How Does Drew Brees Do That?

September 24, 2010

Decision making…it’s one of the things that I heard a lot about while watching football last Sunday.  An NFL quarterback needs to make an enormous number of decisions in an incredibly short period of time before  a ridiculously large human being with fire in his eyes and bad intentions running at nearly world class speed hits him with the force of a wrecking ball.  THAT is working under duress!  In our lives we may not have 6’4”, 250 lb people trying to drive us to the ground during the course of our workday, but we are all under some form of stress.

One of the things I have heard in conversations with employees recently is that they have made financial decisions that they later regret because of stress.  Payday loans, short sales of their residence, quitting a job at age 55 with little hope of finding another in order to receive the lump sum pension payment to pay off credit card debt…these are a few of the things that people have told me they have done because they were under duress (financial, medical, or family situations) and couldn’t think clearly.   Unfortunately, all of the decisions in this post are real and were made prior to my conversation with the person who made the decision.  During my sessions with them, we talked about how to move forward from this point, overcome these decisions, and how not to get in that position again.  In the heat of the moment, a “bad decision” (the employees’ words, not mine) was made that had negative long term effects.  Understanding that decisions made while in the midst of a crisis may not always be the best decisions is the beginning of a solution.  The tough part is finding a way to spot the immediate crisis (the stressor), realize that it will impair judgment, and analyze the situation in a more rational, reasoned way.  In the NFL, games are often won and lost based on 1 play and the decision making ability in the heat of the moment of the players involved.

Life isn’t like football (at least that’s what my kids have tried to tell me, although they ARE just kids and don’t always see the whole picture, right?), but the same concepts apply.  Sometimes we aren’t capable of calmly analyzing a situation and finding solutions on our own and we need a friend, a colleague or a counselor to help us.  Drew Brees has 10 other players on his team to help him.  Who helps you?