At an airline, checklists touch literally every phase of flight. From preflight to shutdown, there is a checklist for everything. “Memory items” are those checklists that must be committed to memory so that they can be immediately recalled and executed in the event of an emergency. For years I pondered, “Why in the world do we have checklists for things we do every day and memory items for things we never do?”
To be clear, my real problem is with the memory items. Committing items to memory that are rarely or never used is a wasted and inefficient process. It makes more sense to have those items close by (for example, in a Quick Reference Handbook) than it does to commit them to memory. I think the industry at large would agree based on the fact that we have to memorize far less today than we did in the past. In 1995 at American Eagle, pilots had to memorize 14 checklists, including the Evacuation Checklist. The Evac Checklist had 34 steps and it had to be “word perfect” during evaluations. In contrast, today at Sun Country, crews are required to memorize four partial checklists encompassing only a handful of items. Going a little further, crews at Northwest Airlines were responsible for just one memory item: “Fly The Airplane.”
To me, “Fly The Airplane” is pure genius. It reminds the crew that, in fact, flying the airplane is – at all times – the most important thing. There may be an engine failure or a fire, but staying in control of and focused on flying the aircraft is of utmost importance. And, this is how it should be. There are countless incidents, accidents, and even loss of life that were caused by crews focusing on a problem and not focusing on what really mattered most – flying the aircraft. These lessons have been learned over the last 100 years in the cockpit but are incredibly relevant to running a successful business today. Let me explain.
CHECKLISTS – Using checklists for things that repeat on a daily basis may seem silly, but it is the easiest way to do the same thing every time. Not only is it easier, it’s faster and more efficient as well. And, for situations where you work with multiple people all accomplishing the same task, checklists are the great equalizer. If everyone does the same task the same way every time, differences jump out and are easier to immediately correct. Even though you’ve performed a series of tasks a thousand times before, rigidly adhering to a checklist will keep you from omitting a step just because you were distracted or preoccupied.
All companies have procedures, but few translate these procedures to checklist form. When using a checklist for a daily task is your standard operating procedure, it sticks out when one team member is not using one. Ideally, checklists should be read by one person and verified by another. Creating a culture of using checklists will improve the accuracy of your operation. When was the last time you heard about an airline landing with the gear up? It’s on the checklist. Even if one person forgets, the culture of using the checklist properly every time essentially prevents bad things from happening.
MEMORY ITEMS – Don’t do it. Memory items are the antithesis of checklists. It’s bad for items that you accomplish on a daily basis, and it’s worse for items that you rarely accomplish. Leaving you or your staff to rely on their memory for the things in your business that only happen a couple of times a year is not smart. Mistakes will occur. The absence of a checklist will make it hard to standardize policy and even harder to determine which people are not following it.
FLY THE AIRPLANE – Like all succinct wisdom, this one is easy to remember but hard to live. The best airline pilots have an innate ability to sense that their number one objective is not being accomplished or tended to. When this happens, they stop everything (even if there’s a fire) and go back to that number one objective. That’s why Northwest was so brilliant for making that the only thing to remember: it’s all that matters.
Corporately, we must do the same thing to be successful. Does everyone in your organization know what the most important things are this quarter? Do they know how they fit into them? Do they have a plan for what they will be doing this week? Do they plan each and every day in advance and then analyze those plans to confirm their alignment with corporate goals? Most importantly, as fires happen throughout the day – as they always do – are you and your people able to stop and go back to your number one objective? To be truly successful, you must fly the airplane each and every day.
-Captain Wally Hines, JETPUBS Inc.