Quick question: why are so many leaders proud of a sentence that would get you banned from an actual airline?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“We’re building the plane while flying it.”
You can almost hear the dramatic music when they say it. They think it sounds innovative. Gritty. Cool. But it doesn’t. It sounds like, “We skipped planning and ignored risk. But hey, look how much you learned.”
Look, there are seasons where things move fast and everyone is building as they go. Startups. New lines of business. That’s real. But there’s a big difference between moving fast with intention and hurling everyone into the sky with a half-assembled aircraft.
From the employee side, “building the plane while flying it” usually means:
-Priorities change every 36 hours
-Nobody knows who owns what
-You find out about “critical” projects in random meetings
People are celebrated for heroic recovery, not quiet, boring prevention
And then we label the resulting exhaustion “resilience.” No. That’s not resilience. That’s people trying not to throw up in turbulence. If you’re a leader and you truly need to go fast then your job is to make speed safer, not prettier. That looks like:
– A simple roadmap: what’s happening this quarter, what’s not
– Clear roles: who decides, who does, who supports
– Guardrails: what we won’t change mid-flight unless something is literally on fire
– Real sequencing: everything can’t be “Phase One”
You don’t need a 200-page project charter. You just need enough structure so people aren’t guessing all day. Because burnout isn’t proof of commitment, it’s proof of bad design.
So, the next time you’re tempted to say, “We’re building the plane while flying it,” try this instead: “We’re building the plane fast, but on the ground so we can have a smoother flight.”
Way less exciting. Way more adult. Your team doesn’t need more adrenaline. They need fewer avoidable emergencies.
I’m curious: What’s the wildest version of “building the plane while flying it” you’ve lived through?
OR What’s the leadership catchphrase you’d happily retire forever?
Drop it in the comments. Let’s make a little no-fly list together.
