Hey guys, sorry just a quick addition of a story that might help to add a little context to where I am coming from....
A little while ago we had a student that was pretty solid with flying, but he was very difficult in debriefs. He was quite sure of himself and more often than not would become very defensive with the QFI’s points, and displayed a few of the tendencies that I previously mentioned. He very quickly got a bad rep amongst us and people didn’t really want to fly with the guy. So my boss came to me and asked me to talk to him and sort it out.
Now I can tell you it was expecting a very difficult and awkward conversation, and this is pretty much word for word what I said....
“Dude your flying is solid, but in the debriefs most QFI’s think you are a bit of a dick”
Sounds harsh, but I am a rip the band aid off when it comes to bad news kind of guy. Now that’s how it started, and I obviously elaborated with some pretty specific examples.....
So what was the reaction on the other side of the conversation..... he was completely mortified! He had no idea that he was perceived that way, and he was especially embarrassed that the QFI body had that view of him.
The good news here was his reaction, he clearly wasn’t intending to come across that way and had not realised how he was being perceived.
The result was he changed the way he operated, people became happy to fly with him and he ultimately got better. He actually thanked me for having that conversation when he got his wings.
I guess take what you want from that story, but hopefully there is a lesson there that everybody can benefit from.
Perception is often reality.
SHT