Priming for effective decision making
How do pilots practice dealing with difficult situations? They don’t need to master emergency landing on water by actually performing the task. No, they do that in a simulator.
The pilot simulator offers safe environment, with the pressure to make the right decisions. In this environment, pilots can practice scenarios they want to master, for example, dealing with fires in flight, loss of engines, and landing under difficult conditions or limited visibility. In the simulator Pilots can try different decision while performing their tasks and get constructive feedback from the simulator's responses and the coach.
In the simulator, pilots can afford to make mistakes and learn without the real life consequences. All this time, their performance is monitored by the coach who ensures the correct balance between safe environment, pressure to perform well, the scenarios practiced, and the capabilities of the pilot.
In the simulator, pilots develop their own style of decision making in flight, understand their strength and limitations, and set their own ‘Personal minimums’ not to be crossed.
Leadership and effective decision making simulation
The simulations we run for leadership and effective decision-making are team based. Like pilot simulators, only one person at a time is in the hot seat. When you are in the hot seat, you get a scenario of a conflict, which you must deal with. The scenarios are derived from known stories, business cases, and social interaction. Moreover, in the hot seat can propose your own scenario.
It is not like brainstorming, role-playing session, nor an interview. in the hot seat, you are on your own to exercise mental rehearsal of your values. Your team is there to create the safe environment. With the team you can deal with the conflict however way you wish, no right or wrong way. You can try your ideas; say whatever you want, without any repercussion of a real life conflict.
The team will also create the real life pressure. They would respond with unrelenting feedback, opposition, and what-ifs without trying to be soft or save face. They would attempt to catch any holes, inaccuracies, and weaknesses in your arguments. Through your team response, you will learn how others might judge your proposed actions and you would have to decide how to respond to the feedback, counter their points, adjust your position, restate your ideas, and move to the next round.
This pressure may seem as a clash between you and the team, but the interactions are not for win or lose. The process is a thinking exercises to allow you to flex the brain muscles in search for the best option for you. It helps you shape your intuitive reaction to complex situations under pressure. There are no judgements there. You are the final judge of your performance.
Like in the pilot simulation, the coach has a very important role. The coach ensures the proper balance between safety, pressure, the scenarios reality, and the abilities of the hot seat person. The coach creates the right atmosphere through meditative moments and group dynamic exercises.
At the hot seat, you get to develop your own ‘personal minimums’. That is, better understand your personal, unique thinking style, perceptions, and tendencies and learn to frame complexities, deal with uncertainty, and use intuition to form unique creative options.
Real life benefits
Athletes knows that practice is different the real game, they also understand the value of practice to their performance is the real game. The fact that you have practiced dealing with difficult situation on your own, learned to refer to our values to find solutions, experienced ‘what-ifs’ thinking under pressure, will enhance your performance in real life.