The fact that professional competence is now rather moving into second place seems to be a trend that can be seen partly in business as well: more and more companies are starting to place the cultural fit above the competence and profile fit …

Because it is important that a team works and that you can really rely on each other. Well, in 80 percent or 90 percent of companies it’s probably not a matter of life and death interested in interpersonal contacts. It’s not that we are best friends: for one thing, we are scattered all throughout Switzerland, and we certainly have an age gap within our structure. But we also experience many wonderful hours together and have a sense of achievement and that's what I believe makes a relationship, or rather a team, strong. It’s because we experience something together, perform together and are totally challenged together, but then we can also let go. That is why there is a wavy line in terms of tension and relaxation when we are abroad, for example.

This means that there are performance highs, peaks, and accordingly complete recovery, so that a balance is restored again: You are not constantly in top form.

No. We are certainly constantly in top form and very concentrated during the 25-minute show. This is like a concert at the Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne, it has to work during this one hour. And if one team member drops off, the whole team will drop off. And that is what we want to avoid. We must be able to fully rely on each other for these 25 minutes, have confidence, and then it will work out. Afterwards, it’s time to relax. Then we may feel like smoking a cigar and drink a beer and having a good time.

How would you describe the conversational tone, the atmosphere?

It is balanced: There are no highs and lows, as you might know from relationships. But this is a state that we generally see in military pilots. There are relatively few individuals who are capricious. There is a little bit of that as well but in our team, it is balanced and the atmosphere is one of camaraderie and – how should I say – fun, but nevertheless serious. This means, we like to joke around, and I think that this is something that’s important to us, but we know that when it comes to briefing and then boarding, there is no room for such things. Afterwards, when we're done and debriefing is over and the work is completed, it gets back to more fun and the atmosphere is again relaxed among companions.

How do you deal with mistakes and conflicts and how would you describe the feedback culture?

In all of military aviation, and we have learned that early on, it’s true that you have to be self-critical and to be able to judge where you stand. You learn that already as a recruit on the PC7, this is also required after every flight in debriefing. And the debriefing culture seems to be extremely important to me. Physicians would profit from this as well, for example, having a closer look at what were the positive points, what were the negative points? What was the principal mistake, what other mistakes were made? And according to this pattern, we have always debriefed the flights – in training and later also in ongoing training courses on the F18, for example. It's still done that way

How important is positive feedback compared to feedback such as, “A mistake has been made, what are you going to do differently next time?“

Very important. Especially on the ground, my job is to motivate the pilots by telling them when people are applauding. I forward this to the team via radio, they get the positive feedback immediately when they are doing well or when people are going “Oh!” or applauding or something like that. And then of course it is a motivation boost for the team. 

Thank you very much for your honest words, Nils.