Lifeboat: Navigating Unexpected Career Change and Disruption
Maggie Craddock
New World Library (August 2020)

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”  Henry Ford

Maggie Craddock selected an historical event — the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic — from which valuable lessons can be learned about how to be much better prepared for unexpected developments. She helps her readers to develop a mindset that will enable them to complete what she characterizes as a “Lifeboat shift”: from confusion to resolution.

It is a three-part transition from thinking you can’t (or at least doubting it) to believing you can, and then making a best effort to doing it, whatever “it” may be. When the lifeboats separated from the sinking Titanic, some of those among the passengers and crew provided the leadership needed; others were in shock; and a few fell apart emotionally. Some were obviously much better prepared than were others to control their emotions and think clearly, to recognize what needed to be done, and the best way to do it. They were able to abandon assumptions about the Titanic (e.g. that it was “unsinkable”) when they abandoned the ship. Ford’s observation helps to explain different behaviors after the collision with an immense iceberg.

Craddock devotes a separate chapter to each of eight “Lifeboat Questions” that, with only minor revision, could also be asked in other situations such as during the Santa Maria’s voyage to the New World (1492), Endurance‘s voyage to Antarctica (1914-1917) and Apollo 13‘s flight to the Moon (1970).

Crises can occur unexpectedly almost anywhere. Without knowing what/when/where, we can still anticipate them by posing these “Lifeboat Questions.”

1. Is this ship safe?
2. What do I do if I sense trouble?
3. When is it time to get in a lifeboat [or equivalent]?
4. What if I freeze in a crisis?
5. How do I find inner strength under pressure?
6. Who can I trust in a crisis?
7. How do we survive together?
8. What will be my story?

Presumably these are the kinds of questions that leaders such as Edward Smith, Columbus, Shackleton, and Lovell as well as their crew mates — and in the cases of Smith, passengers also — must have asked during their shared ordeal.

As Craddock explains, completing the Lifeboat Shift “requires several things, the first of which is trusting our own eyes, ears, and intuition. Life’s moist impirtant decisions often require more than logic. Where to work, how to invest our retirement savings, who to marry. We can’t know the outcome of our decisions when we make them, and we can’t know all the risks and obstacles we’ll face. Indeed, many problems are like icebergs. At first, issues may seem small and insignificant — we see only the tiny tip — and we must guess how big and dangerous they really are or might become and how urgently we need to move to avoid them. When deciding what to do, we must tap into our intuition and sometimes even take a leap of faith.” (Page 53)

When a crisis involves others, the challenges are even more complicated and the potential consequences of decisions even more daunting. In a crisis, people tend to reveal their real character and core values, for better or worse. Those in some of the Titanic‘s lifeboats demonstrated selfless teamwork; others did not.

What Craddock characterizes as the “Lifeboat Process” is accessible to almost anyone — on land, at sea, or in the air — and is best viewed as a means by which to strengthen and enrich one’s personal growth and professional development. More specifically, at least to some extent, preparing for any sudden and substantial, unexpected development — without knowing what it be — relies upon the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  “If A happens, I must be ready to do 1, 2, and perhaps 3.” That’s really what contingency planning is all about.

Margaret (“the unsinkable Molly”) Brown offers an excellent case in point. She is as surprised as anyone when the Titanic began to sink. However, she was ready to do whatever was necessary to save as many people as possible. Later, once in Lifeboat #6, she did everything she could to help stabilize the situation. She had what I would call “boat smarts.” Her grit proved unsinkable as did her common sense.

Thank you, Maggie Craddock, for a lively as well as informative discussion of how and why emotional agility can be so beneficial to individuals as well as to groups when under severe stress and amidst numbing ambiguity.

Bravo!

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