Spatial Disorientation: When You Think You're Making the Right Decisions But May Be Hurting Your Company

Ear­li­er this year when I did some research for my new book — about what it takes for a com­pa­ny to con­tin­ue to grow, year on year, decade on decade — I inter­viewed Colonel Kim ​“KC” Camp­bell, a retired US Air Force offi­cer and com­mand pilot.

As we spoke about the sim­i­lar­i­ties of going from being a recre­ation­al pilot to a com­bat fight­er pilot and a CEO of a small com­pa­ny to run­ning a big com­pa­ny, she shared some insights from her expe­ri­ences, described in her book Fly­ing in the Face of Fear: A Fight­er Pilot’s Lessons on Lead­ing with Courage. It’s an inspir­ing, prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sion of lead­er­ship and deci­sion-mak­ing, with spe­cif­ic strate­gies and tech­niques for lead­ing in sit­u­a­tions of extreme stress and risk.

In her book, Colonel Camp­bell talks about an inci­dent when the hydraulics didn’t respond to any of her con­trol inputs, and her jet rolled, then head­ed straight towards the ground.

None of the pro­ce­dures she tried to fix the prob­lem worked, so she switched her con­trols to man­u­al rever­sion mode and used a sys­tem of cables and pul­leys (like how the Wright broth­ers flew their air­craft) to get out of dan­ger and land safely.

Dis­con­nect­ed from Reality

In our con­ver­sa­tion, what real­ly got my atten­tion was how pilots are affect­ed by spa­tial disorientation.

Spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion. The inabil­i­ty of a per­son to deter­mine his true body posi­tion, motion, and alti­tude rel­a­tive to the earth or his sur­round­ings. Both air­plane pilots and under­wa­ter divers encounter the phenomenon.

‑Bri​tan​i​ca​.com

It’s a dis­con­nect between what you feel is hap­pen­ing and what is actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. You believe you are doing the right thing but absolute­ly are not. Spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion – which can hap­pen to even the most expe­ri­enced pilots – can be the cause of avi­a­tion inci­dents when pilots think some­thing is wrong and don’t even trust their instruments.

Colonel Camp­bell once need­ed the help of her flight com­man­der to re-ori­ent her­self after expe­ri­enc­ing spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion dur­ing midair refu­el­ing. With­out the help of her team, the sit­u­a­tion could have esca­lat­ed to dan­ger­ous levels.

After lis­ten­ing to her, I real­ized that this dis­ori­en­ta­tion can also hap­pen to CEOs and exec­u­tives in high-stake or high-pres­sure sit­u­a­tions when we think we’re mak­ing the right deci­sions but may actu­al­ly make deci­sions dev­as­tat­ing for the business.

Get Back to the Basics

And this is why it’s impor­tant to zoom out and spend an appro­pri­ate amount of time on big and crit­i­cal deci­sions and why CEOs need – just like a pilot who relies on their instru­ments and con­trol cen­tre – to work with their teams to cal­i­brate or recal­i­brate their strategy.

Think about what gives you a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, with key peo­ple who bring dif­fer­ent insights and per­spec­tives, informed by great data, to give you a pic­ture of the true, cur­rent reality.

It’s the only way to get out of the tail­spin and safe­ly back to your flight plan.

The Chal­lenge

• When are you most like­ly to expe­ri­ence spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion – now or in the future?
• What strate­gies can you put in place to recal­i­brate with your strat­e­gy, with key peo­ple or with data?

Addi­tion­al Blogs

• Man­ag­ing Your Men­tal Health in Tur­bu­lent Times
• Coura­geous Leadership
• Learn to Love the Lessons

Old Pod­casts

• Sev­en Actions for Chal­leng­ing Eco­nom­ic Times
• Find­ing the Best Advi­sors Help You to Quadru­ple Your IQ