The Company sends a rep to an insurance talk every year. The insurance company, TAG, has been with The Company since its inception and from what I understand, it has been a really good relationship. Can't object to good relationships with insurance companies. Usually one of the founders go, but this year they sent my roommate, and myself.
Insurance sponsored events, in the States, are often a crap shoot. Go to enough of these and you realize they all follow the same script. A little about the company, insurance products you probably already have and then what insurance products are new and you should highly consider getting. Then there's a half-hearted transition to the "main event" or featured speaker.
I wasn't that familiar with TAG, and vaguely knew it was an insurance company. This is Canada, however, so "insurance" has a different meaning, and a different set of conventions, than it does in the States. The pitch was quite different, too. Granted the majority of people in attendance were current clients, which struck me as all the more reason to pitch new insurance products, play up on the nagging sense that something can always happen. There was a little bit of that, but not much. It was more of an appreciative presentation, and a reminder of what they offer for a variety of businesses. Rather odd, yet refreshing. Insurance offerings in Canada are a bit different than in the States, and the pitch is incredibly soft. I caught myself thinking this is more the like the presentation an insurance rep gives at new employee orientation. How curious.
Time for the featured speaker: John Herdman.
He coached the Canadian women's Olympic soccer bronze medal team. My American mentality of sports hijacked my curiosity before he started talking. I expected a very sports-centric, rah-rah presentation. I half listened as he talked about taking a big risk, moving to Australia to coach, returning to the roots instead of remaining high in the big corporate soccer tower. Expanding your comfort zone.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Been there. Done that. Last year's story.
Then he said two phrases that completely caught my attention, and have been pondering every since: "Dead Line" and "Dead Behaviors."
He employs a stats guy who sits on the bench, entering data relayed from the box upstairs as the game progresses. A fair amount of analysis presented what he calls a "Dead Line," or the point at which players start to give up, sending things down hill and precipitating what he calls "Dead Behaviors," or actions that result, in the soccer world, in losing games. He used examples of one player starting fights with other players, or yelling at the refs. Another player starts pointing fingers at others. From his description of reviewing film and the data points, the actions cascade throughout the team. Another player loses focus and stops following the ball. The goalie just kicks the ball down field without any intention or direction.
I found myself thinking of my current job, all the companies I've worked for, the jobs I've done as a freelancer and random bits of my own life. Dead Behaviors appeared. Some were easy to trace back to a Dead Line, especially in jobs, and find that point where things went south and no action was taken. Others, mostly from my own life, will require a little more reflection.
The other part that sticks out is what Herdman referred to as "Red Head" and "Blue Head."
Red Head is much like what it sounds: overheating. He had an acronym for it that I can't recall now. The gist is that, when you're in "Red Head" mode, you're overwhelmed, stressed and on the Dead Line. Those Dead Behaviors start to manifest, the negative, critical loop in your head gets very loud and, well, things just go to shit. As a leader, you don't want to be there, and you definitely don't want your team or your employees to be there. You want to move everyone back to "Blue Head," or ICE. That acronym I remember, just not its meaning.
Blue Head is cool, calm and collected. You're focused, moving forward towards a goal and being productive. The negative, critical loop is silent and you move above the Dead Line, causing Dead Behaviors to dissipate.
It was quite fascinating.
I've also been doing a lot of reading up on psychology, specifically an area called narrative psychology. I've found this to be a very Canadian thing, though it's origin is actually Australian. A good demonstration of the constraints health insurance companies place on any form of treatment in the States, which I'm finding is also unique to the States. Not surprising, then, that all talk of "mental health" around shootings and the #BostonMarathon follows conventions, and no one is stepping back to find a different view.
Anyway.
The "Red Head" and "Blue Head" part of the presentation got me thinking of how to identify triggers, which is an aspect of narrative therapy done through what is called re-storying. It creates a change in behavior, which is how you move above the Dead Line and away from Dead Behaviors.