crisis management

Saturday mornings are hectic.A plethora of jobs tend to crop up & amidst getting sleepy reluctant kids ready for morning school and preparing to appease the Shani devata*, a mad rush ensues.

One such Saturday morning lead to an additional lesson learnt unknowingly. After managing to drop the kids to school on time we were speeding away to buy the puja **items , when at an unmanned traffic crossing we were forced to stop for a bunch of school children crossing over. A couple of them were undecided on our next action, they gauged that we may be tempted to disregard their safety and continue our flight instead of providing them a safe passage. Their reactions to this were very different - one was holding out a pacifying hand, signalling us to allow them to cross while the other, a short tempered one decided to bad mouth us and give us a few quelling looks .

So ... whats the lesson ....

inculcate good manners in kids ?

better traffic sense ?

better time management by us ? .......

None of the above !

This situation made me reflect on crisis management .

The way an ordinary person may react at work or anywhere to an impending crisis. The more settled and mature person will respond to a tense and threatening situation very calmly, in a well thought out manner. The response to any problem will be planned and moulded to give a certain direction to the crisis and its perpetrators.

Conversely, an immature individual will resort to an unplanned, aggressive uncalled for tirade against the situation as well as the person whom he thinks is the perpetrator.

And what of the perpetrators ? Our reaction , as the ones who had brought on the crisis at hand was to follow the mature child's gestures - to stop and wait for them to cross over , whereas the other aggressive child had a close miss from our resultant reaction - to teach him a manner or two with appropriate chastisement.

The lesson hence learnt by us was how to react against any perceived or impending catastrophe - if we deal with life's problems in a calm and well thought out manner ,to channelise proper resources appropriately, anything can be solved , and if the reactions are immature , it leads to further complications thus disrupting our life.

* a Hindu deity

** prayer