I recently in church I heard a very powerful story illustrating the need for constant guidance, coaching and training, and accountability. Here is the short version..
On 29 November 1979, Air New Zealand flight 901 crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica killing 257 people that took the sight-seeing flight. Six mistakes are attributed to the cause of the crash.
1. The flight co-ordinate was off by two degrees
2. Once the co-ordinate was discovered to be slightly off course, no one took immediate action
3. No one that knew of the previous mistake made mention of it in the briefing before the flight
4. The assigned crew was not briefed on the phenomenon of "whiteout;" a condition which obscures the horizon and blurs ground detail.
5. Due to habits of the pilot crew, co-ordinate was typed in without seeing the "addendum" to the original flight plan
6. In order to fly below the clouds, the navigation system was disengaged.
Too often we have an idea where we want to end up; however, our "flight plan" is off just a couple of degrees. What we do not realize is that just a couple of degrees in the beginning, may be putting us in a path to destruction. And even after realizing we are off course, we procrastinate making changes in our business, and our life; again, leading to disaster.
Business also produces "Business Whiteouts." Is that not we are in? Many of us were not briefed properly on a down market so we did business never expecting or knowing of specific whiteout warning signs. More consequently, we flew into the down market blindly, and many are now leaving the industry or struggling financially.
Instead of looking to the expertise and knowledge of others, we, often times, habitually enter the co-ordinates instead of analyzing the market and our business strategies every day before heading in the wrong direction.
Most agents not only disengage their navigation, they do not even have one! And I am not talking about the Garman Navigation in their car. I am referring to a plan, goals, and systems. We cannot guess in this business, we need to have systems in place to give us direction, and we need to continually evaluate whether we are on course for disaster or success.
One or all of the mistakes made can be used as examples of coaching. The most compelling is number one. Just two degrees off course was a course that leads to 257 deaths. We all need course correcting, especially in Real Estate, especially in today's market.
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