One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

by Robert Maurer

when you’re landing planes atop a ship in the middle of the ocean, one error, even a tiny one, could spell disaster. Officers and crew are trained not to assume the system will run perfectly on its own. Instead, they look for the slightest signal that things are going awry. They listen for subtle signs of tension in pilots’ voices when they circle the ship to dump excess fuel. They walk the ship many times a day looking for “foreign objects”—anything that could be sucked into the jet’s engine—basing their scrutiny on the assumption that anything that can go wrong, will. They also devote rigorous attention to the nature of each landing. On the deck of the aircraft carrier, there are four arresting wires that can catch the plane’s tailhook. A pilot strives not to catch the first or second wire (because it would mean they’d landed too soon) or the fourth (which is unnervingly close to missing the deck and falling into the ocean). The third wire is ideal. Those landings that catch the first, second, or fourth wires are reviewed so that the pilot and crew can spot and correct the causes of the deviation.

Followup when anything lands outside of your expectation.