"Two words, young lady!"

The enormous man with the enormous cap in front of me stops abruptly. He drops his suitcase with a thud and turns to me with a raised finger. "Two words, young lady!" We've just arrived at the airport in New York, taken our suitcases off the baggage belt, and are on our way to the bus as crew. Frank Sinatra's song "New York" has been stuck in my head the entire flight. "Start spreading the news, I am leaving today, I want to be part of it, New York, New York." It was my first flight with the big blue swan. But the tune has vanished all of a sudden.

In the chaos of the arrivals hall at JFK, my colleague and I were walking one behind the other. She said something I didn't catch; I responded to her with a laugh, "what?" And it was that "what" that Mr. Captain X was on about. Seriously. "Two words, young lady. This is how we speak to each other here, let that be perfectly clear." Was he really talking to me? But he was looking at me, so yes. "Uhhh okay," I stammered. "Uhh okay, Mr. Captain," I quickly added. Good heavens, did I feel small. Calling a captain out on his behavior did not exactly become an item for my bucket list after this.

But that moment did come, years later, on a flight from Tokyo. Something happened that really wasn't on, something I had to call Captain Y out about. With knees knocking and armpits sloshing. He received my message grumpily. The rest of the flight went cold and distant. The journey home seemed to drag on even more endlessly than usual. When saying goodbye to the crew at Schiphol, he told me, "And I want to speak to you separately in a moment." "OMG, here we go," I thought as we sat down, and I braced myself for what was coming.

But instead of a tirade, he thanked me. Huh?! He hadn't liked what I'd said, but he understood me. In fact, he said I was right given the event, and that it wouldn't happen to him again in the future. I got a compliment for having been so brave as to call him out; that didn't happen often.

"Feedback is a gift." One of those modern little tile wisdoms that rolls nicely off the tongue. But let's be honest: calling someone out simply isn't fun. In fact, feedback sucks! For the receiver, but also for the giver, which we sometimes forget. The response, that is the gift. The way it's responded to determines whether the other person has the guts to speak up again.

In organizations it's (too) easily assumed that people will speak up if there's something wrong. But what is someone's history with giving and/or receiving feedback? Do we know that about each other? This is about trust and psychological safety. So that calling each other out doesn't scare people off, but actually makes us stronger and better. That's where the gain is. And you can't buy it, you have to work at it. Together. In any case, I wish everyone an experience like the one I had with Mr. Y.

So that. (= two words.)