The Situational Debrief: A Process to Successfully Face, Overcome, and Learn from Life’s Obstacles

In our fast-paced, high-tech, ever-evolving world the speed of change and decision-making is getting faster, the level of competition fiercer, adversity, ambiguity is striking harder than ever. As this is the current and future state of our world, it is imperative that people think clearly in a world of constant disruption. Only rational thinking in the face of obstacles can win the day and provide a true competitive advantage and determine the long-term success of any individual and company.

A Foundation for Continued Success

The ability to effectively overcome adversity doesn't happen blindly, it takes a plan. In many areas in life we seek opportunities to learn lessons, and/or at least take a class, get training to improve our skills in something. Why don't we do the same with adversity? We blindly go through life, making similar mistakes over and over again, without lessons learned or knowledge gained. Each day offers us an opportunity to evolve into the people we were meant to become. It takes a fertile mind that is aware and willing to learn. A good solid process can come in handy too.

Life is a Classroom---Are You in Attendance?

The bottom line is that learning from life’s experiences—both the good and the bad—sets the framework for future success. These experiences will serve a specific purpose for later things to come and provide the ability to access logical, rather than emotional responses to situations. The key is to be prepared to analyze situations as you face them going forward. I use a simple 4-Step process to analyze adverse situations in my life. This process helps me learn from life's difficulties, so I can be prepared better to avoid future instances and be prepared to handle better than I did in the past. I also use this process with my clients and call it The Situational Debrief Process.

The Situational Debrief Process

This is a process for documenting, and analyzing adverse situations, both past & present. The goal is to capture and absorb learnings from adverse experiences to prepare you for future scenarios. In other words, learn lessons from adverse situations.

If you don’t have a significant reservoir experiences or relevant training to rely on, you may want to begin by documenting important past situations that reoccur as issues (for example, fearing change, dealing with a difficult person, interviewing for a job, panicking in the face of any adversity, etc.). You will want to recreate those experiences, analyze and view them positively, or at least as a learning tool to prepare you for future situations. Use this same process to learn from new situations you face. Here is a four-step Situational Debrief Process:

• Capture the Situation. Write down your current or past situation. Don’t stop with simply writing down the event. Get yourself to relive the moment. Put yourself in that spot, despite the difficulty...and yes, it most likely will draw on emotions. You’ll want to capture facts about the event, so you can begin to think about it logically, not emotionally.
• Review the Outcomes. Write down what the actual outcome of the situation is or was, whether good, bad, or indifferent. You want to identify what was adverse vs. desirable. This allows you to reconnect to both the good and bad of the event. In addition, it can help you recognize both the emotional trigger, and emotional responses if they occurred. This allows you to connect dots if handled emotionally (freeze/flight/fight), between what caused the response, and the response itself. The more you can recognize, and connect the dots, the more likely you can recognize this habit in the future.
• Define Key Learnings. Most importantly, capture what you learned from the event. This is the key to enabling you to step back from the emotion and logically analyze your situation, recreating positive experiences from something otherwise considered negative. Capture what you learned. What was good? What was hurtful? Did you learn anything at the time, and if not, what can you learn from it now? If there is some sort of foundational training, you can fall back on those as well. As an example, if you’re in sales and are taught a “sales process” or skill, like handling objections, use this foundational training as the foundation to measure. Did you use the process or not? What did you do well, or not so well-based on the training you received?
• Identify Recommended Changes. Once the key learning is identified, think about what you’d do differently the next time. Once again, step away from the emotion of it and think logically. You’ll probably experience emotion as you revisit the situation, but hopefully not so intense that it overrules your rational thought process. The key point of the exercise is to redraw the experience in a positive light for future use in similar situations.

Transforming From Coal to Diamonds

Bottom-line this Situational Debrief Process can work for you as well. You must realize that every scenario in our lives' is a learning opportunity to enable us to grow, gain wisdom and evolve while strengthening our resolve for when lightning strikes. Just as pressure transforms a piece of coal into a beautiful shiny diamond, the adversity we face can transform us into the person we were meant to be and have the life we were meant to live.

About Steve Gavatorta

Steve Gavatorta, owner of the Steve Gavatorta Group, specializes in empowering individuals and organizations in identifying, developing, and exceeding performance goals. Steve has had the privilege of coaching and training thousands of high performers across an array of industries. From small businesses on the move to Fortune 500 companies, Steve collaborates with organizations to build foundations, set goals, and eclipse their highest potential.

Steve is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA), a certified Myers-Briggs practitioner, and accredited to coach and train for Emotional Intelligence (EQ). He is a two-time published author, and his new book In Defense of Adversity: Turning Your Toughest Challenges Into Your Greatest Success won Richter Publishing’s Amazon Best Seller Award for 2018. Steve currently resides in Tampa.

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