Tunnel Vision
A few weeks ago I blogged about my trip to Majorca, and my epic ride out to Cap Formentor. There was something else that happened on that day, which was profoundly unsettling.
The road to Cap Formentor is not really fit for anything other than bikes. Car drivers take the run out to the lighthouse to enjoy the view, but considering the hassle of parking at the top, its not really worth it. On that road, about 3/4 of the way is a tunnel carved through the rock. This was a glorious Mediterranean day, so I hadn’t packed any lights. Now on the way out, its not too big a problem. Its uphill, so you just aim at the bright bit and tap it out at maybe 15 km/h. Coming back, its a rather different story.
You approach the tunnel downhill, at a much higher speed - maybe 35 to 45 km/h. The entry is fine, and the principle the same - riding towards the light. But then, the rather awful reality dawns on you…
The first thing is, you’ve come from bright sunlight, and of course you are wearing sunglasses. Your eyes simply cannot cope with that level of contrast change, and things get a lot, lot darker. You take your sunglasses off, but its still no better. You can’t see the road you are riding on, nor can you see the walls, or the top of the tunnel. All there is is this little patch of brightness. You stab at the brakes, peeling off speed, but without the three dimensional references around you, panic sets in. Its like riding a bike in space!All the time you are hoping there is nobody else in there in a similar predicament to yourself, because if you meet, its going to hurt! All you can do is focus on the light, and hope that will be enough.
Thankfully, I made it through, but it shook me. It was of course, a really powerful demonstration of the dangers of tunnel vision. We’ve all done it. I’ve spent quite a bit of time as an armed police officer, and in training scenarios, especially where they are recorded and played back, it was sobering how much of the periphery you can miss, all down to the fact you are concentrating on the bad guy with the weapon. In his narrative on United Airlines Flight 173 in 1978, Matthew Syed* relates how a crew focussed so heavily on one potential problem, ended up running out of fuel because they were no longer scanning the rest of the systems needed to keep the plane in the air. And it doesn’t just happen at an operational level either. Sydney Finkelstein** wrote extensively about some really big corporations that failed because their executives were overly focussed on a strategy that could easily have been seen to be flawed, if only they had lifted their heads and attuned to the freely available external reference points that would have told them they were on the wrong heading.
As individuals, we have complete control. I could have (should have) stopped the bike, tucked into the side and walked the rest of the tunnel. We have the power to stop or slow down, look around us and interpret the signs that will either confirm or deny we are on the right path. For an organisation, that can be more difficult. But as General Patton was attributed as saying; “If everyone is thinking alike - then somebody isn’t thinking!”
Are you clear on your own path? Are you clear on the path of your organisation? In both cases, is it the right one? Take time to look around, take counsel, and continually evaluate the journey. It might save you from falling off in a dark tunnel.
Derek Flint Cert.Ed, MCIPR
* Syed, M. (2016). Black box thinking. London: John Murray
**Finkelstein, S. (2014). Why smart executives fail. New York: Portfolio.