Sometimes you just need to step back and view the world through a different lens. I was reading over The Smith System for defensive driving and started thinking about how we can apply those proper seeing habits to the issues we face in our professional and personal lives just as easily as we can apply them to our physical world.
The first seeing habit
we develop is to 'Aim High in Steering'. As professional drivers we
know that by looking at least 15 seconds ahead we allow ourselves the
reaction time we need to adjust for the changes ahead. So I asked
myself how often do I look 15 years down the road at my own life and
the industry I work in? The answer was not often enough.
The second seeing habit
is to 'Get the Big Picture'. As professional drivers we depend on our
peripheral vision to detect movement which we then investigate with
our central vision and react to appropriately. There are hundreds of
issues we face everyday effecting the path our lives may take and I
had to ask myself if I was was getting the big picture here? Am I
just letting current events carry me along without even noticing
their effect on my daily life?
The third seeing habit
is to 'Keep Your Eyes Moving'. If we develop a fixed stare while
driving it is sure to get us into trouble. We need to keep scanning
and picking up on all that movement fed to us by our peripheral
vision. Do we do the same thing in our personal and professional
lives? Think of the fixed stare we have developed around issues such
as hours of service, electronic on board recorders, and speed
limiters.
I started making these
comparisons because I had just watched Sebastian Thrun's 'Ted Talk'
on Google's driverless car. It's a short video, just go to You Tube
and search Sebastian Thrun. It's fascinating stuff and it put me on
to a lot of different reading material regarding technology,
transportation infrastructure, and where we may be headed over the
next couple of decades.
So you may be thinking,
come on Al, you don't honestly believe that trucks will be moving
freight down the road without a driver behind the wheel do you? Call
me crazy, but yes, that's exactly what I'm proposing. It's not going
to happen for some time but we already see signs of automation moving
in that direction. Anti-rollover technology and advances in braking
systems are one of the first steps, parking assist that allows a car
to park itself is becoming all the rage with auto manufacturers. The
agriculture industry has been rolling out automated sprayers and
combines that use GPS to map a field and then complete the job
without further input from the operator. Pretty cool stuff all of it.
The potential benefits are huge and that in itself will continue to
drive innovation and implementation of this type of technology. Watch
Thrun's video and apply some of his observations about this
technology to the trucking industry and you'll see what I mean. So
that brings me to the last two steps of the Smith System.
The fourth seeing habit
is 'Leave Yourself an Out'. Or, protect yourself from being trapped
by errors of other people. If you don't practice the first three
seeing habits diligently you will always find yourself boxed in,
putting you in a situation that leaves you dependent on the actions
and reactions of others.
The fifth seeing habit
is 'Make Sure They See You'. If the people around you are not
practicing those first three seeing habits you can wake them up by
making sure they know you are close by and aware of what is happening
around you. As drivers we do this by flashing lights, blowing the
horn, or making eye contact. In our daily lives we do the same thing
by networking, tweeting, facebooking, blogging, writing letters to
the editor, voting, lobbying, joining business groups, etc.
I can't help but think
that we have developed a fixed stare surrounding the hours of service
issue and it's close cousin the electronic on board recorder. These
issues are in our immediate field of vision, just a few feet in front
of us. That fixed stare is preventing us from seeing the issues
further down the road that require our attention now so that we have
time to react accordingly. We're not getting the big picture. We are
being reactive and not proactive. That is effecting our daily lives
in the present moment and we are feeling the anxiety.
These five simple
seeing habits are a great way to view the world we live in as well as
the road ahead.
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