An Army of Normal Folks - The Plane Was in the Bay. Then He Said Something Remarkable.

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

In today's Shop Talk, Bill and Alex discuss the Asoh Defense — the forgotten leadership principle that says admitting your mistake honestly and immediately is more powerful than any excuse you could make. This one's for anyone who's ever been wrong about something. So, everyone. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an Army and normal folks. Welcome into the shop. Hi, Alex. Hello, Bill. Welcome to the shop. How are you? You looking for anything special or just browsing? Got no answer for you. You got no answer at all. Well, this is Shop Talk 109. I'm looking for my kids not to be sick. A bunch. Oh, really? Everyone was thrown up over the weekend.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, so much fun. You know what I woke up to this morning? I've been out of town for a couple of days in D.C. Seeing your kids. Visiting my kids. But anyway, came home. Lisa's still there. She stayed an extra couple days to hang out with Molly. Turn the air conditioner on, watched a little bit of TV, went to sleep,

woke up at 6 this morning to get a good start to the day. And as I'm walking out of the bedroom into the hallway, I step in a puddle upstairs. And I look up and there's water. pouring out of the ceiling from the attic. So I'll go up there and the condenser unit looks like somebody's poured buckets, water all over the, there's water all over the floor. And then I run downstairs and then our den that we just finished and has a plaster ceiling. There's water pouring through the plaster ceiling onto the floor, onto the carpet, onto the furniture. So in addition to me getting you the interview prep late, that's also why you haven't read it yet. That's exactly right. I've used every

towel that we own. I've called the HVAC company and said some things that I might require later, but right now I pretty much still feel. And then I ran here to do this with you. So hi. Well, you put on a good smile. Welcome to the shop. You didn't say any of that until I started. Yeah. Just so that everybody knows, we all have problems. All right, Shop 109. The plane was in the bay. Then he said, something remarkable but first on shop talk 109 Alex what happened a hundred well the first a hundred nine years ago would have been 1915 17 17 or in 2026 bro I'm sorry I'm again nine plus seven is six I've had a morning 16 don't give me any crap on it today the United

States entered world war one there really and the Russian revolution occurred is that when all the czars lost their heads? The Tsar was overthrown, and later that year, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin cease power. Yeah, the Bolshevik Revolution. Was that it? That's it. I mean, those are two big things right there. Wow.

Boy, did that change the face of all history. Soviet Union and all of that, 109 years ago. Okay. There's your history lesson for today, folks, in the shop. When we get back from this brief message from our sponsors, we will talk about the plane was in the bay. Then he said something remarkable. You have the desire to help a real difference?

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it's home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force.

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Shop Talk number 109, the plane was in the bay, then he said something remarkable. from Army member Zach Armstrong. Here's Zach's email to us. On May 7th, when you had the shop talk about Steve Young and folks taking accountability for their actions, you mentioned looking for stories of similar accountability. I would like to bring up Japan Airlines Flight 2 in 1968. It's worth a read, specifically the legal definition of also.

I got to be careful with that. The legal definition of also spelled A-S-O-H, kind of pronounced like A-S-O-S-O. So the legal definition, the Japanese definition of A-S-O defense that resulted as the outcome of this incident. It's something I preach to my athletes and kids. Keep up the good work. I've been a longtime follower of your stuff. Have you ever heard of this before? I've actually heard of the Oso defense, and maybe it was because of the story, but I don't recall it all, but it's basically taking accountability, but I think the story's going to be awesome.

I've never heard of it. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Zach Armstrong, thanks, and he gets merch, right? He does get merch. Did you send merch to Terry? Yeah, it's in motion.

What does that mean? I mean, I sent an email last night to get three orders in motion, including Terry's. And Lisa Fox got one because hers was on this last. Friday's. Yeah. And then somebody else I'm like on. But do we know Zach's size? We're going to email him.

Okay, perfect. Merch headed your way, Zach. Here we go. On November 2nd, 1968, Japan Airlines Flight 2 was coming into San Francisco from Tokyo. It was a DC8 with 96 passengers and 11 crew members on board. Heavy fog covered the bay, and the plane came in too low. Instead of landing on the runway, Captain Kohe. he also accidentally landed the jetliner in the shallow waters of the San Francisco

Bay about two and a half miles short of the airport. Miraculously, all 107 people survived without injuries. I remember the story. I didn't realize it was two and a half miles short of the airport. Now, that's, and that is wild, two and a half miles. I mean, if you know anything about the topography around there, that's it's remarkable it didn't hit a hill or something coming in two and a half miles anyway so it's a wild story that happened but that's really not what the story's about what we're talking about is what captain

also reportedly said afterward when investigators ask him what happened he didn't get you with lawyers he didn't blame the fog he didn't blame the instruments he didn't blame air traffic control he didn't give some polished corporate statement that sound like it had been scrubbed by 12 attorneys in a PR firm. He simply said, as you Americans say, I effed up. He used the word, but he said, as you Americans say, I effed up. Rather than offering excuses or construction of technical defense, he admitted he made the stake directly. The legal issue is this. If his admission has taken at face value, it could have exposed him and Japan Airlines to significant liability. Yet, his attorneys argued that his statement was essentially a candid acknowledgement of human error

rather than a detailed legal admission of negligence. The phrase, the ASSO defense, later became shorthand for the strategy of, admit the obvious mistake honestly and immediately, rather than attempting an elaborate defense that destroys credibility. The ISO defense wasn't really a legal defense. It was a truth defense. Everybody knew the plane was sitting in the bay, clearly. The question wasn't whether a mistake had happened. The question was whether the captain would spend his energy denying reality or confronting it. Management scholar Jerry Harvey popularized the term because he believed organizations often waste enormous amounts of time and money denying obvious failures instead of confronting reality. In fact, decades later, many hospitals discovered something similar. Historically, when doctors made mistakes, lawyers advised them to never apologize. But research eventually showed that honest disclosure and sincere apologies often reduced lawsuits

because people felt respected rather than Stonewold. Or can we even say gas-lop? The lesson for us isn't, I messed up, therefore I shouldn't be liable. The lesson is, honesty isn't. a strategy. It's a virtue. It's a tenant. Captain Ossoi simply chose the virtuous path when many people would have chosen self-protection. I love that. We live in a world full of excuse makers. Everybody's got a reason. The ref was bad. The coach didn't play me enough. My boss didn't understand me. My parents messed me up. The system is rigged. The other side is evil. And listen, sometimes there are real circumstances.

Sometimes the fog really is thick. Sometimes the instruments are confusing. Sometimes other people really do contribute to the mess. But at the end of the day, if you're the captain of the plane and the plane is sitting in the bay, there comes a moment where you have to say, I effed up. This is not weakness. This is not strength. This is leadership. That is maturity.

And honestly, it's one of the most freeing things the human being can do. because the second you stop defending a mistake is the second you can start learning from it. The second you stop protecting your ego, you can start protecting the people around you. The second you stop saying, it wasn't my fault. You can finally ask, what do I need to do differently next time? That's true in aviation. That's true in business. It's true in marriage.

It's true in parenting. It's true in football. It's true with service. It's true with everything. When I read that, Alex, I think about something that I actually wrote my book, is that the greatest leaders are time except blame when things go wrong and they give credit to the followers when things go right. Because if you shield the followers from the mistakes and when things go wrong, you step up in front of it, what you generate is a sense of a sense of a accountability among the organization that you're in. Because when people see the leader taking accountability, they start taking

accountability. It's just about being honest. The other thing I love about it is back when I was first in business, OSHA always said, if somebody gets hurt, don't touch them. If they're, like, really hurt, don't touch them. Call the police, try to make them comfortable. Don't move them. don't ever say you're sorry.

Don't ever blah, blah, blah, blah. Now there's this, you know, you can always say I'm sorry, but saying I'm sorry doesn't admit guilt liability-wise. So even the legal system has come around to a more humane approach to accidents and all of that. And that is directly derived from this, which is why I remember hearing the story one time. But it's so true. Just being honest and taking accountability and not blaming everything on everybody else does inspire a sense of openness.

People don't feel gaslit. And oftentimes, that's where growth comes from. Yeah, when you're reading it, what came to mind from me is I heard a number of people say recently that if you blame other people, you're basically giving them all the power. And you are really- I love that perspective. You are a victim at that point, right? And it's like you have no power to control your future or your actions. It's just, all right, I'm going to blame somebody else.

But you completely rob yourself for the power. I think a lot of people do that from a place of fear. Like if you think about this captain, by admitting he was wrong, admitting he messed up, effectively he was putting his livelihood and his family's livelihood on the line. Because the minute he says, I messed up, I did wrong. Certainly he can be fired. Certainly, Japan Airlines is now responsible. The cleanup's going to be expensive. You lost a multimillion dollar plane. I mean, all, and I think what people think is, oh my gosh, if I'm guilty of this, I'm going to lose my job and look at all what's going to

happen down the line. And so instead of standing up and admitting mistakes and taking accountability for it because of your fear, you immediately default to excuses and point of the finger and everything else, which at the end of the day, like the thing says, pretty much anybody driving by can see the planes sitting in the bay. The plane's not getting out of the water. And ultimately, if you're in charge, you're the one who put it in the water so you can make all the excuses you want. But ultimately, it's going to be your fault anyway. on why not be honest and transparent and learn from it against the backdrop of pointing fingers when the ultimate outcome is probably always going to be the same.

So think about that when you're in discussions with your spouse and your children and at work and everywhere else. It is certainly a better approach to be our, honest and take accountability. And certainly when you're a leadership position, or you're running some kind of organization, stand up in front of it when things don't go well and say it's on me. I think it was not that I'm perfect headed I'm not, but I have kind of taken a default position in life. Like, I'm just okay apologizing whenever I need to. Like it makes life so much easier.

I'm just okay saying. Yeah. Yeah. I messed up. And I'm sorry. You actually said, Alex, so you didn't give me time to read the interview prep. And I'm like, you're right. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. That's my fault. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, which we can still talk about later because that sucks, but whatever. All right, everybody. That is Shep Talk 109. 109 years ago, World War I started and the Bolshevik Revolution started and changed the,

man, change the landscape of the world even through today. The Shep Talk is 109. The plane was in the bay. Then he said something remarkable from Army member Zach Armstrong, all about the us so defense, which is nothing more than taking accountability and being honest. Hope you like that shop talk. If you did, please share it friends that on social, rate it and review it, subscribe to the podcast, join a ANF club, start one, buy some merch.

What else? That's good. Okay. I think that's it. Thanks for joining the shop. We'll see everybody next week. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch the World Cup?

That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football.

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And now our good friend, Nile Horn, is joining the show. How's it going, boys? Hey, Niall. It was the same thing with Slow Hands. Slow Hands is not about anything else, really, is it? You know, or taste so good can be about food. You do the same, Nick, with some of the stuff that you've done. You too, Joe.

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