Hurricane Otis: People-Centered Leadership Saved Me in Acapulco

“Good management is a skill.”? The Economist, October 26, 2023 (one day after Otis hit Acapulco)

The wind lifted me off the ground in the 20th-floor stairwell. It was 01:00. A few feet away, huge chunks of concrete, drywall and ever-present glass flew past. I’d filled every possible container in my hotel room with drinking water and charged my phone, laptop and communicated with my wife in Chicago as long as I could before service and electricity went blank.??

I planned to stay put in my room at the beachfront Acapulco hotel until the 266 kph winds died down, but I estimated the building was swaying a foot or more, and I worried it might collapse. With some cash, my passport, and a small bag of supplies, I started making my way down to the 3rd floor, figuring that there was a chance I could survive by jumping out of the building if it started crashing down.

A normal day at a trade show that turned dangerous

Pedro and I have been working together for about six months.?He is a sales manager and reports to me in my capacity as Sr. Director of Sales & Marketing.?

We had done lots of meetings and shows together, but no hurricanes. Now here we were in Acapulco. There had not been sufficient warning of a Category 5 hurricane.?

Pedro and I (in Acapulco for the Convencion Internacional de Mineria - International Mining Convention) had only heard about Hurricane Otis when we went to Home Depot to pick up some carpet and other items for our trade show booth. That was 21:00 on Tuesday, 24 October 2023.? The store was supposed to be open until 22:00, but at the front entrance we were informed by store staff they were closing because of a coming hurricane. The winds were mild, some rain showers.?No evidence of something historically catastrophic.?There was no time to prepare, and all the stores were closing.?

Pedro dropped me at my hotel and left for his. We had planned to meet in the morning to go early to the convention, but as the storm intensified it became very apparent everyone in Acapulco was in for a rough ride. The winds really increased around 23:00, rattling the tall hotel. I texted my wife and Pedro.

To my wife at 00:39:??

“The sirens are going off but there is no place to go.”

My last texts to Pedro were at 01:54:

“Como estas alla Pedron?”?

“A lot of glass broken…Very hard Bob.”?

“Yeah, wish I would have known. We would not have come here at all. Do you have electricity?”

“No. Stay away of windows, sir.”?

“Yes sir.”

I heard the wind and thought through our options. I hated that we were in this situation, and that my employee was in this situation. It was clear to me that if we got through the night, we had two choices: stay in Acapulco or try to make it out.

I have been to 74 countries, some–like Mexico–over 74 times in the course of my career as a sales leader. It’s a country I love deeply. I find its people and culture to be unique and in some ways unrivaled, and the people to be warm, friendly and fun. But I am aware of the economic and social challenges Guerrero State faces, and my personal calculation was that a prolonged electricity outage and looting might make it more dangerous to stay than to go.

“We need to leave tomorrow as soon as possible,” I texted Pedro.

“I think it wouldn’t be possible, the road may be closed.”?

“I took refuge in the bathroom.”?

“Me too.”???

And that was all I heard from him before the storm severed communications.?

Tough calls, and servant leadership in action

On my way to the 3rd floor, I gripped the stair rails to avoid getting sucked out the window or cut by the glass littering the floor and swirling in the wind. I worried about Pedro and the rest of the people in the building. Was he okay in his hotel?? When could I go out to find him?? I thought about my wife and kids, who I knew would be anxious about me. I worried about his wife and son.? I wondered when the wind would die down.? Was there anyone on my floor that needed help?? After some investigation I noticed I was the only person on my floor.

Upon reaching the 3rd floor I met a pregnant woman and her husband; she was in shock and he was cut and bleeding. I calmed her, cared for him, and escorted them to the 1st floor to the hotel staff.?When the storm started to moderate I trekked back up to the 20th floor to gather my belongings.?I was determined to set out at first light to find Pedro.?I knew the aftermath of Hurricane Otis would mean looting would not be in short supply, but many essentials–food, electricity, cell service, fresh water, working toilets, airport transportation–would be.

The decision to depart was underscored after I arrived back at my room and a short while later watched through the peephole as three men beat down the door across the hall from mine to loot the room. I realized I could be next so I hid the bulk of my belongings, leaving a couple of drinks, a small amount of cash, one cell phone, and a computer out just in case they needed to be placated with something.? Luckily they didn’t attack my door.

By early morning, I saw just what Otis had wrought.?My heavy balcony window had been blown off its track and clung precariously to the building.?I beheld a sea of debris from every vantage point:?a snow globe of shattered glass brimming with twisted metal, mangled concrete and tangled power lines smeared with layers of mud and seawater.?We had to get out of this devastation, but I didn’t know where Pedro’s hotel was–only that it was a Holiday Inn.

Briefcase packed with food and drinks, I walked down 20 flights of stairs to the hotel lobby, adding to the thousands of stairs I would climb up and down during my odyssey.?I encountered a young couple who by chance I’d said hello to in the elevator the night before.

I shared some cokes to drink from my bag and asked them if they were okay, where they were from, and their names–Alejandra and Rogelio.?By chance they were from Quertero, Pedro’s town. I asked them if they wanted to get out of Acapulco and they said, “yes!”?They agreed to watch my bags while I went to find Pedro, and I assured them that if Pedro’s car was working I would return and we’d drive them out of Acapulco.

I climbed the 20 floors back up to my room to grab my suitcase, and back down in the lobby deposited it with the young couple next to my briefcase. I found a hotel staffer and asked where I could find the Holiday Inn.?He told me it was about a 45-minute walk.??

“When crisis strikes, immediately address your staff.? Take charge of the situation, offer a plan of action, ask for support, and show absolute confidence in a positive outcome.”? Ernest Shackleton

That normal 45-minute walk stretched out interminably:? I walked through ubiquitous glass shards, over downed trees, power lines, and all manner of mud and water.? It was hard going because there was no direct route on either the street or sidewalk.? Many times on the walk, I asked for directions to the Holiday Inn and wound my way closer.

I saw everyone and everything on that fast walk/run to Pedro’s hotel:? looters, gawkers, women crying, people patiently standing in line to try to secure food and water.? I also saw young women and men from the Mexican Marines removing trees and debris from the streets and sidewalks and helping their fellow citizens. They were truly heroes in my eyes. They were first on the scene.

Once I finally arrived at the Holiday Inn, there were some men trying to remove a large sign off their car.? I tried to help them remove it, but it was too heavy.? I went into the lobby of the Holiday Inn shouting for Pedro, asking people if they’d seen him.

“Pedro!!!” I called.

“Pedron!!!” my nickname for him.

No response.??

One guest said there was a hotel employee on the 7th floor named Carlos who could help with a room list; maybe I could discover Pedro’s room number.?I began climbing each floor, knocking on the doors of each room, yelling for Pedro and looking for Carlos.?

I found Carlos and asked if he had the room list, but he did not.?He suggested I go back to the lobby to seek help from another hotel employee, but I decided to continue up the rest of the floors and look for Pedro.??

As I got to the top, I thought I probably should have followed Carlos’s advice and gone back down to the lobby.? But as I did I saw a man laboring heavily to get luggage down the stairs. With his permission, I grabbed the heaviest bag and took it down the stairs.?

At the lobby, I again tried to find someone to help me locate Pedro’s room number, with no success.?But Luggage Man said he’d seen someone matching Pedro’s description up on the 14th floor, cautioning me that the person had a head wound and was bleeding.?That startled me.?Was Pedro unconscious and that’s why he didn’t answer my shouts?

I then went back up the stairs yelling for Pedro but was unable to find him. I checked every floor again. Nothing. My legs were burning, and I exercise every day and have done triathlons for years.?But I knew he wouldn’t leave without me, and I wouldn’t leave him.?That’s the kind of partnership and rapport we’d built.

Back in the lobby again, I asked where the cars for the hotel were parked. I found Pedro’s rental car miraculously intact and undamaged. I left an energy bar on the windshield and wrote a note in mud on the dirty window telling Pedro to come to find me at my hotel.

Looking out for each other. Building relationships matters. “Never leave a buddy behind.”

As I was leaving the parking garage, karma finally took note of my efforts: I saw Luggage Man getting into a car. He hailed me and agreed to drive me back to my hotel.?The roads were nearly impassable, and it took forever to go a short distance.

Karma again smiled down: on the devastated street, walking straight at me, was Pedro.

“Stop!” I said. “That’s him!”

I thanked Luggage Man for the ride as I jumped from the car and hugged Pedro.? We were incredulous to have found each other in the devastation, both of us unharmed.?

We discussed what had happened.?He was down at my hotel looking for me. I was searching for him.?We had passed each other in the chaos on the street.? We got in his rental car and zig–zagged our way down the streets until we reached my hotel.?

Alejandra and Rogelio were still there, watching my bags.?Brief introductions to Pedro were made, and we loaded the car.?In the mud and water, we made our way through Acapulco for 6.5 hours, driving with no phone reception or directions along winding, debris-filled, clogged roads.?Looters and massive felled trees and downed power lines filled my field of vision.?When we finally arrived at the highway out of Acapulco we had gone a distance of perhaps 30 kilometers.?

The entrance to the highway was packed with a long traffic jam of stopped vehicles–maybe 100-150 cars. I talked to a truck driver we stopped next to; he had been there since 19:30 the night before, riding out the storm in his truck.??

We still could only move 100-200 meters at a time, endlessly waiting our turn for the road to open.?We saw hundreds of service trucks and military/police vehicles heading toward Acapulco.?Not only would the city need massive infrastructure repairs, but the police were necessary as well:?the highway out of Acapulco to Mexico City is a known stronghold for Narcos.

It typically takes a little under 6 hours to drive from Acapulco to Mexico City, and in that time we’d barely gotten past Acapulco city limits.?We were wet, hot and dirty, sleep-deprived and our journey wasn’t close to over.?Our loved ones still didn't know where we were, if we were safe or injured, dead or alive…and that burden weighed heavily.

We still had to make it at least to Cuernavaca to drop off Alejandra and Rogelio en route to Mexico City, where I could finally get a flight home.?In time the road opened up and we had a clearer path away from the hurricane’s damage.?It would be hours in the mountainous terrain before we finally got cell service and my “I am good” reached my wife, roughly 17 hours after Hurricane Otis made landfall.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”? Maya Angelou

Leadership matters for ALL organizations, but what form should that leadership take???

In the end, leadership is about protecting and serving people, and if you’re a manager that especially means taking care of those who report to you.?The group objectives, the business ROI, the successful project, all of these will flourish provided time and care are built into our personal relationships.??

I may have only known Pedro for 6 months before we encountered Hurricane Otis, but the time and care I put into building that relationship may have saved our lives and the lives of others. Pedro's willingness to trust and build that relationship with me had the same effect.

If I hadn’t been a manager who spoke Spanish to Pedro–his native language–rather than English–mine–when we communicated, maybe that evolution from co-worker to friend to fellow survivor would not have occurred. If I had been a manager who didn’t ask about his family, but instead focused solely on what his sales success could do for mine, maybe I’d still be stranded in Acapulco now; after all, Pedro had the car and the keys.?He didn’t need to search for me.

Many bosses would have remained at the Convention opening night for free drinks and fun rather than go to Home Depot.? But I never have someone do something I wouldn’t do myself, and it’s those little moments that build to more momentous moments of trust.?That trip for carpet set the stage for our journey out of a devastating situation.

Building relationships is a career-long practice that pays the real life dividends

I’m attending a wedding soon, standing in for parents who cannot be at their daughter’s side.?The father is a former customer from the Philippines, and for many reasons he and his wife cannot make the wedding here in the USA.? Due to a change in industries I haven’t sold anything to him in over 15 years, and while I have met his daughter only a few times, I’m being accorded this honor because he respects and trusts me.?There are things you never get paid for monetarily, but you are rewarded in love and care.??

Another former customer in Oman keeps a photo of me and his children on his mantle in their home.?And except for that photo there are only family photos there in that place of honor. He and his family truly love me as I do them, and when I come to Muscat they treat me like royalty.?Why??Because he knows what kind of person I am, and how I made him feel.??

On a recent business trip to Asia, the Korean sales director who handles that region and reports to me became very ill.?I helped nurse him every day and helped him get through the trip. Despite his considerable discomfort he was able to complete the business trip where we had so much success.? He now calls me “brother.”?He tells me he loves me for what I did for him.??

Throughout my sales career my leadership success is measured by the number of customers and colleagues who have become my friends.?They remember what I did for them.?How I made them feel.??

People want to be valued, they want to be seen.?Value them.?See them.?And you’ll be rewarded by the relationships and successes you build.??

Trust me:?someday it may save your life.??