Sit CHILLY!

It’s a great time to learn how to “Sit Chilly”, if you don’t know how to already. “Sit Chilly”, as I am referring to it, is a term coined by a legendary and very remarkable horsewoman, Sue Sally Hale. Sue Sally had a mantra that she taught her polo, dressage and jumping students: “Sit Chilly.” If the rider sits fidgety or spooky, the thousand-pound horse knows instantly. At that point, anything can happen. So…Sue Sally always taught, “Sit Chilly.” She meant stay cool, keep focused, and banish all fear and trepidation. Put another way:

“Don’t squirm in the saddle. Don’t squeeze your knees. Don’t lean right, left or forward. Stay balanced. Leap to no dire conclusions. Don’t decide at three in the morning that your life is worthless or that this journey that you have launched yourself upon is wrong, crazy, and doomed to destruction.”

– Steven Pressfield

I think everyone would agree that now are good times to “Sit Chilly”! Once we can Sit Chilly, we can usefully and constructively think about our current situation, and what might be the most useful ways to proceed.

Please consider the following five “Process Perspectives”…

Perspective #1: No Permission Required!

All the old rules are out the window. No committees are needed. Let the “spectators” watch and nitpick. Move ahead boldly, and make significant enough changes that the results will be interesting and useful.

Perspective #2: Use the Lewin Equation for “Free Force”

Write down two lists: #1 - Driving (beneficial) Forces, #2 - Resisting (unhelpful) Forces. Try to eliminate as many of the Resisting Forces as possible.

Perspective #3: Diversify with the “Barbell Approach”

This “barbell” has conservative “sure fire” projects on one end and aggressive “significant move forward” projects on the other end. Try to diversify your projects by using both end of the barbell. The intent of this approach is to guarantee some movement forward while leaving upside for dramatic improvements.

Perspective #4: Use the SWOT framework to identify opportunities.

**S = Strengths; W = Weaknesses; O = Opportunities; T = Threats** Strengths (+) and Weaknesses (-) are internal. Opportunities (+) and Threats (-) are external. Develop a SWOT matrix for your manufacturing processes, and define possible actions items resulting from your SWOT analysis.

Perspective #5: “Day One” Mentality

Day One mentality refers to the Intel founders. They wanted to think freshly about their critical situation. They used a “Day One” approach, where they mentally “fire themselves” and ask a “completely new” team what they would do. This “what if” exercise gives the latitude to start with a clean slate. Dramatic breakthroughs are possible with this approach.

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My main learning from this is that there are reliable frameworks to move forward consistently and reliably, despite all the chaos and confusion.

A grateful acknowledgement: Steven Pressfield introduced me to the concept of “Sitting Chilly” in his fantastic book, “Turning Pro”. Excerpts from the following URL by Stephen Pressfield have been used in this newsletter…https://stevenpressfield.com/2011/03/sit-chilly/.

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CHALLENGE TO READERS

You and your organization will either be ahead or behind the “new curve” when the dust settles. Stasis is highly unlikely in these dynamic conditions…

• Are you/your leadership team able to “Sit Chilly”, remain calm, and quickly pivot to the new realities? Have you communicated these new realities to both internal and external shareholders?

• Do any of the five Process Perspectives discussed above seem useful to you? Spend 60 minutes investigating the most promising one. Develop specific action items that can be acted on if desired.

Let’s build these new realities together. MPES Consulting will assist these building efforts in any way possible. Please reach out to us; we are here if you need us. If you email us or call/text us at 508-410-8081, we will get back to you within 90 minutes. Thanks!

All the Best,

Marty

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