MJ,
Whilst much of what you say cannot be argued against, I would suggest that for every FI that needs to "sort their own **** out", there will be a CFI, ops manager or owner that needs to do the same.
The issue of customers routinely wanting to change from a "bag egg" is easily managed through robust standardisation, acceptance checks, supervision and performance monitoring. Avoiding the situation as you suggest is doing themselves, the customer and the FI in question a great dis-service and lacks integrity on the part of the school. Looking in the mirror very rarely shows up the problem; outside input is needed.
Where the unfairness comes in is an example scenario of two full time instructors, both restricted, joining within weeks of each other but one is given priority on hours ahead of the other as "he/she was first". This is particularly bad when the instructor losing out is the one getting the requests from customers to do more flying with them as the customers find it easier to learn and get more from their flying as he/she appears to take an interest in the customer's teaching and progression rather than the amount of hours accrued in his/her log book.
Maybe the line between each scenario is a fine one, however I think that many flying schools could do well spending some time looking inwardly at HOW they deliver their training/product to their customers and looking after their staff rather than always looking outward at solely fulfilling their own needs. Adair's leadership model is quite apt in the example of a flying school developing both students and instructors.
Having said all that, there are also just some total knob heads in the business who should be summarily sacked or have their approvals withdrawn, all of whom we are seemingly powerless to stop....!
