I recently came across the wonderful poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling. In my humble opinion, it contains many truths both in respect to life as a whole and to one very specific aspect of my life. Let us take for example life in a high-tech company …
"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs…"
How many times have you encountered a "crisis" situation? An important client requires an immediate update, one of the production servers is failing, or there is a demo planned with a client and the system is having some issues.
Sound familiar? The last thing we want to do as professionals is PANIC… If we are in a panic not only does our mind block and prevent us from getting to a solution, but we also project this state of mind in our surroundings and make it difficult for our colleagues to be productive. To paraphrase, if we are calm, it clears our mind to handle the task and strengthens our colleagues, reassuring that we are all up to the task.
To the point of actually solving the issue: assessing what we are all up against (as a team), having a brain-storming session, assigning people to the tasks and monitoring the progress of colleagues – all of these actions help to bring the situation to a happy ending.
And by the way, acting calmly doesn't necessarily have to mean moving slowly J …
Last week we had one of these “crisis” situations. A task force was assembled to handle the situation, and it was very interesting to see how the members of this task force, dealt with all the tension, conquered their fears and focused on solving the issue. And indeed after a few hours the issue was solved.
Kudos guys. J
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