The Water Bottle Moment

Hi there, I'm Ben Morton and welcome to another episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. It's the weekly micro edition of my podcast. Each episode is just six minutes long and is designed to provide you with tips, tools and tactics around specific aspects of leadership and management. It addresses some of the most common challenges you will face as a leader or manager. They are all recorded unscripted whilst I'm out walking in the countryside. So you'll probably hear birds tweeting in the background or just ambient noise as the people around me are going about their day to day life. That's all I'm going to say by way of an introduction. So let's dive straight in to this week's episode. If you've ever found yourself overwhelmed by.

The apparent need to make an instant, quick decision, especially when there are a sea of faces all staring back at you, perhaps in a team meeting or even in a board meeting, then today's episode of the Leaders Kit Bag is for you. The first thing to understand here is that in our fast paced world that seems to thrive on instant gratification, it can be easy to believe that every decision needs to be an instant one. And this simply isn't the case. The reality is that fast decisions are rarely effective and our job as leaders is to make effective decisions. Daniel Kahneman talks about this in his brilliant book, Thinking Fast and Slow. In that book he talks about System one and System two thinking. System one thinking is instinctive, it's quick, it's based on gut feel, it's based on our experience and it's often quite emotional. What this means in practice is System one thinking can be prone to unconscious bias and false pattern recognition. System 2 thinking, on the other hand, is deliberate, it's slower and it's logical. Now, as leaders, we need to be able to employ both systems. There are times when we need to make instant decisions and, and times when we can take our time. The reality is, again though, the opportunity to make slower decisions is much more accessible to us, much more available than we perhaps think. Certainly in the world of business, there are very few decisions that do actually require that instant decision. I was very fortunate to have learned this early in my career. Not long after I graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where I completed my army officer training in leadership and learned my fundamental skills. I went on to complete the Infantry Platoon Commanders Battle Course and it was there that I learned this really powerful lesson. My instructor and an exchange officer from the Australian Parachute Regiment said to us one day, and I remember it really clearly, Gentlemen, because at the time it was only men that were in the infantry. Gentlemen, when the day comes that there are bullets hitting the ground around you, the first thing you need to do, obviously, is take cover. Once you've done that, the very next thing I want you to do is to take out the water bottle from the pouch on your hip, undo the lid, drink half of the contents, that's half a litre of water, do up the lid, put the bottle back in the pouch on your hip, do up the clip. And then, and only then, I want you to make a plan. What he was teaching us to do was absolutely nothing about staying hydrated. He was giving us an anchor to use as a pause to slow down our thinking, to compose ourselves, to allow ourselves to drop into Daniel Kahneman's system. Two thinking slower, more deliberate, more logical, as opposed to being driven by the emotional side of our brain, where we are making decisions based on fear or adrenaline. And my point, I share here with the utmost respect, is that if we're able to pause and slow down when we're making decisions in the military, when we're getting shot at, we should be able to pause and slow down when we're making business decisions. That's it for this episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. Except to say, if you're getting value from these videos, then I think very exciting coming later this year for you. It's called Ben in youn pocket. It's my AI clone that will give you instant access to my 20 plus years of knowledge, experience, expertise and teaching, all at the touch of a button or two. Imagine ChatGPT, but fully secure and based purely on my knowledge and expertise. That's Ben in your pocket. If you're interested, add your details via the link in the notes, wherever you happen to be watching or listening, and I'll make sure you are kept up to date. As one of the early adopters, that's it for this episode. As always, look after yourself, look after those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, lead on.