My love for aviation has introduced me to an array of terms like rotate, flare, crosswind, go-around, and pan-pan. Go-around is probably one of my favourites.
A go-around is when an aircraft is attempting to land, but for one reason or another, the approach is no longer safe or properly aligned. The pilot aborts the landing, climbs back up, and prepares for another attempt.
Continuing with the landing when the conditions are wrong can have catastrophic consequences.
In business, I think a go-around is much like a pivot. You can have a plan and already commit yourselves to a particular direction, but then the reality on the ground starts telling you that the approach is not working. So, you pull back, reassess, and change course. That is not necessarily failure. Sometimes, the failure is knowing the plan is wrong and continuing anyway because you have invested too much to change it.
The difficult part is knowing when to go around. Businesses have their own version of TCAS and GPWS warnings. We start to see sales falling, customers leaving, costs going up, and the product losing traction, yet we keep convincing ourselves that things will somehow improve. And sometimes, by the time the warning becomes impossible to ignore, the aircraft is already too low.
That is when the business starts hearing its own version of “terrain, pull up.” At that point, a pivot may no longer be a strategic decision but simply an attempt to survive.
Maybe we can get some lessons from aviation. You don’t wait until the landing has gone wrong to decide whether you should have gone around. You make that decision while you still have enough altitude to change course.
