The message that is missing is the answer to "what is good flight training".

I had a potential client call the school yesterday wondering why our flight instructors' hourly rates are about twice that of the other local instructors. Our rate, as it turns out, is in line with his golf instructor and his kids' math tutors. He wondered why the others are so cheap.

Another pilot who will never be a client asks why should he pay for flight instruction when his mail is filled with instructors willing to instruct him for free simply because he owns a multiengine airplane.

The CFIs that will instruct for free will always be out there.

Food for thought.

Arlynn,

Thank you for engaging in this discussion of how to do things differently. As I mentioned to you offline, I’ve observed your leadership from afar through your publications with great interest.

Many years ago I became the contributing editor of AOPA’s Flight School Business Magazine. Though I tried to at least scan all of the flight training publications each month, the truth is that most of the material was repackaged goods. However you caught my attention with your CFI Boot Camp article: http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/inst_reports2.cfm?article=5532 and: "Those Who Can't, Period" (March 2004 AOPA Flight Training) – and you have kept it ever since. Thank you for your service!

Arlynn, you ‘get’ it, and both the students and instructors at Aero-Tech are beneficiaries. The question we all need to wrestle with is: “How can we have the greatest impact on all of our customers, including the students and instructors, not just those lucky enough to go to work with the 300 or so “Master Instructors” – out of over 90,000 CFIs?

You are also correct in recognizing the huge step forward this blog represents vis-à-vis a frank, open, and respectful introspection of the status quo, where we’ve been, and possibilities for the future.

The move to create a new organization with a governance structure that is open, democratic, and responsive is also profound. But open, democratic, and responsive does not necessarily translate into effectiveness. Effectiveness is measured by getting the right things done. The “Proposed Job Description(s) and Policy(s)” available on the Proposed Governance Docs page: http://tbonafi.info/docs.aspx provides some guidelines to increase the possibility of efficient and effective execution:

2. Proposed Job Description -- Board of Directors
3. Proposed Job Description -- Chair of the Board
4. Proposed Job Description -- Executive Director
5. Proposed Policy Related to Board Operations
6. Proposed Policy -- Role of the Board of Directors

One of the greatest components of the capacity of a membership organization is the willingness of its members to contribute their knowledge, passion, time, and money toward achieving the organization’s mission and goals. Some will be called on to serve in a governance role as a member of the Board of Directors, and some will participate in the management and/or operations as either paid or volunteer staff. I encourage all to read carefully (or re-read) the source document for many of these policies (as well as the By-laws) “Governance is Governance. You can download this document as a PDF from: http://www.independentsector.org/PDFs/governance.pdf
Specifically I recommend processing this information until we have a clear understanding of the concepts of what constitutes governance, what constitutes management, and how effective governance is NOT management. (This will also increase the perspective of functionality/dysfunction in other aerospace education organizations.)

With respect and concern – I want to challenge us to discuss and reconsider the statements:

“As a longer-term goal (5 years?), we can consider how best to branch out to make a larger, positive impact on the industry.”…

Overall, success requires that we conduct a survey of "current needs" and prioritize them. That will chart our course. I think I see a new committee emerging! …

“We can't get bogged down in administration issues.”

Arlynn, the “Policy Related to Board Operations” includes:

“…The Board shall approach its functions by focusing on strategic direction and governance rather than management and operations. The Board shall clearly distinguish between governance, management and appropriately define the scopes of authority and limitations….”

“…The Board focuses its involvement on the intended long-term impact / results of the organization, not with the administrative or programmatic means of attaining said impact / results…. ”

“… The Board governs the organization through its dialogue, decision-making and policies. In particular, policies shall articulate values and define scopes of authority and limitations, typically addressing the following areas:
a) The organization’s mission, vision and desired results / outcomes
b) Guidelines, boundaries and limitations of prudence and ethics to be observed by staff, Board, Board members, and committees.
c) Board, officer, and committee roles and responsibilities.
d) Board – Staff relationship. …”

Whereas the “Policy Related to Executive Director” includes:

“Serve as director of the institution, reporting to the Board of Directors, accepting responsibility for the success or failure of the enterprise.

With the chair of the board, enable the Board of Directors to fulfill its governance function, and facilitate the optimum interaction between management and the Board of Directors.

Give direction to the formulation and leadership to the achievement of the institution’s philosophy, mission, strategy, and annual objectives and goals….”

“… Get the best thinking and involvement of each board member. Stimulate all members to give their best….”

“…Maintain a climate that attracts keeps and motivates top quality people—professional and volunteer… .”

“…Formulate and administer all major policies…. “

“…Assure that the institution has a long-range strategy that achieves its mission, and toward which it makes consistent and timely progress…”


Arlynn, all of the ideas you mention are good suggestions. Each of them is a tactic that an organization may use as part of strategic approach to accomplishing a goal or a mission. I like tactics. We all like tactics. Tactics is our comfort zone. It’s what we do everyday.

However, if we are going to be effective as change agents, then we need to become effective executives. In this case we need to establish the management structure and processes that will allow us change the world of aerospace education. This will be a much harder to accomplish than most can imagine.

The good news is we have examples of management structures and processes that we can borrow from. One of the exercises I’ve conducted with hundreds of leaders of first-response agencies, e.g. fire chiefs, law enforcement officials, emergency management agency directors, emergency medical managers, public health and public works directors, etc. , is the transition from single agency or single jurisdiction Incident Command, to multi-agency/multi-jurisdictional Unified Command in response to potential expanding incidents (think WMD event).

Imagine a room full of “Type-A” personalities who have illustrious careers of sending people into harm’s way – and controlling the action being told that the new plan will be management-by-consensus (vs. fiat) and that the Unified Command section will be in charge of establishing the objectives, while the Operations Section will be in charge of strategy and tactics, i.e. implementing those objectives.

The Command group is tasked with designing objectives that are specific, measurable, action-oriented, reasonable, and time limited (SMART). Then they have to ask themselves: “If I was the Operations Section Chief, could I live with this objective.” I can’t tell you how many times that Command sends a tactic disguised as an objective down to Operations.

You know, and I know that a good manager doesn’t micromanage, even if it is really hard to avoid the temptation. In the face of horrific consequences in terms of lives and/or property for not getting-it-right, even Type A personalities can learn to adopt “best practices” in higher level management.

Arlynn – we will have plenty of opportunity to contribute our knowledge, experience, case studies (like Aero-Tech), suggestions, finances, time, and effort. I believe that it now is the time to create the structure, choose the management, and offer all of our support to the organization through the adoption of these best-practices.

V/R

Mordechai Levin
Executive Director
Masterflight Foundation

20 years in the Marine Corps taught me that
Command identified Strategy (What to do) and then Staff (Admin, Intel, Ops, Logistics) developed tactical courses of action for Command to choose from (aka How to do it).
Command's responsibility was to take care of their people, and the people in turn took care of the mission.

The best tool you can have in your toolkit is access to a system expert, like a CFI, who can develop courses of action and run programs for Commanders.

Gung Ho
"Clark" Kent

Hello Mordecai –

I present my reaction to your posting in the hopes of stimulating discussion. If I am too bold, let me apologize in advance. It’s all intended to get us to a good result.

The discussion of metrics is premature. The first order of business needs to be the mission statement. “The purpose of SAFE (“the organization”) is to develop, promote, assist, and advance aviation education, flight instruction, career choices, and professional development.”

In my professional life before aviation, we approached metrics this way:

Define the goal – from which comes a question – from which you derive a metric.

A single goal is best. More than three and you’ll achieve none of them.

As I read the list of metrics suggestions, it seems that the dream is to return to 1946, with a rapidly expanding GA fleet, fueled by thousands of new pilots. Those pilots will pay a living wage to the instructors to teach them. We hit the peak in 1982, and it’s been downhill ever since. In an effort to make GA safe, the FAA and its sister organizations have added enough regulations to choke the student pilot. In 1915, we could teach a student to solo an inherently unstable aircraft in ten hours. Since then the aircraft are easier to fly, but solo doesn’t happen until twenty.

In the nineteen forties, the Bonanza was competing with the railroad as a means of travelling the US. Today, the Cirrus is no match for a commuter airline over the short haul, and no competition with a Boeing for the long haul. If you have to visit two small cities in a day, yes, the Cirrus works. Otherwise, you fly because you love it, not because it makes sense. If you have the coin to fly a G550, then you will beat the airlines, but that’s not an option for most of us.

More and more instructors are chasing a decreasing pilot population. That population is aging, too – an indication that it will shrink further. The airlines still need pilots, even if crews have shrunk to two. Aspiring airline pilots still need stick time. As long as they do, twenty-three year olds will give multi-engine instruction free.

Negative? Perhaps. But we need to play the hand were dealt.

It’s probably out of our capability as instructors to reinvigorate aviation generally. It is within our power to produce and maintain an educated pilot population that stays out of trouble. After all, report after report show that the pilot is part of the overwhelming majority of accident chains.

If we succeed in reducing the accident rate, then we can attract more pilots to GA. Insurance rates will drop and fewer spouses will say “no” to flying.

If we can demonstrate that SAFE contributed to a drop in the accident rate, then we will have a raison d'etre.

As we choose what activities to pursue, we need to make sure we always drive toward the primary goal. We may choose to publish a newsletter (paper or electronic). We may seek sponsors for our activities. What we need to avoid is the same disease that afflicts all large non-profits – when the sustenance of the organization overshadows the mission. A magazine with attractive graphics is nice – and will help us attract advertising support – but it’s not crucial to the mission. If a plain-text email will work, let’s do that. I just want to avoid the kind of large organization dynamics that start including branded credit cards, cooperative insurance sales schemes and the like.

Better we stay small, committed, active, and effective than strive for 10,000 members.

Robert Hadow