“Can we get serious now?”
The room goes silent as Captain Sully, played by Tom Hanks in the movie Sully, makes the remark. People have assembled to review his decision to land a commercial plane in the Hudson River. It’s a tense gathering. Everyone has just witnessed two flight simulations showing the plane could have safely landed at nearby airports — seemingly proving that the crash could have been avoided.
Once he has everyone’s attention, Sully points out that the simulations did not account for the Human Factor. The simulated pilots reacted instantly, as if they already knew what to do the moment birds struck the engines. In reality, this was the first time Sully, his co-pilot — or any pilot in aviation history — had faced such a situation.
Sully had to think through multiple possibilities in real time before concluding that a water landing was the safest option. The simulation pilots, by contrast, had effectively done that thinking in advance — likely with extensive support and no real risk. Sully was responsible for 155 lives.
The Human Factor doesn’t just matter in life-and-death emergencies. It shows up in the smallest parts of daily life.
It sounds strange, but we rarely account for the Human Factor when making plans. We plan as if we will execute perfectly — with clarity, energy, and emotional steadiness. We forget that we are not robots. We get tired. We hesitate. We overthink. And we work alongside others who are managing their own emotions and energy.
I am a big fan of baby steps when it comes to any kind of habit change. As a writer, I really liked Natalie Goldberg’s advice to create a writing practice. I religiously schedule ten minutes a day for writing. Only after the timer starts do I realize I don’t yet know what I want to write about. The first ten minutes are rarely writing — they are searching. What I fail to schedule is thinking time. That makes the difference.
Accounting for the Human Factor is the difference between
“2:30 pm - 10 mins Writing practice”
and
“2:30 pm – Write for 10 mins on the Human Factor.”
You can guess which has a better chance of completion on time.
Good plans don’t assume perfection. They allow for humanity. The Human Factor isn’t a flaw in the plan — it is the plan.