Thinking about balancing stability with agility? How are you enabling your teams to innovate without compromising operations or security?

For me, a lot of this comes down to how I hire. Instead of looking for people who are just experts in one area, I want people who can create ideas within a domain. We are partnering more with the business to understand their roadmaps, and a lot of our agility comes from where I put resources and who I bring onto the team. I want people who can help build and shape our approach, rather than just someone who is an admin in a specific area.

As everyone mentioned, it’s a tricky balance. No one wants operations to suffer for the sake of innovation. For us, it’s about communication. We need to show that we’re keeping operations running smoothly while pursuing new initiatives, and we have to prove to business partners that we have them covered. One thing we started doing is publishing a system health dashboard report during critical sales periods—at the end of the month or quarter, when we need to keep everything running at peak performance. We put this out three times a day, so all business partners know we’re covering all the bases. This proactive communication has reduced questions and concerns, allowing us to focus on innovation while maintaining stability. It’s about showing we’re taking care of operations, not just saying it.

A lot of our focus is on business justification. We always say we have to keep the core essentials here. As a helicopter company, safety is our number one core value. Then you add audit, compliance, and all of the other important aspects. While we are keeping the lights on and prioritizing safety, we are also presented with many new ideas. Steering committees play a big role in balancing these priorities—we have a finance steering committee, a flight operations steering committee, and others. These groups help us evaluate whether an idea makes sense for the company.

When I first arrived, we were very heavy on outsourcing, but now we try to strike a balance, a hybrid approach. This allows us to bring in people who can help us be more innovative but also gives us the flexibility to scale back when times are tough, while still maintaining subject matter expertise in-house. It’s a lot of trade-offs and finding that balance, and it’s about focusing on what’s important at any given moment.