The Hall of Awesomeness

“You grab a challenge, act on it, then honestly reflect on why your actions worked or didn’t. You learn from it and then move on. That continuous process of lifelong learning helps enormously in a rapidly changing economic environment.” John Kotter (American Academic at Harvard Business School in Fortune, 22 August, 1994).

Imagine for a moment you are a pilot in charge of a cargo plane flying out of war stricken Baghdad. You are about to take off when you feel the typical pre-flight nerves and all you can think about is the war going on in your surroundings. For just a brief moment, you look at your flight engineer and your first officer to notice the same tension in their faces. A question forms itself in your mind, why am I doing this? The danger is all around you, your ears can hear the gunfire going off and you can see the smoke from the flames. The atmosphere here is tense to say the least. You radio in for take off and prepare yourself with fear filling your heart to take off from the relative safety of the air strip to the certain insecurity of the skies. As the plane roars down the tarmac these doubts permeate your mind drilling their way into your conscious thoughts when suddenly you hear and feel an almighty bang. For a moment your mind slips into a dream as escape the reality of the situation only to hear a distant voice yelling at you from the side. It’s your Belgian co-pilot screaming at you that the controls no longer work and the airplane it’s essentially a ticking time bomb. You test the controls, he’s not lying this man is telling you the truth the controls have gone!

As you think through the scenarios and the actions you can take fear grows large in your heart. I am going to die. That’s it. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the dam assignment in this country, why on earth would I want to fly a plane in a country as unstable as this? Now I am paying the price for my stupidity! As you are plagued with self-doubts, fear and insecurity the reality of your situation hits as the co-pilot again screams at you for action. You take glance at your flight engineer who is an older man with you with countless years of experience and he gives you a worried glance back. The younger brash first officer, ambitious and more grounded than you in this situation looks worried. His eyes betray his youthful zest because of the terror you can see staring back at you. Immediately you think back to a similar problem and what the crew did. They applied thrust in relative amounts to get through the crisis but what was the result of that interchange? Oh that’s right they died. So what do I do?

As you attempt to take control of the giant plane you realize one thing, it doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to, no hydraulics! You curse; turn to look at your flight engineer and the first officer who still seems to think there is a way out. Within yourself you want to believe him but thinking of that previous crash when one of your colleagues died in a similar situation, you are not so sure. With sweat pouring from every conceivable area of your body, nerves chattering away and fear consuming your thoughts you know it’s time to act. If this was you how would you deal with it?

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This story is actually true and it occurred over the airways of Baghdad during the beginning of the current Iraq war. The plane was shot at from the ground by a heat-seeking surface to air missile which clipped the wing of the plane and damaged the hydraulic control system on the airplane. In turn this affected the controls rendering them useless. All this trio had to negotiate a landing with was the actual engine of the airplane. By applying a combination of various speeds they learned they could successfully control the airplane. The three of them sat there discussing it until them came up with a plan they could execute that might put them on the ground at some stage. This was there only hope. Did they make it, yes there plan worked where at least two others had failed with fatal consequences. The funny thing about this story is that all three men were placed in a situation where they had to draw not only on what they knew but the core life skills.

The first thing they had to do was learn an appropriate way to manage the situation by trying different ideas. There was no room for going to the book to find out what to do in this situation it was life and death. No room for error. The concepts acquired quickly by the pilots formed themselves into actions as they put their ideas into practice. No time for mistakes as they did what no other team in history had achieved previously. I know some people who faced with similar smaller scale problems face them by not knowing how to learn there way out of a problem. Through fear and a genuine lack of self-confidence they fail to appropriate the most basic of skills which is to learn. Learning is not a skill particular to ‘gifted’ individuals; it’s an ability most people can use on a regular basis.

After the pilots have assessed the situation by learning about it they begin to construct a way out of the problem. While they are learning they are drawing on another ‘life skill’. Change had been thrust upon these pilots in the most horrible manner and they quickly have to learn how to fly without the typical controls they are used to. So what do they do? Our DHL pilots experiment by learning how to manage the change thrust upon them by employing different ideas. As the situation grows worse new ideas and problems arise yet the pilots keep testing ideas and come up with solutions to manage the difficulties they face. Essentially by learning what to do, appropriating changes and reflecting on these actions they have built a bridge that led them out of the problem.

Finally the other thing these pilots did so well was managing the complexity the problem kept throwing them. The DHL team: learned, managed the changes as they came and built appropriate responses, began solving the problem by trying different ideas, worked through a solid team based relationship and managed the complexity the situation effectively. So how did they make it? Through learning, adapting, changing, look at the related elements in it’s complexity, these essentially solved the problem. In the end the pilots landed and skidded to a halt at the end of the runway back at the same airport they took off from. As they exited the plane they would have thought, “That’s it this horrible ordeal is over.” Not quite, as they stepped off the plane on the ground a fire truck approached them with a man waving his hand frantically trying to get the DHL team’s attention. The ground they stood on was part of the taking of Baghdad and contained landmines. Carefully, as the truck reversed through a cleared path they walked, following the tracks left by the fire truck. Ironically, they walked behind each other step by step until they were safely away from the landmines. The final actions mimicked what had already taken place in the air – step by step – they managed a life problem through the effective use these elements.

Life Skills

Life skills are the core competencies an individual possesses, that enable them to cope with the difficulties in life. More specifically, they are those that are built on top of literacy and numeracy skills that enable an individual to be able to learn, solve problems, manage complexity, and be open to change. The Tasmanian Government’s 2020 project came up with this definition:

“There is currently no known definition of life skills. However, life skills, in addition to essential literacy and numeracy skills, could encompass the ability to build sound, harmonious relationships with self, others and the environment; the ability to act responsibly and safely; the ability to survive under a variety of conditions; and the ability to solve problems” .

Notice the key parts of the definition above: sound and harmonious relationships with others, acting responsibility and being able to survive under a variety of conditions and the ability to solve problems. Here are what I think are the major parts of that issue:

• Learning: Understanding the way in which you learn and how you can develop ways of seeing and ways of understanding through your own learning style.
• Understanding Complexity and Perspectives: Using what I call a complexity perspective or systems view (God’s eye view if you like) of the world in order to understand how things relate. This is how do things connect together and how does that affect me. You see there is you and the world around you… not just YOU!
• Problem Solving: This skill is about learning how to move forward in difficult problem areas. How do you know what will work. What are the consequences involved in your thinking? Will they relate to each other and how so? This does not refer to mathematical ability. It refers to the ability to be able to solve problems and work through them by understanding the connections between the part that make the problem what it is.
• Communication: Knowing what to say and how to say it appropriately. Writing skills are clearly important but did you know that you communicate in many different ways: physically, mentally, spiritually?
• Managing relationships: You have a pool of people that are connected to you. These people are all around you. How do they affect you and what does that mean? Knowing the types of relationships you are involved in and how this impacts you.
• Creative Thinking/Intuition: The ability to think outside the square. How do you think? Creative thinking is not defined by anything other than how you with your unique personality can learn to think in creative ways.
• Bridge Building: Knowing how to take steps forward to improve problems rather than make excuses for living with them. My father has a saying, “build a bridge and get over it.” I am sure he stole this from Scott Peck. Nevertheless, building a bridge is creating the way out by taking incremental steps.
• Perspective Shifting/Strategic Thinking: Systems thinking is not looking at the cause of something on a bigger scale. It’s understanding how conflicting points of view integrate to form a perceived version of reality. Strategic thinking is the art of seeing the perspectives and being able to freely move between them to get a complete view of the problem.
• Reflection: As the quote says from John Kotter says: being able to learn is incredibly important because it leads to being able to understand what we did, why it worked and why it didn’t. You will have some idea of what you did, why it worked or why it didn’t. Even if you didn’t then surely you have some concept as to what happened. It’s through the lens of reflection that you can see what not to do next time and learn from the most important thing in the world: your mistakes.

These skills are the building blocks of a successful life. If you separate them and become good at one you will neglect the other and life will walk all over you. On the other hand, learning, adapting, changing, understanding connections and complexity will help you gain the perspective you need. Remember it’s up to you to learn these and practice them. You don’t become a professor at life overnight. It takes time, patience and plenty of understanding.

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