In over your head?

What do you do when you get in over your head or things don’t go as planned? Chances are you will find yourself in a tough spot if you are working towards goals, trying new things, or pushing your comfort ones. And you should be doing these things!
Recently, we were out as a family running errands after a fun afternoon at Frontier City, our local amusement park. We decided to stop in for dinner at Burger King. Our thoughts were for a quick dinner and onto finishing our last errand before heading home. Quick did not happen. It took 32 minutes to get our food (I checked the receipt for a timestamp about half-way through) and we saw a flurry of activity and stress in the kitchen during the wait. I didn’t get the full details, but the manager on duty was new and stuck with 3 brand new employees. It appeared only 1 employee had much experience or training at all.
The restaurant staff was in over their heads! The drive though was backing up, 2 families were waiting for food in the lobby and the line cooks had apparently done something bad enough to warrant all the current meat to be thrown out. The manager handled the situation very well, considering the circumstances. She come to apologize, gave us a refund and proceeded to make us hot and good food. She closed the store to new customers (which made it awkward as we sat inside eating) and began to reset the employees to accomplish their tasks. She put a sign on the door, “Closed for training,” and locked it. (allowing us and the other family to leave when we were ready, of course). Directing the employees to clean up, she got ready to show “Burger U” videos (I assume that’s their training curriculum) and work with the new employees.
We told her “thank you” for our food and that she handled the situation very well. She smiled and apologized again for making our “hungry boys” wait. As we left, you could see an ounce of relief on her face.
Sometime circumstances put us in a place we don’t want to be or we end up over our heads for what we know. You can handle these times gracefully or add to the harm by your reactions. The Burger King manager did a great job an probably saved her store a lot of trouble. What can you do when things get out of control?
Here are 3 easy to remember steps for keeping your head together in tough times:

1. Slow down and don’t panic. Even in life or death situations, which rarely happen for most of us, slowing down and thinking clearly will result in better outcomes. Panic will breed more panic and there needs to be someone who is calm and collected. Be that person, even if it is just yourself in the situation.
2. Do what you know. Go back to the basics. I saw multiple high stress and intense situations when I worked in emergency medicine. The thing that always prevailed was my training and willingness to trust what I knew. If you’ve practiced and know the basics then you can get through a lot of tough situations. At Burger Kind, this meant ensuring a clean store and going back to the training videos.
3. Be honest and upfront. Don’t try to hide or divert the situation. Tell your family, friends, customers or coworkers the truth. Unless you are being grossly negligent, people will appreciate the honesty and understand the situation. It is difficult to properly address and fix problems if you are spending time trying to hide the problem. Let the problem be the problem, acknowledge it and try to fix it. Tell people your plan to get over the struggle and how you will maintain what they need.

Doing these 3 things will let you approach any tough situation with a confidence to overcome the struggles of being caught off guard and in over your head. Do you have a great story about resolving unplanned hiccups in your life or business? Leave a comment below and let us share in the experience and what you learned.