The last flight I took had been delayed 3 hours, which meant folks trying to transfer through would barely make their connections.

Before we landed, the flight attendant announced “we have 12 people trying to make extremely tight connections. If you’re not one of those people, please remain seated upon landing so they can deplane first.”

They threw in a little forced empathy and social guilt, “If you were trying to make a flight, wouldn’t you want others to do that for you?”

I’d heard this announcement on other flights before and remained skeptical that it would make a difference. After all, self-interest is strong and incurring a minor delay for someone else’s benefit doesn’t seem to be en vogue these days.

But this crew took things to the next level – “If you’re one of the 12 people with tight connections, please raise your hand so people can see who you are.”

Rather than have passengers fend for themselves by pushing their way through, the crew utilized their power and position to make it easier for the passengers to make their connection – and for bystanders to reinforce the norm.

So, what can we learn from the crew?

• Communicate – the crew let people know what the issue was, what the expectations were, and who was involved.
• Make it clear when the norms are different – rather than the usual row by row filing off the plane from front to back, we were going to let the people who had raised their hands go first.
• Assign clear roles – if you weren’t someone with a tight connection, you knew you were supposed to sit tight.
• Provide anchors for bystanders – instead of worrying about whether you’re speaking out of turn or whether it’s really your business, the announcements gave the rest of us something to reference back to and a role in reinforcing the norms the crew had articulated.

Creating a different PROCESS (how a conversation or interaction unfolds) fundamentally changes the calculation of how hard it is to get what we need, whether people get heard, and what culture we’re co-creating.

On your own team or in your community,

• What norms are you trying to create when it comes to speaking up?
• What actions can you take as a leader or facilitator to lower the costs for people to act?
• What stakes can you put in the ground so others can reference back to them?

The groundwork we lay before key moments impacts the people around us, the cultures we build, the norms we reinforce – and sometimes, whether we make the flight.

Elaine

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1. ​Connect with me on LinkedIn for tips on leadership, communication, and navigating toxic workplaces weekdays at 9am ET.
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