Spinning

At work last week we had a critical issue with one of our systems arise that impacted many, many people. My team rallied, and has been working a ton of hours to resolve things and restore normalcy. We are just about there. In the breathing space we have now to look at what occurred and assess what went wrong, what we did well and what needs attention, I was chatting with some colleagues about different personalities and how they behave in crisis mode.

I was reminded of the quotation from Maya Angelou, which I now understand to be a sort of litmus test for personality types. “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

Amid a relatively few blamers and panicky folks, I’m happy to have observed that most people just shrugged their shoulders, rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Yes, things were tense and tough for a few days, but most people coped well and worked collaboratively. However, in and amongst these productive and positive sorts was one or two who spun madly, spouting whatever bits of information or misinformation they had to hand, whipping folks up into frenzy. Why? What is served by that? And how on earth could this possibly help?

Calmness in the face of a crisis is an acquired skill, I think. We all want life to chug along well. When things go wrong, it’s stressful. But the fire, aim, ready kind of response does nothing to move one closer to a resolution. It is counterproductive and gets in the way of fixing a problem. I do understand the motivation at play here and just in general when one overreacts. It’s worry. Worry about one’s position. Worry about fallout. Worry about cost. Worry about how others will cope. Sometimes selfish and admittedly often not so selfish, but worry nonetheless. Worry is one of those utterly useless emotions we all feel from time to time. But as ineffective and worthless as it is, even minor worry can often morph into something quite destructive.

Thinking again of Maya Angelou’s observation, do worry and stress help in her scenarios? Doesn’t a rainy day smell sweet and sound wonderful? Is getting wet such a bad thing? Is lost luggage of any kind really the end of the world? Couldn’t we make due without these items? Does panic or aggression help the baggage to appear? Would patience not sort out the Christmas tree lights? Do we need lights?

I am by no means a calm person. I have my stress monkey days and can spin with the best of them. But here, in this situation, I’ve been afforded a certain perspective and example on how much easier it is to take things one step at a time. No panicked whirling dervish. Rather, a determined, patient and relatively composed approach. It’s so much easier this way. And perhaps, the spinning should be left to the dance floor.

You spin me right round, baby right round like a record, baby right round round round...