Moving at the Speed of Light!

The world moves faster and faster everyday. Technology has been the key to creating new efficiencies and eliminating many wastes in both time and money. It’s had a tremendous impact on productivity, touching almost every category and industry.

Each day we have more and more data on which to make decisions. Most of these decisions aren’t critical or life threatening. But some are!

Acting on important data, making judgments and decisions about life changing issues isn’t easy. And, because technology gives us information faster, we have to be ready to make those judgments and decisions, FASTER. If you’re looking at a potential disaster, you’ve got to do your best to solve the situation quickly, avoiding a “train wreck”. It seems like there are more and more of these kinds of situations lately.

I was thinking back to the incredible actions by US Airways Captain Sullenberger a few weeks ago, who made the life-saving decision to land his aircraft in the Hudson. Flying can be very unforgiving. Things happen quickly and multiple dynamics and systems are required to keep a passenger aircraft safely in the air. I know this from personal experience as a pilot.

I hate to think what might have happened if someone less experienced had been in command that fateful day. Captain Sully’s tenure as a seasoned professional probably made the difference. Weighing all of the options and especially the considerable risk of a water landing, Captain Sullenberger appeared to have made the decision based on experience, understanding and judgment that were the by-product of a career of on-the-job training leading up to the heralding event. Captain Sullenberger’s intuition and perspective let him analyze the data making the right decision at “the speed of light”.

This is the kind of perspective and experience that we could use more of in our everyday life. We’ve got an economy that is spiralling downward. A health-care system that’s not providing adequate care and an energy policy that is frankly running out of energy! We need some people like Captain Sullenberger to assess these situations and make some critical decisions quickly to keep us from crashing and to help put us on the road to progress. Where are the Captain Sully clones in economics, health care and energy?

I know you’re out there. We need you! The world is moving so quickly. We don’t have time to waste.

How We Perceive The World

Half-empty or half-full? What’s your take on the world? You might think it doesn’t matter, that the world has too much momentum for you to make a difference.

At least one company recognizes that how we think about things can open up opportunities. Take a look at the recent commercial for Kaplan University:

Forward thinking, hopeful, using the technology of the present to shape the success of our future. Finding a new way in a jungle of worn-out ideas.

I hope more of those who influence our lives everyday, in government and private industry, will begin to look at the world “half-full” and not “half-empty”. Once we believe in the possible it changes everything.