The Canadian
Snowbirds Demonstration Team has been thrilling audiences at
high-performance air shows across North America since 1978. A branch of
the Canadian Air Force, one would think such a group would be rigidly
hierarchical—but it’s not. It’s really quite
self-managed.
One of the joys of working with the Morning Star Self-Management
Institute is scouring the world for examples of self-management in
action. Frequently, we find self-management in unlikely
places.
One question that comes up is: how important is coordination
(a.k.a. teamwork) in a self-managed environment? The answer: it's
everything! A core traditional management function, coordination (or
the lack thereof) among team members can make or break an organization.
Self-management is unlike Peter Drucker’s famous metaphor of organization as
conducted symphony. To continue with the music metaphors, it’s much
more like a cluster of jazz bands roaming around Bourbon Street. The
trick is not to direct them, but just to make sure that each band is
relatively harmonious and doesn’t clash with all the other
bands.
In an organization with multiple geographic locations, one can
speculate about the myriad levels of coordination that have to occur: between
locations, between functions, between businesses, and between domains like
sales, strategy and human resources. Pretty complex, right? Now
imagine an organization of self-managed professionals in an unlikely
organization, creating scores of high-risk public performances for six months
out of every year—where coordination is (and, tragically, has been) literally
a matter of life or death.
A few quick facts about this Canadian icon, the Snowbirds Demonstration
Team:
• The Snowbirds (431 Air Demonstration Squadron) consist of
approximately 88 people based in Moose
Jaw, Saskatchewan, consisting mostly of mechanics and support
staff.
• The team includes 11 pilots, two of whom serve as ground controllers and
nine of whom fly the nine Canadian-built Tutor jets.
• The air show season lasts from May through October, taking the team
throughout North America.
• The jets are circa 1964, making them older than the pilots.
• The team is somewhat low-tech, moving equipment around the continent in a
semi truck and trailer.
• The Snowbirds are eminently accessible: anyone can call up public affairs
officer Captain Marc Velasco and seek information at any
time.
• The pilots fly in tight formations at up to 600 kph/400 mph, are
incredibly athletic, and pull up to 6 G’s during performances. The
first female Snowbird pilot, Maryse
Carmichael, is now the Commanding Officer. There have been six
fatalities over the years. It’s not a job for the
faint-hearted.
• There is a two-foot-square box of vertical space above and below each
Snowbird jet flying in formation. Pilots cannot see above and
below—they must trust their fellow pilots to avoid
catastrophe.
• Snowbird jets fly horizontally about six to eight feet apart, wingtip to
wingtip. This may seem like plenty of room, but not when they’re flying
at four hundred miles per hour.
• Pilots debrief after each show and each practice. There is a lead
pilot in the #1 plane, referred to as the “Boss.” The Boss is not
called the Boss because he or she gets to boss everyone else around.
The title carries with it enhanced decision rights and responsibilities,
accepted by everyone (i.e. whether to fly in particular weather conditions,
etc.). Even a flock of geese flying in formation needs a lead bird to
follow. That is one function of the Boss—to be the #1 lead
bird.
• The team engages in six months of intensive preparation, and includes
more than fifty
different formations and maneuvers.
• Finding new recruits is not a problem: being a Snowbird pilot is
considered one of the most prestigious jobs in the Canadian Air Force.
Making the final selection cutdown is challenging, especially since there are
so many talented pilots available.
• Turnover is deliberate: the Snowbirds intentionally replace one-third of
their nine pilots every year (how would that work in most
organizations?).
Some critical success factors emerge from the Snowbirds
preparation and execution:
• There is an extremely high sense of mission focus. The Snowbirds
represent not only the Canadian Armed Forces, but the entire nation.
As ambassadors for their country, they carry a sharp sense of
responsibility to achieve excellence in every performance.
• The pilots engage in highly effective time-compressed group visualization
before every practice and performance. The exercise allows them to
imprint a vision of a perfect performance in their brains before executing it
in real time—leading to continuous improvement.
• Hierarchy melts on the road, since the Snowbird pilots live out of
suitcases in hotels across North America for six months out of the
year. Yes, there are different military ranks among the pilots.
They become like a family, however, developing trust and
camaraderie.
• Trust is paramount: since pilots can’t see directly above or below their
own planes, there is simply no way to perform without trust.
• Feedback is a constant—visual, cockpit instruments, voice communication,
etc. And every practice and performance is videotaped and
debriefed. The Snowbirds are committed to a relentless pursuit of
perfection. They engage in unemotional, unvarnished critiques of
themselves and each other—again contributing to continuous
improvement.
• The particular role played by each Snowbird pilot (i.e., piloting the #7
plane, for example) is conducted for each show according to a specific
written plan for that show. If a pilot has to break off a formation to
avoid a flock of birds, for example, it’s referred to as a “missed
contract.” Each pilot has an overall mission (i.e., be the #7 pilot),
and a mission for a particular practice or performance (i.e., perform X
maneuvers in Y formations). And all guided by an oath to the Canadian
Armed Forces and the nation. Before a pilot takes off for a
performance, it’s pretty clear what his or her job is at that
moment.
The Snowbirds perform at San Francisco’s Fleet Week on Saturday and Sunday,
October 8 and 9, 2011 https://www.fleetweek.us/index.html.
Check out this video and turn on the sound for a preview of what
to expect when self-managed professionals coordinate like their lives depend on
it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFl_6O5hFSQ&feature=player_embedded.
