The Icing on the Cake #1 - The Art of the Self-Debrief
Tiny tweaks. Big difference.
Like those pragmatic pearls of wisdom shared by an experienced colleague in the cruise, this series brings together small, easily actionable ideas that subtly elevate life in the flight levels.
The icing on the cake stuff - and maybe, just maybe, even a cherry on top…
Aside from probably knowing more Top Gun quotes than we’d ever care to admit (“Tower, this is Ghost Rider…”) there’s another near certainty that unites most of us:
Somewhere along the way, we’ve all stepped off an aircraft thinking, I could’ve done that better.
Nothing dramatic.
We’re not talking a flurry of ASRs.
Just one of those small moments - a landing, an approach, a decision - that lingers a little longer than it should.
And more often than not, our vague internal debrief probably ends with something like:
“Yeah, bit firm.”
“Got slightly high.”
“In hindsight, not the best option.”
It does feel like a bit of a debrief…
But in reality?
It’s probably not enough to shake that sinking feeling - let alone actually move us forward.
(De)Brief Learning
Formal debriefs are something of a luxury - even if it takes most of us a while to realise that.
In the training environment, a good instructor will slow things down, separate cause from effect, and help translate outcomes into something useful.
On the line though?
Generally the only real flavour of debrief available is informal and internal.
A quiet replay in the cruise.
A thought on the taxi in.
A half-sentence on the walk to the car park.
Maybe a few more thoughts on the drive home.
And for a lot of us, most of those internal replays come with a mildly self-critical commentary running in the background.
It’s part of our makeup that strives to keep standards high - but without a little direction, that same instinct can quietly work against us.
We get frustrated replaying what happened…
…but sometimes forget to pause to define why.
WANT to sharpen the reflection?
A colleague a few more logbooks down the line, once framed it in a simple way - one that has a nice habit of turning those quietly frustrating moments into something genuinely useful.
The small shift?
Simply noticing - and keeping separate - three things we sometimes allow to blur together:
• What actually happened
• What specific action (or inaction) caused it
• What we’ll do differently next time
That’s it.
A subtle mental shift - from outcome… to cause… to adjustment.
Since then, in my head, it’s been WANT:
W – What actually happened
“Firm touchdown / low flare”
A – The Action (or inaction) that caused it
“Fixated on aiming point; transferred gaze too late to assess closure rate”
NT – Next Time
“Transfer gaze away from aiming point before crossing threshold”
Same event.
Very different debrief.
Making it constructive
So why does this small shift work?
Not because it removes the commentary - but because it makes it specific.
“Bit firm” is a judgement of outcome.
“Low flare because I didn’t transfer my gaze early enough” is usable information.
If there’s such a thing as the right stuff of information - this is it.
Because this sort of information is constructive and easily translates into something actionable going forward.
A simple way to generate useful feedback when there’s no instructor, no sim pause button, and no formal debrief coming our way.
The Icing on the Cake Stuff
Most of us are already doing some version of this - just maybe not quite as deliberately as we could.
It’s nothing more than viewing the replay in our head from a slightly different perspective.
Shifting the focus from what to why, and from frustration to something genuinely useful.
A small shift.
A far more constructive takeaway.
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Two Six Left
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