Avoid Shifting Into Auto-Pilot

In May of 2005, professional tennis player Fernando Verdasco of Spain was serving to America’s top player, Andy Roddick, at the Rome Masters in Milan, Italy. Verdasco had lost the first set and was down 5-3, love-40, triple match point. He hit deep on the second serve. The line judge called the ball out and Roddick had the match, only Roddick refused to accept the point. Verdasco’s serve had nicked the line, he said. Stunned, the umpire let Roddick overrule him. Verdasco then fought back, held serve, and won the set and then the match.[i]

Unless you’re a tennis enthusiast, you most likely never heard about this extraordinary display of generosity. It barely rated a mention in the American press. Yet, Roddick risked and lost tens of thousands of dollars in a tournament where he was seeded first simply because he felt it correct to be honest.

Roddick would not have been criticized if he’d simply accepted the bad call. The ethic in modern, big-time sports is that it’s up to the officials to call the game and for the players to abide by those decisions even if they know they succeeded under false pretenses. Andy Roddick went against cultural expectations and instinctively did what he thought was right.

Doing what is good and right and proper, even at personal cost, cost Andy Roddick a lot that day. Yet, he strengthened his personal integrity and won a lot of followers.

As leaders, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of going through our days on auto-pilot – especially if we have been told that we’re good leaders. What we fail to realize in this mode of thinking is that we are losing out on opportunities to make even better choices and to have a greater impact.

Many managers make decisions based on intuition and experience. They may gather some feedback, but many times they filter it through their internal belief system. Agile Leaders gather and access data and are inclusive of different perspectives. They seek to understand and engage alternative points of view prior to jumping to a conclusion. They make better choices!

There are millions of stimuli that we are presented with throughout the day. When we are on auto-pilot, we make a choice without even realizing it, and from that choice, we respond or act.

?When we’re asked, for example, “How was your weekend?” and we respond with “fine,” we have faced a stimulus, made a choice on auto-pilot, and then responded. This, however, shortchanges both ourselves and others in developing meaningful relationships.

In order to make better choices and therefore give better responses, we need to slow things down a bit to reflect on what our intentions are and what outcomes we’re seeking for ourselves and for others. This pause can be an unrecognizable short span of time, or something a little longer.

The key is to pause long enough to inactivate the auto-pilot and instead reflect on other choices. In this situation, when asked “How was your weekend?” you pause, make eye contact with the person, and respond, “It was great. I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with my parents, which I haven’t done for a while. How about yours?”?

The choice to share more information and ask the person about their weekend demonstrates a willingness to share and an interest in them as an individual.

Pausing to inactivate auto-pilot, reflect, and consider the choices we have, gives us a greater chance of responding in better ways and achieving the results we seek. Better choices lead to better actions and better results. What kind of choices are you making?

[i] Sokolowski, Alexandre (May 5, 2020). May 5 2005: The Day Andy Roddick’s Sportsmanship Cost Him Victory. Tennis Majors. Retrieved from https://www.tennismajors.com/our-features/on-this-day/may-5-2005-the-day-andy-roddicks-sportsmanship-cost-him-victory-210307.html

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[i] Global Workplace Analytics (June 2020). Work-At-Home After COVID-19—Our Forecast. Retrieved from https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast

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