Reducing the Pressure
Over the last school holidays SJ, the kids and I went on a road trip to go camping, off the grid, at Red Bluff point on Quobba Station.
If you’ve not been there before, I highly recommend it.
It’s about 125km north of Carnarvon.
We’re highly experienced as a family at travelling long distances in a single day, so the 895km from Perth to Carnarvon was smooth sailing, so to speak.
The challenge was the last 50 km which is on quite rough unsealed roads.
We’ve not driven much on these types of roads before which made the final leg of our journey quite an uncomfortable, slow and stressful experience. The number of dashboard light alarms going off was a sight to see.
When finally we arrived, it felt as though we had been fully shaken up!!
And all of this stress and shaking came about from one single and simple oversight.
Not letting some air out of our tyres.
As it turns out, reducing your tyre pressure has a number of positive consequences:
1. The road feels smoother
2. You can travel faster
3. You reduce the wear and tear on your vehicle
4. You feel less stress and tension
5. You can actually enjoy the drive
As you can imagine the journey out was much more pleasant than the journey in.
Of course, the road on the way out wasn’t any different than on the way in, but our approach to it was very different.
If we hadn’t changed our approach and the pressure of our tyres I’m not so sure we’d be so keen to go back to Red Bluff, however beautiful and peaceful the destination.
Our recent driving experience got me thinking about some questions on life, leadership and performance that are well worth pondering.
Do you sometimes fall into the trap of unintentionally keeping the pressure on yourself and others, high believing it will lead to better more positive outcomes?
Do you believe consistent high pressure creates long-term sustainable outcomes?
Should we consider adjusting pressure to suit the conditions of the metaphorical road?
Is it about the destination, the journey or more about getting clear on how you/we want to experience both before we start?
How do you, as a leader, make sure your people enjoy their daily ride so that they look forward to coming back to the same place and doing it all over again?
