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If we’re learning to fly an aeroplane the one thing we need to do is keep our eyes on the horizon. Doing so tells us if we are flying straight and level and so not surprisingly one of the most important instruments on the control panel is the artificial horizon. This is handy if we fly into a cloud and are temporarily deprived of our view of the rest of the world.

I’ve noticed recently that when we are wrestling with organisational problems it’s tempting to focus on the immediate future. Our mind is already cluttered with our to do list, the next meeting we need to prepare for, the telephone call we really need to reply to and not forgetting the bleep bleep of another email plopping smugly into our inbox.

This overload can cause us to make quick decisions and feel great that we are being effective in our business by chomping through the work at a fast rate of knots.

However, if we imagine that our business is an aeroplane then we know we also need to keep an eye on the horizon, or we risk letting the nose of our flying business drop down …and zoom we are now gently heading ever closer to the ground. Now is the time to:

Pull up! Pull up!

…And to do this though we need to remain in awareness of our current situation, which can be difficult when we are working under a heavy stress load.

What this all amounts to in simple terms is taking the time to think through a problem by looking into the future and deciding where we really want to be. If we are hiring somebody, for example, it’s tempting to focus on what we need today, rather than what we really need next year. It might be that today we could employ a trainee, who will be cheaper to hire and open to our training plan, than always looking for someone who can do the whole job right now.

If we are thinking of renting an office, or upgrading equipment it’s too easy to fall in love with a smart suite of rooms, or the latest Wi-Fi techno printer and forget that our business is changing and won’t be the same shape in 2 years. We then end up with a printer with no resale value, or a 5-year lease that we can’t easily wriggle out of.

Whenever we are pondering a thorny problem it’s a good tip to get into our aeroplane and fly about for a bit and survey the landscape. Doing so always creates new options for us and broadens our thinking beyond what is currently on our desk.

We can ask ourselves:

What do we need now?

What will we need next year?

What could life be like in two years time?

All great questions to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the horizon. Have fun flying your aeroplane next time you’re stuck on a problem and can’t readily see a solution. If you’ve been chewing on it for at least 3 days then you’re probably stuck. Go flying!

Next week: Moments Of Truth

Transactional Analysis is often described as ‘a contracted psychotherapy’ and I’ve been learning about it and weaving it into my work for nearly 15 years. The core of TA, for me, is about clear contracting and one of the things I learned a few months ago was to add a ‘play or pass’ option when working with delegates. What this means is that when asking for feedback with a group of people they have the option to contribute or to stay silent, which is a healthy position to be in, instead of forcing people to speak up when they may be feeling vulnerable.

In this instance they are able to quit the conversation and keep themselves safe. Quitting is positive and because there is an overt permission in the room, nobody has to feel shamed at remaining silent.

However, we can carry that old phrase in our head: ‘You’ve made your bed, so now lay in it.’ As a result we can stay stuck, or carry on trying to rescue a broken situation, or refuse to entertain options to solve the problem.

I remember saying this phrase to a dear friend, many years ago when I was a bit stuck and she instantly replied; ‘Well if you don’t like the bed you made, then go and make a different bed.’

Astonishing! I never knew you could make a different bed and just forget about the first one! It was a good permission to have and really made me think about what I wanted to do. We can all make a new bed, we can all stop, make a change, go in a different direction, spend some money and make it happen!

We can quit. If and when we choose to.

There is dignity in quitting. Stopping can be the most important step we can take.

A good friend was booked on to a course to learn about management. She enjoyed the first few months and was looking forward to becoming a team leader. However, as the course unfolded, she started to realise that management wasn’t her preferred career vocation and this gave her a dilemma. She felt obliged to complete the course, because her employer had funded it, but she knew that to continue was also not being honest and was in effect wasting their time and giving them false expectations.

Wondering what to do she chatted to a friend one Saturday as they strolled into town for a late breakfast and, as she talked, her friend interrupted; ‘Just quit’.

My friend stopped dead in her tracks and realised that she had never thought of quitting until that moment, she had always tried to think of ways of making it work. ‘Just quit’ was an honest and caring permission, given to her by someone she trusted.

The next week she talked to her line manager and explained her situation. Her manager was sympathetic and said that the organisation didn’t want staff to be miserable, or to work towards a job that they really didn’t want to do, so she was welcome to leave the course. My friend had been deeply worried that she would get ‘told off’ for wasting their time, but her manager was pleased she had owned up to her problem before starting the role. The organisation was now free to do something differently and of course there are always other people who can be employed or promoted.

My friend quit the course. Then she quit her job. Then she quit her flat. She moved to a new part of town, took a part-time job that suited her and began to work towards her real ambition. She began to write her first novel.

Next week: Pull up! Pull up!