Staying Cool under Pressure

The title could my attention... Staying cool under pressure???? Oh yes, it's something that we often forget... or it simply goes unnoticed! We often do not notice the building up of pressure (the process), it's just like the pressure cooker, until it reaches the limit, it exploded (if we could not find the outlet of pressure)!!!

Here, in the article (under Recruit, 28 Sep 2007), it relates a story: There lived a man called Ticky. One day, he wandered into a Blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith just pulled a horseshoe out of the fire. Unsuspectedly, he reached out to the horseshoe! Of course, we know what happened next.

The article used this analogy to bring in what Peter F Drucker said, "a crisis must never be experienced for the 2nd time"

The article suggested that if one feels that the temperature in the organisation rises, one should stop and make a 3-point assessment of the situation:

1. Is the friction caused by pressure from outside sources (eg. customers)?
2. Is the friction coming from inside sources (eg. employee demands, unreasonable imperatives from senior executives)?
3. Any personal issues invading the work place, brought in by one or more individuals up and down the organisational ladder, including yourself?

The advice is:
"Whatever difficulties are causing the organisation to heat up, you will be the one to cool the situation by, first, identifying how similar challenges were successfully negotiated in the past and second, refusing to pick up the hot horseshoe a second time."