Life and Limb: How Managers Keep us Safe
On 5 September 1986, Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked by four armed men. Neerja Bhanot was the senior flight attendant on board. During the seventeen horrifying hours that followed, Neerja heroically took charge of the situation. She repeatedly put the passengers’ safety ahead of her own. Only 22 years old at the time, she saved countless lives and was later recognized as “the heroine of the hijacking.” She was immortalized in the 2016 biopic Neerja.
Being a people manager isn’t life and death, usually. Neither is being a flight attendant, most of the time. Flight attendants spend most of their time on comfort and convenience, then leap into action when things go wrong. They are given the little bit of power they need to enforce the rules that keep us safe. They do this with calm courtesy while keeping us comfortable along the way. Thank you, flight attendants.
Why do we need managers? Managers enforce the rules that keep us safe at work. Without managers, teams would probably still get some work done. We’ll never know, because no-one has ever tried. I’m joking, of course. A freelancer did try once. But seriously, there’s rarely call for managers to save the lives of their workers (it does happen!) There is a whole spectrum of bad experiences that professional managers and flight attendants help us avoid.
After I take my seat on a plane, I’ll pass the time watching the flight attendants do their work in the galley. They’re surveying their passengers as we settle in the cabin. They’re noticing our transgressions: bags that must be stowed, seats that must be raised. They’re making minute adjustments on their console to the lights. Their perfecting the temperature of the air. They are exercising their duty of care. We are their passengers. We are in their cabin.
If I am your manager, this how I feel about you. You’re my passenger. You’re in my cabin. It’s true that I spend most of my time on process and methods. I’m getting people and projects in and out of the building. While I do this, I feeling a similar sense of responsibility for the well-being of my team at work that a flight attendant does for me while I’m on their plane. Does this mean that management is all about feelings? No. But it does have to do with responsibility and care.
The flight attendant and the manager are each given a bit of extra authority and responsibility. We are expected to put it to good use, with our good grace and our good judgement. I want to improve the experience of the people who with me here in the office. I want to make our time productive. I want us to be safe, like the flight attendant who also works to make make our time together productive. They keep us safe by ensuring the rules are followed while we’re inhabiting in the tiny space we share together in the sky.
Not everyone will agree with my benign construction of the manager’s role. You might say the manager is meant to optimize the productivity or output of the team. Emotional or environmental inputs are not their concern, and that’s ok. There’s mistrust in our culture for other people’s feelings, especially at work. It can be difficult to adjust to the idea that we can manage productivity by understanding what people think and feel. I found the idea quite frustrating at first.
Workplace safety is a top priority for management. That’s because the happiest, healthiest people work the hardest and the best. Not to mention that injuries are expensive for employers. From here we travel only a short distance to arrive at the idea that that workplace safety can incorporate emotional and psychological safety as well. This turns out to be a pretty good idea.
I did not invent this or any of the many good ideas that go along with it. There’s good science behind it. You really don’t think too hard about this. As a manager, you can decide to just try it on for size. Nothing bad will happen if you find that it doesn’t work for you.
We entrust managers with additional power, pay, and other benefits. As managers we are trusted by über-managers with extra autonomy, and we enjoy some special social status. The über-managers expect us to deliver productivity. Workers expect a safe environment, free from physical and emotional harm. When it works, it’s a good deal all around. Yahtzee!
Along with the power given to managers come elevated expectations. In an emergency, something extra is expected from flight attendants. If things go bad, they may be the last off of the plane. For managers, there’s a power imbalance between us and the people we lead. We have higher expectations of managers than we do from individual contributors in the same situation.
For example, let’s say somebody at work shares an idea with a peer who thinks the idea is terrible. They will probably get an honest and direct response. Hopefully it’s courteous and respectful. But if the recipient thought the idea was very stupid or dangerous, they’ll probably just come right out and say it . They might not tailor their response to the needs of the recipient. There is no requirement for constructive criticism. There’s no consideration of shared goals.
Next example: A colleague in another division is set to launch a product that competes with my own. I find out about it in the cafeteria (remember those?!) Their product is launching this afternoon.
I might display an animated reaction. Do we expect my colleague to share with me ideas on how to integrate our business strategies? Probably not — that’s more like a manager’s role.
I might express my feelings about how my interests have been harmed. That would be normal. (A sensitive manager would advise that this isn’t likely to result in anything productive.)
Will my colleague share a plan for combining my project with theirs, so that both of our goals could be achieved? Maybe, maybe not. That’s also more likely to be the work of a manager in a situation like this.
The expectations of a manager are different in important ways. On an airplane, when a passenger spills coffee on another, what happens? Is the flight attendant meant to respond differently from a passenger who witnesses the same incident? Does the flight attendant’s reaction differ if it wasn’t airline coffee but Starbuck’s that was spilled?
No, it doesn’t matter whose coffee it was. Managers are meant to center the employee in their work. Flight attendants can improve both comfort and safety by centering the experience of their passengers. We get results from people by working through them. The flight attendant isn’t really concerned with beverage revenue. They want to heal our burns and help us clean our mess.
(Confidential to flight attendants: Thank you for allowing this comparison to managers to continue. It’s convenient but it’s unfair. You have it much worse than us. We’re sitting in $1,000 Herman Miller chairs drinking single origin coffee. Your job is standing up, at night, crammed in a steel tube shooting across the Atlantic, bullied and bothered by people who think you’re a bartender. You put your lives on the line for us. We love you and we’re sorry.)
As a manager in a tense situation, my better angels often wrestle for a few seconds with the mangy demons that operate the motor cortex. It can sometimes takes a second to remember that I am the adult in charge of worker safety in this room. My job is to keep calm and try to get everyone through the meeting safely and in one piece.
The manager’s work is to talk to the employee about choices they feel might be improved. I could suggest some alternatives (“yes to these” is preferred to “no to those” when giving feedback). I can build empathy by asking questions before making statements. I’ll try to ask questions to gain understanding before I jump to conclusions. It’s a great technique. (I am not saying I’m the best at this. I’m saying that I try, okay?)
A flight attendant and a manager should each adopt a calm and even demeanor. We de-escalate as the emotional stakes rise. As a manager in an intense situation, my voice remains calm. In a professional environment, especially in a 1:1 setting, an employee should not have to tolerate a raised voice.
If you’re in a meeting where shouting has occurred, you have my permission to politely end the meeting. If you feel unsafe, you could choose to simply walk right out of the room. [SAFETY NOTICE TO FLIGHT ATTENDANTS — PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT!]
A manager yelling at an employee is putting workplace safety at risk. I spoke to a lot of people for this piece, and every one of them agreed. Even if it’s via videochat or phone, yelling could evidence a lack of self-control that undermines trust, communicates the absence of respect, and is (duh) counter-productive.
Be aware that our perception of voice is gendered. Women are unfairly perceived as louder than men at the same decibels. There are racial implications and ramifications for other marginalized communities as well. Interrupt your biases when deciding how to handle a difficult situation.
Pro tip: If I find myself getting frustrated in a meeting and I’m concerned my tone may start to rise, here’s what I’ll try to do. I will attempt to shut up completely, although that’s been clinically proven impossible. I’ll resolve to ask only questions for the rest of the meeting. It’s pretty hard to shout more than one question in a row at someone.
The hijackers held the passengers on Pan Am Flight 73 hostage for nearly a day. Then they started shooting. Neerja Bhanot opened an airplane door. She did not run out, and she did not slide down, and she did not run away. She stood in the doorway and helped countless other passengers escape. She saved the lives of as many as 359 passengers and crew.
Tragically, the hijackers shot Neerja in the doorway of the plane. She died there. But not before saving the life of a 7-year old child. He went on to become an airline pilot. He’s since said that he owes every day of his life to her.
The manager’s work is usually not life and death. We may not be saving lives, but we can try to improve them. Working in the medium of computer software, it’s hard to see any any tangible result from our work at all. But as people managers, we have the amazing privilege to be working in the medium of human relationships. That work can last a lifetime.
Managers are given a special bit of power that few will ever enjoy. We can use it to make a little improvement in how other people spend the huge part of our lives that we spend together at work.
