Check Before You Fly ... I Mean Communicate
Pre-Flight Your Communication: Stop “Hoping for the Best” in High-Stakes Conversations
Most communication failures don’t happen because someone is careless.
They happen because someone is trying to be helpful.
They want to please the boss. They want to please the customer. They want to be the hero who says “yes” and makes it happen.
And that’s exactly how people walk into avoidable problems with a smile on their face.
Here’s the question you should ask before your next high-stakes conversation:
Are you about to take off… or are you just hoping the plane works?
The pre-flight mindset (and why it matters)
In aviation, nobody with sound judgment jumps into a plane, fires it up, and hopes everything works out.
You inspect.
You check systems.
You catch the issue before the wheels leave the ground.
Communication works the same way.
Because when the stakes are high, a message isn’t “just a message.” It can hit:
Your money
Your reputation
Your relationships
Your career
If the conversation matters, you don’t “wing it.” You pre-flight it.
The hidden reason good people crash their communication
There’s a common failure pattern that shows up everywhere—from meetings to performance reviews to customer calls:
People move too fast because they’re trying to do the “right thing.”
They volunteer. They commit. They promise. They nod. They accept the tasking.
Then they realize—mid-flight—that the situation was unclear, the constraints were hidden, or the real objective was never defined.
That’s not incompetence.
That’s a lack of pre-flight.
And it’s expensive.
Communication has real costs
Every significant communication effort costs something. Usually more than you want to admit:
Time
Money
Personal and professional capital
Emotional bandwidth you don’t get back
So if you’re going to spend those resources, act like a professional.
Run the checklist first.
When you should pre-flight (and when you shouldn’t)
No, you don’t need a pre-flight for every casual hallway conversation.
The trigger is simple:
Significant impact.
Pre-flight your communication when people and/or money are meaningfully on the line.
That includes situations involving:
Risk of loss
Profit or improvement
Resource allocation
Retention (of clients, teammates, trust, or opportunities)
Performance evaluations, promotions, compensation conversations
Any conversation where the wrong message creates a cleanup operation
“Significant” depends on context, but the core doesn’t change: people and money show up on both sides of the equation.
More can be gained—or more can be lost.
That’s the point.
What a pre-flight actually gives you
A real pre-flight does one thing: it forces clarity before you spend the cost.
You should be able to answer, in plain language:
What needs to be done
For whom
With whom
And to achieve what
If any checkpoint is unclear, you catch it early—before the costs pile up.
Because in almost every case, it’s cheaper to adjust (or abandon) a bad plan early than it is to recover after damage is done.
Sound judgment looks like due diligence
Pre-flighting your communication demonstrates something many people claim to have—but rarely prove in real time:
Sound judgment.
It signals that you think ahead.
It shows that you’re not reckless with resources.
It reduces risk.
And when things go sideways (because sometimes they will), it minimizes the time, money, and pain involved.
So before your next high-stakes conversation, ask yourself:
Have I pre-flighted this communication… or am I about to take off hoping for the best?
If you want the simplest next step: write your BLUF in one sentence before you walk into the room. If you can’t do that, you’re not ready to take off.
Curious for more from this kick-off for April’s sprint at “The Communication Edge” (www.thecommunicationedge.com) - “Preflight Your Communication”? Each week is a new batch of skills and strategies to avoid common pitfalls and tilt the odds of success in your favor before things go sideways. Next week’s focus is the people part of doing your preflight. The part where the money matters most.