What I Learned From -- My First Crisis

This week the blog is going to deal with valuable first lessons I had and how important they are to growing a business as a leader. During one college summer I worked in a U.S Steel mill in Pittsburgh. I was the second shift supervisor managing guys who had spent at least some portion of their adult life behind bars. I had never been in a position of management before and this was a rough crowd! My area of responsibility was simple enough.

Large dump trucks would bring out the glowing slag (waste) from the blast furnaces where the molten steel was made and dump this slag in to mountainous piles for us to cool with high pressure hoses drawing water directly from the river. The first shift in this process was to sort the waste into reusable pieces.

My shift, the second shift, was to clean the equipment, the conveyor belts and the huge sorting bins for the next day’s usage, as well as to move the water hoses on the piles as necessary.

One evening a glowing loaded dump truck was backing up the pile to dump his load and the truck wasn’t level. When the bed lifted, it causing the truck to tip over and crash on its side. The glowing pile half emptied out the side of the bed, the driver climbed out and came running down the steam mountain that wasn’t completely cool and I went into a panic.

My crew watched what had happened and hardily laughed at the driver running, his shoes smoking from the heat of the pile he was descending. Then they looked at me. One old boy said to me,"“Well college boy, now whatcha gonna do?"

I ran to the foreman's office as fast as I could and called my boss catching him just before he went to bed. I had to repeat three times what I was trying to tell him because I was talking so fast. Finally, he understood me and he also started to laugh.

He told me, "Get a grip boy, you gonna have a heart attack. This isn't the first time a driver tipped his load." Call Lucas (the crane operator) and tell him to come in so he can right the truck and clean out the last of the load that's in the truck. Notify pitside (where the trucks were getting their glowing waste from the furnaces) and tell them they have a truck tipped and to hold off until Lucas gets there. You got it?" Umm yea. He continued, "I'm off to bed. I'm sure you can handle anything else that might come up. See you tomorrow afternoon." But, but, but.

By 7 the next morning Lucas had cleaned out the truck bed, the truck had been towed off for repairs and all had returned to normal on the glowing piles of slag operation. Just another day in the mill.

The lesson I learned: Most everything has happened before (even if it's the first time you've seen it) and as long as you keep cool, the situation can be dealt with and managed in a calm manner. My mind was convinced it was a disaster of epic proportions! When faced with a crisis, throttle down the emotion and look for a solution. Often times the biggest danger is in your mind.