You’re a pilot. You’re ascending up to 2,000′ with 200′ to go. Start to level out. Oops, overshot at 2,150′. Nose down. Dive. Level out. Oops 1,900′. Up. 2,050. A touch down, 1,950′. Up, there, good. 2,050′. Down again. 2,000′. Perfect. Level out. 1,950′. Up a touch. 2,000′, Straight and Level. Done.
As any pilot will tell you, you don’t “chase the numbers”. You anticipate the leveling out, level out, trim, set for Straight and Level and then adjust.
In the first scenario, you do more work, it’s more “hands on”, you make a mountain out of a molehill, but feel a sense of success after a tough job well done in a danger-free environment. (Though your passengers will have thrown up in their laps). In the second scenario, it’s altogether less interesting and there’s a much smaller sense of achievement. Levelling out from a climb is not, however, a tricky manoeuvre and there’s no real achievement in succeeding at it – except for the novice pilot, perhaps.
The problem with “chasing the numbers” comes from “hysteresis”. That is the lag between recognising you are overshooting, moving the control column and the plane responding. Just a lag of 2-3 seconds will cost you a few hundred feet and a few pence more on the drycleaner’s bill.
The alternative strategy to “chase the numbers” is “prepare and do the right thing…see where it takes you…slight adjust”. Experience helps in this, of course.
It’s fair to say that novice pilots soon learn not to make such a challenge out of Straight and Level Flight. A few practice runs and an Instructor screaming “don’t chase the numbers” to them, just makes it happen sooner.
The link with business? Spend more time on the actions and how to refine the actions, and treat the numbers as consequences and outputs of the actions. If you chase the numbers you will find yourself reinventing more than adapting your actions. It might be more fun, but it’s not as productive.
[The above prompted by Rick Burnes' comments in, and Mike Volpe's response to, one of my earlier posts in which Rick talks (twice) of focusing on "Building The Cathedral"]
