Company Blog
How do you handle an emergency?
by Adam Zack — September 14, 2022
“I gotta piss!”
Last week I was in Alaska. We were in a smallish raft with a group of other tourists, navigating our way down the Mendenhall River. The beauty of surrounding forest – millions and millions of trees, snow covered mountains, bald eagles nesting – put me in awe of just how beautiful nature is. We were sitting in the very front of the raft, past through some very tepid rapids, when suddenly from behind us this older man exclaims “I gotta piss!”. The guide, who was paddling and steering the raft, looked a little perplexed and told them man that we would be in our destination in about 20 minutes, and could he possibly “hold it”. After all, there are no rest stops or porta-pottys along the river, and besides that, there was no clear beach where we could just row in, let the man disembark and go into the forest to soil some unlucky tree. We continued on, and about 10 minutes later, the man says again “I gotta piss!”. I was thankful that we were in the front of the raft, in case he couldn’t hold it and piss started flowing down the bottom of the raft onto people’s shoes. Luckily, (I think – I didn’t look close) he held on until we landed on shore. It got me thinking about how great leaders handle emergencies, which in the grocery business seem to happen at least weekly. Refrigeration systems down, air conditioning broken, shoplifters, employee revolts, product shortages, new competition and so many more. The great leaders plan what to do in case of an emergency. They have plans and systems in place. They stay calm and therefore keep their teams calm. It’s as if when the piss is coming, the Depends are already on.
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