By Larry Brower, Saratoga Resource Group LLC
There was an interesting exchange Sunday (01-13-13) between the announcers in the Seattle Seahawks – Atlanta Falcons playoff game, played in Atlanta. One of the announcers quoted Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, who reportedly said in response to a question in a pre-game press conference something like, “I don’t want to talk about crossing the country and three time zones to get here”. The other announcer said something like, “That comment tells me that is EXACTLY what Pete Carroll is thinking about”. Later, one of the announcers (probably armed with a stat unearthed by one of the production staff), said ONLY ONE west coast team in NFL history has crossed the country for all of their playoff games, and then advanced to the Super Bowl: the L.A. Rams in the 1980’s. Sure enough, the favored Seahawks lost when Atlanta kicked a field goal in the final play of the game to win 30-28, ending the ‘Hawks season.
So, what part did the rigors of that cross-country trip to reach Atlanta play in the ‘Hawks loss? We’ll never know. It got me to thinking however. I can easily see tough guys like NFL players (and their coaches) saying something like, “Aw, we’re used to traveling across time zones, sleeping in strange beds, and eating institutional food”.
Any of us who travel are used to that too. However, can we honestly say that we are unaffected by cross-country (not to mention overseas) travel? I don’t think so. Having lived on both coasts, and traveled frequently to the other, my own rule of thumb is not to expect 100% from myself until I’ve been on the ground at my destination for 24 hours (especially flying west to east).
So, what is the broader implication for leaders? Simply this, it seems to me: people are human, and there are no Supermen or Superwomen.
I sat on a hot, dusty helipad in Vietnam in 1970, waiting along with a South Vietnamese military interpreter to board a chopper with a US infantry battalion to launch a field operation during the Cambodian invasion. I headed up a prisoner-of-war interrogation unit for the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division in the country’s Central Highlands. We provided intelligence gathered from our POW’s to division G2. Our division was among the first to cross the Cambodian border as part of the invasion force.
I rested on the rucksack on my back, with my M-16 rifle across my lap, while we waited for the helicopters that would take us on the mission. Events of the day kept changing the mission, and the increasingly hot weather kept changing the number of soldiers each “bird” could lift, and therefore the number of helicopters needed. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. The day dragged on.
People started getting thirsty, hungry, and tired. Food and water were brought in for us; there was no relief from the heat or the sun; there wasn’t a tree for a half-mile in any direction. Finally, late in the day the battalion commander, a Lt. Colonel (three ranks above me at the time) came over to me and we chatted for a few minutes.
He said something I’ll never forget, something like, “Lieutenant Brower, I’m glad you’re with us today, and here’s why. I want you to see for yourself, and I want you to tell your G2 buddies, that troops are more than just pins on a map. They are people. They get hot, thirsty, hungry, and tired, and you’ve got to respond to that before you can expect them to fight well. They don’t teach you that in OCS. I want you to remember this day”. He got his wish; I’ll never forget that day.
The lifelong lesson for me is this: I don’t care how good a leader you are, or how tough you and your people are, we all have our limits. People do indeed get tired, hungry, hot, and thirsty. There comes a time when, whether we like it or not, we need to recognize that simple fact, allow for it, and deal with it. The LTC was right; they don’t teach that in OCS. Or in business school. Or in leadership training.
We may need to allow extra time for people to eat, drink, and rest before we can expect much from them. As much as we might like to think that people can come off five-hour plane rides across three (or more) time zones and hit the ground running, they really can’t. They need time to recover in order to even approach full effectiveness. This lesson always came to mind years later in my corporate career when I was flying leaders across the country to take part in leadership training I headed up.
We also may need to admit to OURSELVES that we’re maybe not going to be the best leaders until we can do the same for ourselves. We may need to “take ourselves out of the game” when we’re not at our best, rather than saying or doing something in the heat of the moment that we may regret later.
There is no Superman, even in the NFL.