Stop Quibbling!

Location: Irish Flight room, 84 Flying Training Squadron, Laughlin AFB, outside Del Rio, Texas

Timeframe: early afternoon in late Spring 2010

Scene: Large open room about the size of two average-sized classrooms in the United States, with one long table in the middle of the room, and 6 L-shaped desk cubicles along the walls.

I am practicing radio calls and aerobatic maneuver steps with a couple of classmates. In walks one classmate, let's call her Caroline, from a flight with her instructor pilot (IP). We ask Caroline how the flight went and she's generally positive. In walks her IP, let's call him Major Sanchez.

Major Sanchez: "That was bad, LT (shorthand for lieutenant)."

Caroline: "Oh, I thought it went well, considering."

Sanchez: *squints and tilts his head* "Ok, let's start this debrief."

I continue chair-flying with my other classmates and kind of tune out their debrief except for noticing that Major Sanchez looks rather frustrated and Caroline is talking a lot for a student pilot.

Finally, Major Sanchez says, "STOP! Be quiet, LT!"

Caroline: "But, sir..."

Sanchez: "LT, I am tired of your quibbling!"

Caroline: "Sir, what do you mean?"

Sanchez, to the whole room: "All of you, get over here, now!"

We all pick up our chairs and make a semicircle around Major Sanchez's desk.

Sanchez to the group: "Who here has pilot wings on their chest?"

All of us point to him (Sanchez).

Sanchez: "Who here has been assessed not just to know the maneuvers in the manual, but has been assessed on their ability to assess others performing the maneuvers in the manual?"

All of us point to Sanchez, again.

Sanchez: "What is the point of you being here in pilot training? Are you here to get a decent grade and a diploma? No, it is to learn to fly airplanes. In a few flights from now, we will put our wings on your chest and let you take the $6M aircraft up in the air alone for an hour to do loops, barrel rolls, and landings. And at the end of this whole thing, we're going to give you wings to signify that you're pilots, entrusted to fly multi-million dollar aircraft, put other people's lives in your hands, and maybe carry bombs and even nuclear weapons."

We all sit quietly taking in the weight of what he's saying.

Sanchez to Caroline: "LT, do you think that when I tell you that you performed that maneuver incorrectly, that I'm doing it out of spite or that I don't know what I'm talking about?"

Caroline: "No, sir, but..."

Sanchez: "No! This is not an argument. This is not a competition of wills. I sat 4 feet behind you and watched you enter the maneuver slow, with not enough altitude in the block, and too little pitch. You tried it 3 times and I told you to knock-it-off three times. I demoed the maneuver and you still did not perform it correctly. I am not here to fight with you, I am here to teach you how to not kill yourself or others. We are not playing games or scoring points against a professor. This can be life or death. You do not want to stall that plane with full power and yaw."

Caroline: "Yes, sir, I understand."

Sanchez: "Good. I asked you all over here because this is not the first time one of you have quibbled in debrief. We are not here to argue over what you think happened and what you think was the correct thing to do. The Air Force spent a lot of time and money to put me in the position to teach you how to fly this aircraft and they have spent a lot of time and money to put you here. When I tell you what I saw and what you need to fix, I am not asking for your thoughts and rebuttal. I am here to make you better. I am here to make you pilots. If you disagree, I don't care. You better learn this now because you are going to be debriefing every flight for the rest of your career. It is not a time to quibble and bicker. It is a time to learn and get better. We are not the best Air Force in the world because we can argue. No, it is because we take feedback and we improve. If you can't do that here, in pilot training, where we will give you enough rope and dedicated instruction to get better, surrounded by peers going through the exact same thing, then you will crash airplanes and get people killed when you get to your MWS (Major Weapon System, your career plane after pilot training. Mine was the C-130)."

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Why do I remember this so vividly? Because it has become one of my defining core values and has gotten me to where I am today.

We only get better at life by taking feedback and finding ways to apply it in our lives. If you have someone present you feedback, do not waste the opportunity fighting about your perspective or what you think the other person got wrong. Give them the goddamned benefit of the doubt and consider what it might mean if they are right. Can you apply what they're saying to your situation? If they're not actually full of shit, what does that mean and what can you learn from it?

Why am I writing this? Because my last article with constructive feedback made a few people personally hurt because they felt like I did them an injustice with my perspective. Here's the sad part for them, I didn't write that article to make them look bad or for my personal gratification. I gave you useful feedback. If you want to quibble and argue, then you are leaving so many possibilities for growth and excellence on the table.

We are all imperfect. Some human beings are amazing. But even the greatest people I know fail from time to time. Batters miss the hit. Pitchers don't get the strike. Quarterbacks fumble. Midfielders miss the goal. Content creators stutter and lose their train of thought. Pentesters miss the vulnerability. Incident responders miss the alert. CISOs don't get the budget. Business don't hit their sales. Pilots have a rough landing. Racecar drivers miss the line. Shit happens.

When you get someone willing to give you free feedback, shut your GD mouth and listen!

The Japanese have a term, kaizen( 改善, かいぜん), that means "change for better." It represents continuous improvement. It applies to individuals and organizations. It is ubiquitous with western philosophy, as well. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both wrote/spoke about continuously improving and growing.

So, if you're young and in school, or older and have years of experience, take the feedback and stop your quibbling. Look at the opportunity to get better at something. If you are hurt, that is a whole other article. Marcus Aurelius wrote, "Choose not to be harmed — and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed — and you haven't been." You can't change what happens, but you can decide how you are going to react to what happens. If you are butthurt about something, that is on you. No matter of arguing or quibbling is going to improve things. So, be a child or be an adult, the choice is yours. But I really hope that if you get feedback, you seize it and apply it to the maximum extent possible.