Communication in the Cockpit

News reports suggest that Chesley Sullenberger III's amazing emergency landing on the Hudson River owes as much to his skill as a communicator as it does to his technical skills as a pilot. Clearly, his technical skills are remarkable, given the complexities of such a water landing in New York City. However, many have noted that he had deep expertise in crew resource management - the training in communication that was developed in the 1970s by the commercial aviation industry. This training was developed after it was discovered in the 1970s that many airplane crashes are not due to mechanical failure or a lack of technical skill on the part of the pilots, but instead due to errors in communication within the cockpit.

Many of the communication skills that pilots such as Sullenberger have mastered are, in fact, the kinds of skills that all business leaders should focus on developing. For more on crew resource management, see this paper.