When Chaos Strikes – Dealing With The Unexplained

I deduce a fair amount of what people are thinking from how I see them behave. Psychologically, it’s simple observation. Watch body language for any length of time and you can determine more of what you might see. I think it’s fascinating to watch and predict; sometimes I’ll be right and other times I’ll be quite surprised. It’s an imperfect but reasonable science. People’s intentions are normally telegraphed in what they do, and how they do it.

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For example, I encountered a light work truck just the other day on my way to work. The first thing I observed was it overtook me just after the corner we had both just turned. The interesting thing I noted straight away was the large sticker the work truck displayed on its tailgate: “Practice Safety Now,” it read. I was intrigued at this point, and continued to follow the work truck looking for further cues in driver behaviour that would align with either the safety message displayed or the unsafe overtaking behaviour I had just witnessed.

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I was captivated by what I continued to see. There was a mix of behaviours that indicated that the driver might have been aware that he was meant to drive safely, but he didn’t really know how to achieve this in totality. He was a young driver. He might have been in a hurry. At times he seemed in a hurry, and at other times over the twenty kilometre trip he didn’t. His behaviour was perplexing. It wasn’t consistent with one way or the other.

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Reflecting later, I determined that this young man could have been experiencing an onset of a form of mental chaos. A lack of patience and ability to sit with the “tension” of a situation will lead to various mental, emotional, and spiritual chaoses. In the same way, not knowing how to behave consistently in a given situation reveals chaos in the cognitive processes. A dissonance occurs. Sometimes it’s because we are asked to behave a certain way, perhaps for safety, and yet it is not explained why we are to behave this way – we just have to do it.

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I wonder if this was the case for this young man. Was he expected to drive safely yet hadn’t been correctly motivated (trained) in how to achieve it? I tend to think that in order to behave safely we need to understand “why” among other things. It also means knowing when and how to deal with chaos patiently. When the brain’s processes are confused we need to bring in a higher level of thinking: “neocortex” thinking. It’s in these regions we can rationalise many sources of conflicting information, but we invariably need time to analyse things properly; we need to delay processing. It doesn’t always work in the heat of the moment where many safety battles are fought mentally, and either won or lost for the cause of individual or group safety.

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This is where training comes in. The trouble is the training of today (i.e. traditional training) is a bit of a joke; there’s a 2-day course in something and then you wonder why the person hasn’t changed when they returned to work. We lose it almost straight away. Training someone to behave safely requires a journey with that person. They need to be mentored and it can take years.

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Motivating people to deal with the inevitable chaos that comes requires explanation in anticipation of it. When we anticipate things, particularly what we’d call the ‘abnormal’ things that bring on chaotic feelings, we can plan to respond in the appropriate way. It requires explanation. It’s “When this happens, do this” philosophy. Then it’s a matter of practise. Train in the knowledge, and then in the skill i.e. in the application of the knowledge in the situation.

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When people are trained properly, and they are supported by the right culture, they normally respond very well.

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© 2008, Steven John Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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