FLUID LEADERSHIP
In 2005 I found myself becoming a refugee overnight. I guess it’s why these days I’m extremely sympathetic to refugees and to victims of natural disaster: I know how bad it is. I was a victim of Hurricane Katrina. I lost everything I owned but still considered myself really lucky as no one I loved had died.
I owned several buildings at the time and had inherited an old lady with the building: Ms. Geneva. She was paying rent of $225/mo for a 2 bedroom apartment that was worth about $600 a month. (That apartment would now go for somewhere in the $1500/mo range.) Days after the storm she called me to tell me that she had stayed. She was in her 80’s and had stayed alone. She’d been using candles and an ice chest to stay alive and wanted to know if I’d turn the electricity back on. Of course that wasn’t an option because I didn’t own the utility company. They’d shut everything off to avoid fires and it was months before many people had safe electricity again after flooded wires had been checked and replaced. But, somehow, Ms. Geneva found someone to turn her electricity on within a few days. Remarkably; when Entergy, (the utility company,) finally came to inspect the building, they made me rewire the whole building because of flooding. But, they pretended as if Ms. Geneva’s apartment didn’t exist in this equation. I didn’t have to rewire her apartment because, in their minds, it hadn’t been affected. It was incredible. They left her alone. (I did, eventually, just replace all of the wiring including hers.) The point is, she found a way to survive and just went for it! She asked forgiveness and not permission. She also used her ties within her community to help her.
A few years ago, I met a fascinating group of improv performers from the Philippines at the annual Applied Improv Conference. They did a workshop on “Fluid Leadership” and I’ve become fascinated with the subject. They were discussing the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka. They had studied what had worked for the survivors and the results were similar with what had happened with my own Ms. Geneva: they did what worked. They acted on impulse. They followed whichever leader who would help them survive. If the leader of choice began to fail, they changed allegiances. They asked forgiveness and not permission in the moment. They relied on their community and the contacts they had within it. They lived.
I went to college in the early 90’s. I was at Oklahoma City University for a spell during my college career and took an interesting-sounding class called: “Psychology of the miraculous.” The whole class focused on so-called “miracles.” At that time, AIDS was a death sentence. Almost no one survived. Almost. We studied the people who survived against the odds. At the time, only about 1% of the people diagnosed with AIDS went on to actually survive. How? What were they doing? Again, cue Ms. Geneva. They didn’t necessarily listen to the doomsday advice of doctors. They didn’t accept or receive the diagnosis and either created their own protocol to deal with it, or ignored it. The same went with cancer patients. The research showed that when doctors predicted an answer to the question: “How long do I have, doc?” Many patients took their answers to heart. Some even died on THE DAY that they’d been told they’d die. Following the rules doesn’t always work when it comes to survival.
In regards to safety training, this is something that we need to consider. Every company has their own safety protocol; but when the poop is hitting the fan, we need to be able to abandon protocol if it is a hindrance to survival. If your team has 3 minutes to get to a “Floatel,” and doom is imminent, but Roughneck Joey has an idea that goes against protocol but saves everyone, sometimes we need to listen to Roughneck Joey. We need to be flexible enough to change course when we are faced with impossible situations. This is a scary proposition for oil and gas companies. We follow the rules in regards to safety as it those rules that frequently save our lives. But, when we are in the thick of it, loss of life needs to be our Number 1 priority and if flexibility and fluidity could lessen a manager telling a spouse that her husband is dead, then so be it. If your team is trapped in an elevator and protocol isn’t working, give them permission to take matters into their own hands. It might just save their lives.
Just think of Ms. Geneva.
ABOUT THEY IMPROV's SAFETY TRAINING
THEY improv provides programs to enhance a company's culture of safety. These programs range from training to entertainment that reaffirms knowledge and the commitment to protecting the team and facilities. Contact THEY improv for a no obligation discussion for how your efforts can be improved in a fun an enjoyable environment by calling 866-219-4386 or by emailing info@theysafetytraining.com. You can learn more about THEY improv's Safety Training at THEYSafetyTraining.com.
