When I was young, long before I founded VIM Executive Coaching, I remember all too well one of my first business trips to the west coast. As the passenger jet was about 50 miles from San Diego, we hit what might be best described as turbulent chop. I tried to act cool, calm and collected, but with each rise and fall of the aircraft I was convinced I would be listed among the missing in the next day’s newspaper.
And in that moment of uncertainty and perspiration, two things came into crystal-clear focus: the wings were not strong and steady, but waving about, and the passenger who sat next to me. He was an older gentleman who (I was to find out) had seen horrific action on a B-24 in WWII.
They Move, Because They Must
The man, obviously an executive of some type, was dressed in a beautiful glen-plaid suit with green print tie (it is funny what we remember when we think we see the grim reaper!). He smiled and asked if it was my first flight.
“No sir, but maybe just my second or third.”
He told me something I would never forget. Wings are made to have flex in them. Back in his day, when air speeds were much slower, there was still some flex, but with a jet going 500 mph, the wing must adjust to the forces placed on it as it flies through the air. The wings move because they must.
He then smiled and told me something even more unsettling; that wings were held on with rivets and glue. All of a sudden, I was thinking of the model planes I slapped together as a child.
“That doesn’t help me sir!”
In any case, we landed with ease and I quickly regained my dignity. Years later, as I became fascinated with ships and sailing, I became fascinated with the powerful tugboats that pulled freighters and ocean liners. The thick lines that connected the vessels had a certain amount of slack in them. In this way, they didn’t snap with the sudden pulling and then the relaxing of the lines. So too, do both scenarios circle back to executive leaders, executive coaching and to life itself.
We Hope, Not Predict
We can predict and project. We can run our numbers and develop our scenarios and unexpectedly, from out of nowhere, we can be brought to our knees, slammed, crushed or whatever word you can come up with. It is not fun when it happens. The pain can be real, the consequences can be harsh.
The numbers, the analytics, are impersonal. Those leaders who live by them often cling to them in an inordinate fashion. Oftentimes, the same leaders view interpersonal work relationships in the same manner with a mantra of: “No excuses, no deviation, just results.” Such battle cries are fine for a Hollywood movie. They most often fail in life. No rational leader wants a business failure, widespread discord or the effects of a viral pandemic for that matter. However, we can view those challenges in one of two ways: with flexibility or with intransigence.
As wings must move or bow lines must have slack, so too the executive leader who is faced with crisis. The choices are clear that we can be responsive or be reactive. We can be mindful or closed-minded.
For the executive leader who is mindful, the deeper knowledge is in knowing that there must be movement of the wings in times of turbulence. We cannot avoid turbulence or rough seas, but we will get through them.
The close-minded executive leader can succeed only when the seas are smooth and the air is still. We know all too often that life and business do not work that way. Perhaps that was the deeper message of the combat veteran who sat next to me and smiled all too kindly with his heart.