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PROFESSIONALISM 36 MAY 2016 AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY TRADITIONAL CULTURAL LESSONS RING TRUE today. What could the story of "The Little Red Hen" possibly have to do with aviation? We all know hens don't fly! Read on and it will become clear ... At the farm, the Little Red Hen is busy with grow- ing, harvesting, and milling the wheat to bake some bread. Along the way, she runs across many farm "friends" that she relies on for help. But according to the story, they are all too busy and are not able to help her achieve the goal. However, once the beauti- ful bread is done bak- ing and ready to eat, she finds many friends back at her door wait- ing to reap the benefits of her work! ServiceElements has worked with thousands of business and general aviaiton professionals in many organizations throughout the industry — FBOs, charter manage- ment organizations, OEMs, MROs, flight departments, etc. No matter what type of organization we work with, the biggest challenge across the board (at least 90 percent of the time) is the internal customer culture (a fancy term for teamwork). Whether the challenges come from "silos" (lack of communication/teamwork between departments or job functions) or "tunnel vision" (lack of empathy/ vision for what others have to do), ServiceElements' facilitators find that most organizations struggle with the challenges of recognizing and being vigilant with their internal customer service (teamwork). In our ORM (organizational resource management) programs, we discuss how none of us can do every- thing required from our jobs on our own every single day. All of us rely on our teammates at work to help us deliver the best service we possibly can deliver. We typically spend more time with coworkers than family members. So, conflicts and disagreements are expected. But the key is identifying out how to turn these conflicts and disagreements into opportuni- ties to build strong teams (and hopefully infrequent) incidents rather than relationship issues. In addition, finding out how to be focused on our internal cus- tomers just as we are with our external customers. Sometimes, internal customers can be like the Hen looking to coworkers for assistance. Other times, aviation professionals can be so focused on their own responsibilities and goals that they miss the opportunity to provide service to team members to help achieve the ultimate goal for the organization ... service, safe service. There have probably been times in each of our aviation careers where we attempted to participate in the success of another's work. But there have also inevitably been times when we were not an engaged part of our team and only focused on our own workload and not participating in the overall effort it takes to deliver on a business aircraft service goal. THE LITTLE RED HEN AND TEAMWORK When we miss our chance to participate fully in the customer experience, we are "robbed" of the opportunity of gaining satisfaction in a job well done. By Bob Hobbi BOB HOBBI is the founder, president, and CEO of ServiceElements International Inc. Bob has 30 plus years in aerospace and aviation leadership roles with FlightSafety International, Honeywell Aerospace's Aerospace Academy, and MedAire. ServiceElements is an organizational and people development company, now in the aerospace industry for almost 15 years. For more information visit www. ServiceElements. com . Aviation professionals can be so focused on their own responsibilities and goals that they miss the opportunity to provide service to team members to help achieve the ultimate goal for the organization ... ser vice, safe ser vice.