This Tip describes a time when I made a mistake in a training program and had to scrape the egg off of my face.
“Everyone has embarrassing moments at work. It shows we’re all human. The best way to handle awkward moments is to gracefully move on, and, if possible, try to find the humor in the situation.” Diane Domeyer
Scrape the Egg Off of My Face
I thought I had a clever way to make a point in a time management class for new supervisors.
I referenced a legend about the first step in a World War II Navy fighter pilot’s emergency response process. This was to wind a watch embedded in the steering column. The split second it took to wind the watch was supposed to help the pilot clear his head of distractions and focus on the situation.
A participant said it was more likely that they would train fighter pilots to immediately respond to a crisis. They wouldn’t have to take a moment to think about it. That made sense to all of us.
I ended that discussion by saying that we should take a message from this legend, true or not. That is that supervisors should stop and think about a decision to make sure that it would be the best use of their time.
Now, here is the egg-on-the-face part.
When It Happened
During the break, the fellow told me that he is a Medevac pilot who served in Afghanistan.He now flies a Black Hawk 13-person helicopter for the National Guard. He said that they trainer him to automatically respond to possible crises. In addition, there were no watches embedded in his steering column. Needless to say, I felt pretty embarrassed.
We discussed the fact that people trained to make decisions in emergencies are drilled over and over again. This is until they can act without stopping to make a conscious decision. Because any moment that they delay can result in disaster or death.
He said that supervisors should behave in the same way. Later, h conceded that most supervisory tasks did not require an automatic emergency response.
That concession scraped some of the egg off of my face. We agreed that it made sense for supervisors to assume control by taking a moment to choose how to act, rather than react, to situations.
I still like the idea of using the image of the fighter pilot taking a moment to wind a watch. However, I’ll emphasize that, although this is only a legend, it still has an important message. I’d like to avoid another egg-on-face situation!
Has this ever happened to you? If so, how did you manage to extricate yourself?
#timemanagement #embarrassingmoments #LaurelandAssociatesLTD
