Quiet Resolution Archives - understand-culture

The Cockpit Gradient

On August 7, 2020, Air India Express Flight 1344 skidded off the end of the tabletop runway at Kozhikode. The crew had aborted two earlier landing attempts because of heavy rain and tailwind. Both pilots and 19 passengers died. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau published its final report in September 2021. It found that the first officer “did not offer the required corrective inputs and displayed a meek and unassertive demeanour.”

The report pointed to “the prevailing cockpit gradient in Air India Express leading to poor Crew Resource Management.” It also described “The stiff and closed work environment, where hierarchy and seniority work to the detriment of the airline.”

It Will Get Done

Ho jayega. It will get done. HP India built an advertising campaign for small businesses around the phrase. The trade site BestMediaInfo called it “that typical Indian expression.” HP India’s chief marketing officer, Prashant Jain, described the campaign as “a celebration of the dependability of the Indian small business owner.”

The Intelligence Report

In 1977, during the Emergency, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called a general election. Her private secretary R.K. Dhawan later explained why, in an interview with Karan Thapar on India Today television. “She believed the IB report that she would get a majority,” he said. “It was P N Dhar who handed over an Intelligence Bureau report that prompted her to declare elections.”

Dhawan also said that she “was not aware of her son’s activities during Emergency and no complaints against him ever reached her.” She lost.

Three Calls to Go Around

On May 22, 2010, Air India Express Flight 812 crashed while landing at Mangalore. The Court of Inquiry found that the captain continued an unstable approach “despite three calls from the First Officer (H S Ahluwalia) to ‘go around’.” The first call was a question: “Go around?” The last was: “Go around captain…We don’t have runway left.”

The first officer did not take over the controls. The report noted “ambiguity in various instructions empowering the ‘copilot’ to initiate a ‘go around’.”

Riding a Tiger

On January 7, 2009, B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, wrote to his board. He admitted that the company’s books showed cash and bank balances of Rs 5,361 crore, of which Rs 5,040 crore did not exist. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten,” he wrote.

In July 2010 his lawyers told a court that he had never written the letter.

That Hard Edge

“Indians have a difficult time saying no or that you’re doing it the wrong way,” Kris Gopalakrishnan, a co-founder of Infosys, was quoted as saying in the American magazine eWeek.

The outsourcing author Mark Kobayashi-Hillary described what follows: “There is not that hard edge that says, if you’re going to fail, then you’d better communicate that right away.”

The Parrot

In one of the Akbar and Birbal tales, Emperor Akbar’s pet parrot has died. No courtier dares to tell him, because he has ordered that anyone who brings news of the parrot’s death will be hanged. Birbal goes to the emperor and says: “Jahanpanah, your parrot is neither eating anything, nor drinking anything.”

When Akbar asks whether the parrot is dead, Birbal replies: “I did not say it. You said it.”

Early Next Week

In February 2012, staff at Kingfisher Airlines had not been paid since December. Its chairman, Vijay Mallya, wrote to them that he had organized funding for their “seriously overdue salaries.” “I hope these efforts will be successful early next week,” he added.

In May he promised that pay would resume on May 9. That date passed. A new email promised salaries by May 15. Staff told Business Today: “The management intentions are questionable.”