Almost four weeks ago, whilst mountaineering in the Swiss Alps with my Kaizen colleague Alastair Olby I had a rather unfortunate accident with a glacier, my crampons and my left calf. Thankfully I was airlifted off the mountain and in hospital within 2 hours of it happening and have been making a speedy recovery. But rather than bore you with all the details or put you off your lunch or dinner I’d like to share with you some of my insights from the experience and how they apply to leaders:
1. Accidents happen! You can plan your strategy and route, you can train to ensure peak fitness, you can make sure you have all the right people and equipment with you but there are times when the world will not conform to your expectations. And in those moments you can chose how to respond: you can panic, you can blame others, you can blame yourself, you can badmouth your competitors, you can find a scape goat, but you cannot change what happened in that moment. As a leader you can chose to accept what is and plan your response in a way that builds your team, finds solutions and keeps you moving forwards.
2. Sometimes you have to rely upon and trust others. When your leg is cut open and bleeding on an open mountain then there is little else you can do, you are totally reliant upon others to help you get down for treatment. In the boardroom, office or factory there is always the temptation to take control whenever somebody is not doing something quite the way you would like it to be done. So try this as an exercise: next time you delegate a task find yourself taking delight in the way it has been done differently to the way that you may have done it yourself. Allow yourself to uncover the talent off your staff and revel in the creativity and different ways of thinking that they reveal to you. The results may surprise you!
3. Don’t rely upon technology. Al had no service on his phone, I had one bar of signal on mine – and that kept disappearing every time we raised it to make a call. Even the mountain guides who were in a group that was following the same trail as us up to the glacier had difficulty getting signal on their two-way radio initially. Always remember that organisations are people with skills, knowledge, wisdom and insights. Even in our world of “everything at the press of a button” you won’t always get what you are looking for when you need it. So here’s a thought: how about increasing the levels of trust in your team through the old fashioned ways of talking, listening, debating and taking some decisions together and especially in the absence of perfect information (if there is such a thing anyway).
4. Take advantage of the quiet moments – and if you think you don’t have any then find some! After immediate first aid, I found myself alone for up to one hour waiting for Al to return with confirmation that he’d raised help. In that time I could have panicked, I could have worried and fretted, I could have continuously wrapped and unwrapped the bandage to see if the bleeding had stopped. Instead I found myself in a place of calm, peace and connection, a place of gratitude for all that I have in life – my wife and children, my friends, my work, the experiences I’ve had in life; and none of these from a place of despondency or thinking my life was going to end but from a place of joy and eternal hope. So find some time, leave the office early, turn off your phone (yes you heard me, turn it off!) be somewhere where you can be undisturbed for an hour (or even just 10 minutes). Allow yourself to relax and take stock of what you already have, what more you can give, how you can be more of who you truly are in this world. Do this regularly. Tell the ones you love that you love them, say sorry to those you’ve wronged. Treat those you lead fairly and with integrity. Be true to your values and to yourself.
Your call to action is simply to take action on these 4 things and begin to notice the difference it makes to you and the people around you!
My public thanks and gratitude to my climbing partner Al, passing mountain guides Steven and Patrick, the pilots and medics of Air Glacier, the doctors, nurses and staff at the hospitals of Sierre and Sion.
