What Would I Do If…?
Written by Gordon on February 6th, 2009
Gordon Graham here again, and thanks for taking the time to visit this little corner of the Credit Union website – and specifically thanks for taking the time to click on my monthly effort to get and keep you interested in the discipline of Risk Management. I am absolutely convinced that if more people at the Federal Level of our Government understood the breadth and depth of this discipline, we would not have the huge problems that face us now.
And similarly, if more people in Sacramento (and I worked up there for a while so I can say this with a high level of confidence) got the discipline of real Risk Management we would not have the major problems that we currently have in this state. And if more people in Detroit got it – Toyota would not be the number one seller of cars in the world today. And I could go on and on, but I won’t – because I believe you “get” it.
The mere fact that you are visiting a “credit union” website tells me a lot about your efforts in “managing” risk. You are preparing for your financial future – and doing it in a wise manner bypassing the “greater returns” you could have had with Mr. Bernie Madoff doing your investing for you. And couple that with the fact that you are associated with the fire service – a high-risk profession – tells me that you understand (and hopefully practice) the concept of Risk Management. “What can go wrong – and what can I do today to change outcomes?” is the cornerstone thinking process of the discipline. And because of your presence on a “fire credit union” site – I am confident that you get it.
Which brings me to the point of this brief piece – “It all gets down to five minutes!” One of the greatest things to happen to the world of “Risk Management” recently was the efforts of the U.S. Air Captain on January 15. You know the story as well as I do. He took off out of LaGuardia (this airport name might pop up later in a quiz) in command of Flight 1549 with a plane loaded with people – ran into some major problems that caused his plane to lose power – and pulled off a remarkable landing in the Hudson River and everyone went home in one piece. And if you have read anything past the headlines regarding this event, you know that all of this transpired in a “five-minute” window from 1531 to 1536 on that Thursday afternoon.
And if you have read just a little further into the story, you know that the fellow who pulled this off, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger III, was not “just a pilot”. He had a ton of experience (19,000 plus hours starting with PSA – for those of you who are old enough to remember that carrier and I can recall the $9.95 redeye flights between LAX and SFO – he had a ton of memory markers) and he had a side business as a risk manager focusing on many of the “risk” issues that face aviators. So let me ask you a simple question. Do you think that he had asked himself the question posed in line six of paragraph three above? “What can go wrong – and what can I do today to change outcomes?”
I am confident that the full story will come out over the next few months – and that Captain “Sully” will be recognized as the “hero” (a real hero as opposed to so many of the people who carry that title because of their prowess in some sport) that he truly is. But this status did not come by “luck”. No, not at all. Malcolm Gladwell in his new book “The Outliers” talks about people who have made their mark on the world because they have spent “10,000” hours perfecting their expertise.
And Captain Sully had nearly twice the “Gladwell” requirement and he did exactly what he had planned to do when he first posed that question, “What can go wrong – and what can I do today to change outcomes?”.
And let us not forget the three cabin crewmembers on that same flight. I hear they had ninety something years of experience between them – and if I had the time to do the math they were each over their “10,000 hour” requirement – and thousands of takeoffs and landings and then all of a sudden, they ended up in the frigid Hudson – and they too performed in an exemplary manner – and in fact one of them advised passengers not to open the rear “escape” door because it would have flooded the plane. And they too made split second decisions based on a ton of “memory markers” that they had stored in their head over time.
And as long as we are on this topic let us not forget the firefighters and the cops who were on duty that same afternoon – and how quickly they responded to the scene and helped evacuate those one hundred and fifty people so efficiently and safely. And my guess is there were some telecommunicators on duty that listened to what was going on and quickly got the right people in route very quickly.
Let me move to the point of this brief piece. Yesterday, I watched Captain Sully on the television in his hometown of Danville getting all the awards that you knew he would – and I listened to his comments with some interest. “I was just doing what I was trained to do”, he said humbly. And here I go “guessing” again but if the flight attendants were interviewed – they too would say the same thing. And the same would be true with the firefighters and cops and telecommunicators and everyone else who did so well on January 15.
If you want to read something fascinating, play a little bit on “google” about American Airlines Flight 96 in 1972. This event is also known as “The Windsor Incident” because of where it happened. And look at the performance of the Captain (Bryce McCormick) at 1925 hours on that June 12 some thirty-seven years ago and how he responded to the in-flight emergency he faced with his DC-10 after a takeoff out of Detroit in route to (of all places) LaGuardia airport. If you want to read all about it, the incident is covered fully in James Chiles’ great work “Inviting Disaster”. Or you can get the abbreviated version on “Wikipedia” but it does not tell the full story. It appears to me that Captain McCormick had some advance thoughts on “What can go wrong – and what can I do today to change outcomes?”
Sadly, about two years later a lot of people died on Turkish Air Flight 981 (also a DC-10) when the exact same situation developed – and the pilot that day apparently lacked some of the “memory markers” that Captain McCormick had in his head.
Every job has “core critical tasks” – things that are very risky, done very rarely, and allow you little or no time to think things through. In my lectures, I call these the HR/LF/NDT events – high risk, low frequency, non-discretionary time events. Many people go through their entire career in their profession – whatever it might be – without getting involved in such a “core critical task”. But when they do occur – and it might be only once (and maybe less than five minutes) in a thirty-five year career – this is what you get paid to do. Everything else you have done in that specific career and job has been in preparation for that “five minutes” of sheer action.
If you have nothing to do later today, check out “The Dash” by Eric Aronson. You will quickly get the drift of this work. If you check out headstones and grave markers in a cemetery, you will see two dates – DOB and DOD. Between them is “The Dash”. What have you done in between those two dates is what you will be known for. You have chosen the complex job of being a firefighter. What are you doing today to fill “the dash” between your DOB and DOD.
Be a good Dad or Mom – and a good grandparent! And be a good friend to as many people as you can. And be the mentor that some young firefighters will remember for all the help you gave them when they were new on the job. And be the best fire service professional you can be – get ready for that “five minutes” that may or may not occur during one of your shifts.
“Everyday must be a training day” is a phrase that I have been preaching for a long time now – and this is particularly true in your high-risk world. And the training has got to focus on the “core critical tasks” specific to your job description. You must be constantly playing the game – “what would I do if…” and build those memory markers up front.
So that is it for my column this month. I hope the “five minutes” it took to read this was well spent. And I also hope that you will spend about the same time every day thinking about your job and your life and asking yourself “what would I do if…..?”
Until I see you again, please take the time to work safely.
Gordon Graham
Co-President, Lexipol
Thanks for the great article Gordon. I just read in our local paper the other day that “Sully” had checked out a book from the local library and had it with him on Flight 1549. After he got home to Danville he called the library and asked for an extension on returning the book. They gladly agreed and also waived any late fees.
The subject of the book? Professional Ethics. What a guy!
posted on February 6th, 2009 at 2:05 pm