Keep Flying While You Fix the Problem

The booking system goes down. You’re working on it when you think you see the fix. You call your operations lead over. “Come look at this for a second.” They walk away from the front desk. Now both of you are looking at the screen, and nobody’s answering the phone.

That’s how attention drifts. Your operations lead knew their job. Helping you felt like part of it. In a few seconds, the repair had both of you, and the business still had customers waiting.

Keep flying while you manage the issue

On a nighttime approach to Perth, Australia, a first officer had trouble finding a flight guidance control and the captain tried to help. Investigators found that the crew’s attention shifted away from monitoring the aircraft while it continued descending. The plane went below the minimum sector altitude. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s final report identifies that loss of monitoring as one of several contributing factors.

That’s the part I’d bring into a business. While one person gets the booking app working, somebody still has to honor today’s appointments, take new calls, and tell customers what they can count on. Those jobs continue the whole time you’re working the fix.

Be like the internet

An app can go down while the rest of the internet keeps carrying traffic. Build your business so customers have another way through when one service fails. If online booking goes down, take calls and use a shared manual log the team can reach without the booking app. Give your operations lead the authority to switch over as soon as the team can no longer confirm bookings reliably.

Work that out before the phone starts ringing. Name who works the repair, who keeps service moving, and who covers each role if someone has to step away. When the app comes back, have one person reconcile the manual log with the system, check for duplicates, and make sure each booking has a confirmation.

Notice what pulls you away

Outlaw Identity is who you love being. I understand the pride in being the person who can figure things out when everyone else is stuck. That can be one of the best parts of the job.

Operator Syndrome is what can make living that way unbearable. Every problem starts to feel like yours to handle. Even after the team has taken over, you’re still checking your phone at dinner. During an outage, that pull can be strong enough to draw you away from the work you already agreed to cover.

EndoDyne helps you notice that pull. When somebody says, “Come look at this,” ask yourself, “What am I watching right now? Who’s got it if I step away?” That’s where Odin’s pursuit of wisdom fits for me. It takes restraint to stop for a second and see what your help would leave unattended.

Rehearse the interruption

Give one person the repair and another the job of keeping bookings moving. Halfway through, have the person working the repair say, “Come look at this. I think I found it.” See whether the person covering bookings stays with the work or makes a clear handoff before stepping away. Check whether every call and booking found its way into the log. That’s how you find out whether the business kept flying.