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# Fish Food for Thought

**[Fish Food for Thought](https://daily.dev/sources/mikefisher)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Using the 1982 British Airways Flight 9 incident as a lens, this piece explores a key leadership principle: composure in a crisis is not a single job but two distinct ones. Captain Eric Moody's famous 'small problem' announcement illustrates how effective leaders match their message to the audience — giving the cockpit the full truth while giving the cabin reassurance. The piece draws a sharp contrast with Boeing's 737 MAX failures, where the same instinct to downscale was directed at the wrong people (those who needed to act), turning composure into denial. Practical takeaways include setting a 'decision height' fallback in advance, crafting an honest plain-language crisis statement, and clearly distinguishing who in your organization is the 'cabin' versus the 'cockpit.'

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://mikefisher.substack.com/p/a-small-problem>

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---

Tags: [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership)

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