The movement advocating consensus decision-making happened at about the same time as the human resources movement emerged. People researched democratic decision-making, advocated for more group involvement, and promised new-found synergy among members of the decision-making team. But not until the past five years have leaders sought to have their direct reports *like* their decisions.

Airline captains don’t have an “open door policy, and there’s a good reason for that. Aside from the obvious terrorist and crazy passenger threats, airline pilots realize they face another adversary: treacherous interruptions.

In 1974 an Eastern Airlines flight carrying seventy-eight passengers and four crew members crashed in dense fog during an instrument approach into Charlotte, killing seventy-one. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the flight crew’s lack of altitude awareness and poor cockpit discipline caused the crash.