Windows

They say we’re at 30,000 feet, more or less. I understand that it’s a beautiful day, because the pilot just announced it over the intercom. He also said that if I look out the windows on the right side of the plane, I’d see the Kennedy Space Center and the shuttle launch pads. I’d love to see them, but I’m on the wrong side of the plane and I can’t see out those windows.

I can’t see out the windows on my side, either, since the passenger in the window seat closed the blind. She’s taking a nap (or pretending to) and whatever is outside the window is of no interest to her, and thus, inaccessible to me, too.

About 30 years ago I rode a very small commuter plane from Green Bay to Chicago. There were only curtains separating the cockpit from the rest of the tiny cabin, and straps held them out of the way for the duration of the flight. We came in at night, over Lake Michigan, and the approaching city lights were spectacular. By leaning slightly into the aisle, I could see the whole show. You can’t do that anymore, since the view out the front windows is blocked by the kind of door previously reserved for bank vaults and missile silos.

I can’t see up, although not having windows on top of a plane doesn’t bother me. I don’t think the view changes much. Under my seat would be a different story… a clear Plexiglas bottom like those boats in Orlando. But no, they didn’t put windows there, so I can’t look down. (There was one time I used the restroom on a flight to Seattle and when I flushed, I’m pretty sure I saw Idaho.)

So… I can’t see outside forward or back, up or down, left or right. I can’t look out the windows. I feel helpless; kind of like I felt when I worked for an organization whose leaders never looked out their windows, either.

I don’t mean windows with a nice view of the grounds; I mean windows into the workings of the organization. Decision-makers sat cloistered in rooms where they relied on others to bring them what they thought they wanted to know. It was clear from their choices that they had only a vague idea of what went on “under” their stratospheric perch, or “outside” the walls where the institutional grey matter was so carefully preserved. “Management by sitting around,” I’d call it.

Apart from the faulty reasoning fueled by this lack of exposure to everyday realities, their alarming lack of awareness created a lack of trust. Managers who repeatedly reveal their cluelessness while insisting that “they know best” are personifying the kind of hubris that Jim Collins insists precedes a corporate fall.

If you’re supposed to be leading, take a look out (or in) the window. Get your bearings. Talk to a few people on the front lines, and (shudder) your “customer.” You might be surprised by the view.