No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist. - Charlie Munger
Pilots deal with a lot of pressure. Imagine having sole responsibility for a few hundred people; one mistake from you and it’s a disaster. Oh, and the thing you’re controlling, that all these people depend on, is a highly complex piece of machinery with lots of moving parts and things that could change. Dealing with a complex system, pilots prioritize checklists to make sure they never miss anything. Pilots do this when things are going well, but also when they are under pressure. Pre-take off, run the checklist. After landing, run a checklist. Something goes wrong in the air, take out the manual and run the checklist. Preparing the checklist when you aren’t under pressure, when you can think rationally, allows you to run it without thinking when things are going badly.
Life is a pretty complex thing. It comes with pressures, challenges, good times, and hard times. You might not be responsible for a few hundred people, but you are certainly responsible for yourself. The lowly checklist can teach you to be more productive, avoid mistakes, and deal with pressure. For many of you, this will sound like a chore, not something that is useful. “I’ve done thing X a hundred times before, why do I need a checklist?”. Doing the same thing repeatedly, eventually you’ll get complacent. You’ll skip steps. You’ll miss things. Sometimes when you miss things, it might be ok, until the one time it isn’t.
In the past, I’ve talked about second-order thinking. It’s dangerous if you make decisions without thinking about the downstream affects. I said in that post that I struggle myself to apply this sometimes. So why not formalise it? That’s what checklists are for. Every time you have a major decision to make, run the checklists.
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Have I considered the downstream impact of this decision?
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What happens if I get punched in the face?
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Have I considered the entire system and the dependencies of this decision?
You have the list ready, and you run it without thinking. Now you don’t have to remember to think about the downstream impact, you take the run book and then just run it.
There is obviously some ceremony involved. In some cases, it’s not worth it. Jeff Bezos’ famous one-way and two-way doors works. If you aren’t familiar, a two-way door is an easily reversible decision. A one-way door is the opposite. For two-way door decisions, speed can matter more than considering all your options. If it doesn’t work, you reverse it. With a one-way doors though, you need to ask these kinds of questions. Run your checklist, ensure you’ve thought about the options.
James