David Lindstedt
Recently, I attended the Meta-Leadership Summit for Preparedness[1] in central Ohio. The Summit focused on the need to develop leaders who can operate both within and outside of their immediate realm of control in order to achieve results across multiple departments, areas, and agencies. In this way, and particularly before the onset of a crisis, leaders can improve the resilience capabilities of an entire community.
One of the concepts Dr. Marcus and Director Zeller emphasized during the Summit was the effect of a crisis on the brain. “When people are in a crisis – or in a severe, high consequence conflict – the attendant reactions commonly drive them to their emotional ‘basement,’ where fright sparks the ‘triple f,’ ‘flight-fight-freeze’ response.”[2] When a person is in this mental state, they are not thinking clearly. In fact, the amygdala portion of their brain is in temporary command, focusing all mental energy on primitive functions and reactions. At this point, high level thinking becomes nearly impossible.
While this is likely not surprising, it is important, because the solution to moving your thinking out of the basement as quickly as possible is to revert to productive habits. Moreover, it is the responsibility of a good crisis leader to move him/herself quickly out of the basement so that they can help move others out of their mental basement. As the authors summarize research from Zander & Zander:
It takes great stamina during high stress circumstances to lead people from their basement to the ‘tool box’ of effective routines and responses, functions of the idle level of the brain: the practiced procedures, protocols, or patterns of past experiences that trigger constructive activity and an aura of relative calm.[3]
The longer the amygdala remains in control, the less effective one is in responding to the crisis. In order to restore higher level thinking, so crucial in a crisis, people must not remain in the basement. To get their brains moving again, they must engage in productive habits. If they have no habits or experience upon which to draw, they will think of nothing to do.[4]
This, then, is why it is so important to have a response plan and to exercise it. The moments following a real crisis trigger the “flight-fight-freeze” response. Without habits upon which to fall back, people will not respond productively. They must be able to execute the first actions without thought – rather literally.
Director Zeller shared one story from his time as a submarine commander. The crew would dedicate great time and effort to drilling the steps to respond to the threat of flooding. When a real situation forced them to respond, the crew did so flawlessly and mechanically, and then realized the magnitude of what had just happened as their high level thinking began to resume.
It is important for all of us involved in resilience to monitor and improve our own response time, and train others to do so as well.
Last week’s quiz question
What is the oldest building on the NU campus?
Answer: Dewey Hall, built in 1902.
Winner: Scott Madden
This week’s quiz question
What is Cadet Tracey L. Jones’ claim to fame at Norwich University?
Current competition standings:
Andrey N. Chernyaev: 4 wins Matt Bambrick: 3 wins |
Dianne Tarpy: 2 wins |
Sam Moore |
Autumn Crossett |
Gil Varney, Jr. |
Glen Calvo |
Thomas Reardon |
Sherryl Fraser |
Srinivas Chandrasekar |
Marc Ariano |
Linda Rosa |
Joanna D'Aquanni |
Bill Lampe |
Srinivas Bedre Christian Sandy Joseph Puchalski Scott Madden |
[1] Sponsored by the CDC Foundation, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health.
[2] “The Five Dimensions of Meta-Leadership,” Leonard J. Marcus, Isaac Ashkenazi, Bary Dorn, and Joseph Henderson, National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health, November, 2007, p. 7.
[3] Ibid p. 8.
[4] This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion of choking versus panicking in his book What the Dog Saw.
