The ceiling was 300 feet. Visibility was less than a mile. I was descending on an ILS approach into a fog-shrouded airport, and the plan I'd filed three hours earlier was being tested by every variable the atmosphere could throw at it.

In moments like these, instrument pilots rely on three things: the plan, the instruments, and each other. You don't improvise at minimums. You execute.

I've been flying Cirrus aircraft for years, and I've led the Cirrus Pilots Flying Group as President. Every challenging flight sharpens a skill set that turns out to be remarkably transferable to the boardroom.

The Pre-Flight Brief Is Your Strategic Plan

Before every IFR flight, a pilot files a plan: routing, alternates, fuel reserves, weather minima. The brief forces you to think through contingencies before the pressure is on. What happens if the destination goes below minimums? What's the alternate? What's the go/no-go fuel threshold?

In pharmaceutical strategy, the equivalent is the program governance framework. Too often, organizations make critical decisions — vendor selection, go/no-go at Phase II, regulatory submission strategy — reactively, under pressure, without a pre-agreed decision framework. The result is slower decisions, misaligned stakeholders, and outcomes that are worse than they needed to be.

The leaders who navigate complexity best are the ones who do the cognitive work upfront — who define their decision criteria before the turbulence starts.

Trust Your Instruments, Not Your Instincts

One of the most dangerous phenomena in IFR flying is spatial disorientation — when your body tells you the aircraft is level, but the instruments say you're in a 30-degree bank. Every instinct screams to trust what you feel. The discipline is to trust the instruments instead.

The business equivalent is the temptation to override data with intuition. An executive who "has a feeling" about a clinical asset, a CRO relationship, or a market entry strategy — despite the analytics pointing elsewhere — is flying by feel in the clouds. Sometimes instinct is right. But a systematic framework for weighing evidence against experience is how you avoid the organizational equivalent of controlled flight into terrain.

Communication Is a System, Not a Skill

IFR flight depends on continuous, standardized communication between pilot, co-pilot, and ATC. Everyone uses the same language. Everyone confirms readbacks. Ambiguity is removed by protocol, not personality.

Healthcare organizations that execute well have built the same kind of communication infrastructure. Status updates aren't ad hoc — they're structured. Escalation paths are defined. Decision rights are documented. The best cross-functional teams I've led at J&J worked this way: less heroic individual effort, more reliable system.

When you break through the clouds and the runway appears exactly where the instruments said it would be, there's a specific satisfaction in having trusted the process. That feeling is available in business too — if you build the right systems before you need them.

Originally published on LinkedIn

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