Tactical patience - sanity in a world geared for burnout

Why “right now” needs to be replaced with “right time.”

In the military we had a phrase that repeated itself with tedious regularity. “Hurry up and wait”. I must have spent years of my life, sitting on my rucksack waiting in a cold damp room for the next phase of the operation or training to begin. You might assume it was due to ineffective logistics. But a lot of the time, it was actually deliberately imposed on us. I used to think it’s because the people that planned these periods of mind-numbing boredom were cretinous masochists. But it turns out being able to sit still conveys a huge tactical advantage.

For 2 years I worked in the Joint Personnel Recovery (JPR) Cell. The purpose of my role was to coordinate a rescue mission if one of our pilots got shot down in hostile territory. (Think Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines.) We spent a LOT of time training for this eventuality. Invariably this training would take place in a bunker deep underground. You know the rooms you see in world war 2 films with a big map in the middle of the room (known, rather inexplicably, as the “bird table”) with people moving wooden planes around on it like a giant game of Risk - well it’s a bit like that, only with computer screens. Anyway the simulated call would come in that one of our fighter pilots had been shot down by a hostile fighter (known as red forces), had ejected and was now on the ground, possibly injured, next to a giant smoking crater where their aircraft had crashed, in the middle of hostile territory. This was my big moment. I’d stand up in the middle of the operations room and shout “Attention on the Ops floor, we’ve had a JPR event.” I know that probably doesn’t sound as thrilling as the Hollywood version in Behind Enemy Lines but that is genuinely what I said, and everyone knew exactly what it meant: One of our guys was in deep shit. Everyone’s head would turn to me expectantly, eagerly anticipating their orders on what they needed to do to help me coordinate the recovery event.

And at this point, I would sit back down and do nothing.?

Well that’s what it felt like anyway.?

You see, the thing about training for combat operations, is that we need to expect that the “red forces” will play every trick in the book to outwit us. And one of those tricks might simply be to set a trap, and then put something irresistible next to that trap so that we walked straight into it. What if that irresistible thing was one of our pilots alone and afraid in hostile territory? We’d want to get them out pretty quickly wouldn’t we? So we might send dozens of our planes, helicopters, and ground forces in order to get that person out before the “red forces” got to them.?

Now imagine it isn’t really one of our people. Imagine the report of someone being shot down was fake. That it was actually a “spoof” call by the red forces to get us to send all our forces into an ambush. And imagine if I was the person who’d just sent all of our forces into that ambush. I’d have a lot of blood on my hands.?

So the very first thing I needed to do, was to make sure I didn’t send our guys on “Operation Certain Death” to try and pick up a person that didn’t actually exist.?

And that meant I needed to corroborate the report. There are lots of ways we could do this - I won’t disclose government secrets here, just imagine they are VERY clever.?

Even after I’d corroborated the report, however, I then had to weigh up the balance of risk.?Because there is no point sending multiple people to their deaths in order to try and save one.?I had to know the mission had a reasonable probability of success which meant I had to mitigate the risks as much as possible. This required further information gathering and collaboration.?

The key point is this - this process took time.?

So I needed to be able to sit on my hands. I needed to be able to execute tactical patience. And I needed to convince everyone else around me to do the same thing.?

This was not easy. Our brains, when we detect a threat, will ALWAYS favour speed over anything else. Remember our brains are trying to protect us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are helping us under pressure. So we will want to do something, anything, just so we can FEEL like we are making things happen.

As a result, we often trick ourselves into activity, mistaking it for productivity. But that is a mistake that can cost us dearly.?

THE JUICE IS WORTH THE SQUEEZE?

I hope you can see that there were some very compelling reasons why it was worth me being able to sit still in that kind of situation. If I’d rushed this process I could end up killing people unnecessarily. In your business, rushing things might not end up with people dying, but it could be costing you on several fronts. Conversely there are several reasons why your business will benefit when you hone the ability to sit still. Let’s look at it from the example of selling. Because let’s face it, in business, we are always selling. And we need people to buy what we are selling to be successful.?

(If selling isn’t your thing you can simply replace “customer” with “boss/organisation/team.”)

Reason 1 - Tactical patience leads to better decisions.?

First of all, there will be times when you simply do not have all the necessary information to make the best decision for your customer. The temptation might be to cut corners or to come up with a best guess. And yes that does mean you can do things quicker. It might mean you get your “value proposition” in front of your prospect before your competitor. And I know that in the world of sales, speed of response is considered to be critical. But what if that means you misjudge what your customer really needs? Or if you skip through the diagnostics or don’t take the time to really listen to and understand their problems. The product you then put in front of them could be completely inappropriate, or only solve part of the problem. And not only does that mean your product is less effective than they need, they’ll probably work out you weren’t really paying attention to THEIR needs and were more focused on YOUR needs (to sell your product or service).

Where as a business that’s had the tactical patience to wait until they have all the information they need to present something that meets ALL of their objectives, will probably win the business AND develop a better relationship with their customer, because the customer feels heard.

?

Reason 2 - We need to Recharge

Secondly, sales is exhausting. I often draw the analogy between front line military operations and sales, because I see both of these at the “pointy” end of what we do. It’s high octane, high risk and, by definition, highly competitive. Which means we need to give ourselves time to recharge. I know that’s not going to sound sexy. If you, like me, secretly believe that you run on fusion and NEVER have to rest, then I have some sympathy. It sucks when we find out that, we too, are human and, we too, need to recharge our batteries. But by god, we do. There is a reason why it was legally mandated that pilots got 8 hours of sleep per night. It’s wasn’t part of our beauty routine. It was considered to be an unnegotiable requirement to ensure we could fly safely and do our jobs effectively.?If we fly tired, we make mistakes and people die. If you operate tired, you’ll make mistakes too and possibly lose business.?

And/Or burn yourself out.?

And/Or you’ll spend so much time on your “front line” (possibly correcting mistakes that could have been avoided if you’d taken a break) that you’ll forget what your family and friends look like.?

It’s your choice of course.?

But I think that’s a very high price to pay for our refusal to switch off and recharge.?

Reason 3 - Sitting still brings clarity?

Thirdly we often don’t get the answer by staring straight at something. Sometimes we need to change perspective and the answer reveals itself. That’s because, changing our perspective allows us to use other parts of our brain so we can tackle a problem by using ALL of our potential brain power, rather than one tiny slice of it.

This is why we get our eureka moments after a nights sleep, or whilst out for a run, or during a conversation about something completely unrelated.

The point is good things happen when we change our perspective and sitting still gives us a whole new perspective. Sitting still also increases our awareness. When we stop doing everything in fast forward and simply give ourselves permission to sit still, we notice things we wouldn’t previously have noticed. That might be the answer that was previously eluding us, as already mentioned. Or it might be the fact that our shoulders are completely hunched up, we are grinding our teeth, or we haven’t had any water for the past 12 hours. In other words, sitting still allows us to check in, not just with the solution that is waiting for us to notice it, but also with ourselves.?And therefore notice when we are neglecting ourselves and getting dangerously close to burnout. This relates back to my previous point. We need to recharge. And we need to notice when it’s time to recharge before it’s too late. Sitting still allows us to do both.?

So try this: when things go quiet, rather than fighting it, or filling it with counterproductivity, we can use that time far more effectively.?

We can use it to practice the skill of tactical patience.

We can use it practice the skill of sitting still.?

So just do that….

Sit Still.?

Don’t tap your feet.?

Don’t pace around.?

Don’t dive into emails.?

Don’t send pestering (verging on desperate) emails.?

Just sit.?

This will allow you to recharge, it will allow you to notice what you’d normally miss and it will train you to sit with ambiguity, rather than forcing a poor decision based on insufficient information. ALL of those things will give you edge against your competition. And you get to see your friends.?

I think that’s a pretty big return on investment.?

Oh and by the way, if YOU are the boss and you are pressuring your people in frenzied activity, not only will they perform poorly for all the reasons I’ve mentioned above, they will either leave you or burn out. The smartest ones will leave you before they burn out.

Please don’t do this. There is another way.

If you’d like help to work out how to create a high performing, and high endurance team, get in touch.

??Tactical patience enhances our decision making, our relationships, our endurance and our problem solving.?

??The brain is wired to resist tactical patience, particularly when under pressure.

?? We can train ourselves to hone tactical patience, by practicing sitting still, holding a silence or simply waiting for someone to respond to us when they are ready.?

Sarah Furness is an ex-helicopter pilot and RAF Squadron Leader.?She is the author of the No1 best selling book?Fly Higher, executive coach and keynote speaker.?

If you are looking for a keynote speaker on performance and endurance under pressure contact?[email protected]

For support with workshops or coaching contact?[email protected]