Stress and Urgency


I sat in the stands that day and watched the group drop from the plane.  An ordinary event, at least for a spectator, in that I have seen parachutists drop from planes before.  As they came racing toward the ground, they broke loose from their pattern and opened their parachutes.  Immediately I noticed one had not deployed the chute and thought it might be a delay tactic for effect.


I noticed the chute had in fact deployed, sort of.  The chute did not open and suddenly it separated from the chutist.  Then just as suddenly, a white chute opened replacing the black chute detached from the diver.  Not being a diver or prone to jumping from a perfectly good airplane, my stress went up as the diver came down.  I noticed the diver was not going to land in the field and surely enough, went outside Everbank Field and out of sight.


Imagine MY stress watching this event.  My thoughts were running around through my head as if on fire.  I had all sorts of ideas about what happened after the chutist decended out of sight.  All the while, Lieutenant Colonel Harold "Chip" Bowlin was calm and collected.  Why was he seemingly more calm than I, and I was "already" on the ground?


The difference being he had many years of practice, previous events just like this, and I was a rookie.  Even as a spectator, I was a rookie.  I never witnessed an event like this except on the evening news.  So what causes Chip to maintain his cool and not jump into the "OMG" activities?


Chip had practiced his routine with good events, and gone through his routine needed IF the chute failed.  It became as normal to him as a standard jump. What does Chip teach us even in the event of failure?


Planning, practice, and more practice.  Many in sports and in the military practice daily for failure and how to recover.  Look at NASCAR drivers as another example.  200 mph and the car starts turning around.  Brakes are useless and "oh by the way" there are 30 cars around the driver.  How often do we see the driver exit the car with the look of moon-pie eyes and shaking?  Not often because they have practiced this, many times been involved in activities like this, and they mentally go through this even during practice rounds.


OK, enough about those folks.  What are you doing to avoid the stress of a collision, failed chute, or missed opportunity in your business?  Decisions made daily by people in an organization are made under stress.  While it may not be at the pace of a NASCAR driver or parachutist, stress still impacts leaders and managers everyday.  How can they overcome that stress to avoid making a disaster from the event?  Practice, practice, practice.


Leaders and managers should all work more towards easing their stress and not let it cause a decision in haste, that could be a bad move for the organization.  But just as importantly, they should practice for the "what ifs", and the OMG events.  When planning for overcoming failure becomes second nature, leaders and managers are less likely to make a bad decision based on the failed event.

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