders aren’t the ones who try to do it all, they’re the ones who build a team they can count on, especially when turbulence hits.
At the heart of both flying and business is the ability to navigate uncertainty without being thrown off course by every shift in the winds. Whether it's resisting the urge to chase a bouncing instrument needle or avoiding the temptation to react impulsively to every market fluctuation, success comes from discipline, focus, and trust. The best pilots and the best leaders know when to stay steady, when to adjust, and when to rely on those around them. Business, like aviation, is full of turbulence, distractions, and false signals. But by establishing a clear direction, filtering out the noise, and trusting in a well-prepared team, you give yourself the best chance of reaching your destination smoothly, even when the skies aren’t clear.
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