I know how you feel when something first goes wrong. None of us are Superman nor Wonder Woman. We are not indifferent to surprise nor impervious to stress. We may feel a little weak in the knees, we may start to perspire, and our digestive apparatus may feel like its about to release its contents in one direction or another. We may feel nervous, anxious, and maybe even a little panicky. That’s all natural. What we are experiencing is imprinted in our genetic code. Our body is telling us what to do next, and that’s to get out of the jam we’re in.
Before I stumbled into a long career in event planning, I was a biology student at Queens College of the City University of New York. What I loved most about the subject, and still do, was exploring how animals behave in their natural environments, a branch of the science called ethology. There are physical, chemical, genetic, and learned reasons why crickets chirp at night, rabbits freeze in fear, and some birds sing with an accent. That’s right, a Brooklyn house finch sings the same song in a dialect that is distinguishable from a Connecticut house finch. I learned that from Dr. Paul Mundinger during the year I worked as his lab assistant. Dr. Mundinger studied the evolution of bird song and brought recordings back to the lab of birds singing in trees and fields all over the northeast. I’m sure that this mild-mannered, middle-aged professor traipsing around forests, parks, and neighborhoods with a long cardioid microphone aimed toward high branches and rooftops inspired some amount of concern, or maybe even panic, in the humans witnessing his own natural behavior. The birds themselves didn’t seem to mind because ethologists know how to move, or more importantly, stand stock still so their presence doesn’t influence the natural behavior of their subjects. Unless what they want to do is to provoke a threat response.
In many animals, the continuum of possible responses to danger boils down to “fight or flight.” The animal kingdom abounds with behaviors designed to “fight” or vanquish any threat to well-being, a food supply, or a chosen mate. Frilled Agama lizards flash an impressively large ring of throat flaps to make them appear bigger to potential predators. Highly antisocial Betta, also known as Siamese fighting fish, perceive nearly everything as a threat, and flare out their gill flaps when they see another Betta. If neither party backs off, there’s a violent fight for dominance, often resulting in the death of one, the other, and sometimes both. You know other threat displays: gorillas beating their chests, moose locked in antler-to-antler combat, and a snake’s ominous rattling sound. Lots of animals have innate “fight” responses to threats; some humans are among them.
At the other end of the spectrum is “flight.” Dr. Mundinger’s finches will take to the air if they sense anything out of the ordinary. Crickets hop about in random patterns when they sense the shadow of an enormous sneaker or rolled-up newspaper. A herd of ibex will suddenly stampede across the savannah when they see a leopard licking her chops. I’d like to tell you that our most common human “fight-or-flight” response is closest to the courageous gorilla, but I think most people’s responses are closer to that of sea cucumbers, who literally vomit out their digestive tract, distracting the aggressor and treating them to a little snack while what is left of them squirts away. (They obviously don’t eat again for a while, and you may not want to either.)
When our brain first senses that something has gone wrong, it doesn’t waste time evaluating options. It automatically stimulates an immediate release of epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline, from the glands perched atop our kidneys. This hormone, in turn, triggers a suite of involuntary responses across the body, designed to stimulate acts of self-preservation. Our heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and circulation is diverted from our digestive organs to the muscles in our extremities, anticipating either a running escape or a fight for survival. More blood flows to our heart and the air passages in our lungs expand to accommodate the body’s additional oxygen requirements in preparation for an imminent burst in physical activity. Our increased metabolism generates heat and we start to sweat to regulate our body temperature. Our eyelids retract and pupils dilate to increase the amount of light entering our eyes, supporting greater visual sensitivity so that we can clearly see what is coming our way.
All of this starts happening before we have a chance to consciously comprehend what is going on, perhaps in as short as a few milliseconds, and once the adrenaline has been released, it is not possible to jam it back into our adrenal glands. It keeps pumping into the bloodstream until our brain perceives that the threat has passed. Until then, if we haven’t engaged in any of the intense physical activity that it was designed to stimulate, the adrenaline already in our system continues stimulating these autonomic responses until it slowly remetabolizes. That is why we may physically shake or fidget for a bit, even after things are back under control. Happily, the release of adrenaline also sharpens mental acuity and problem-solving processes. This helped our prehistoric ancestors evaluate the best options for survival, the best strategy to evade a predator, and the best escape route to safety. In the very short time our primitive forebears had to sort those things out, adrenaline had rapidly prepared their bodies for implementing immediate action.
There is no way we can avoid the initial jolt of adrenaline. The brain’s instructions to our adrenal glands is hardwired into us through thousands of years of evolution, or by intelligent design, if you’d prefer. Either way, the system is designed to improve our chances of survival in nearly any situation, so accept it. It’s what we decide to do after we process the nature of the challenge that’s important. Today, most of us don’t have to escape from larger, faster predators who wish to devour us outside of the office, but we still experience echoes of our existential instincts when circumstances threaten our health, jobs, finances, families, self-image, or any number of other concerns that are important to us. So, some amount of anxiety, the emotion triggered by these stressful concerns and stimulated by these physical changes, is normal when something goes wrong.
Panic, on the other hand, is a more highly disruptive phenomenon; it is a condition that can trigger extreme, irrational behavior, and magnified physical discomforts from heart palpitations and hyperventilation, to light-headedness and nausea, to sensations approximating a heart attack. In an evolutionary sense, panic is a distinct disadvantage. The mentally and physically debilitating effects of panic would not have helped anyone escaping from dangerous circumstances. Neither do the effects of panic help us evaluate, manage, and respond to an incident or crisis.
In 2013, shortly after Jacoby Jones of the Baltimore Ravens opened the second half of Super Bowl XLVII with a record-breaking 108-yard touchdown, one-half of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, including our command center, was plunged into darkness. My brain immediately ordered a mandatory injection of adrenaline into my bloodstream a second or two before I stated the obvious to my teammates at NFL Control: “Alright, we lost lights.” Then, I turned to the stadium’s senior executive in the room and said “Doug, tell me what we do and when we do it.”
Though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I’m grateful that Armen Keteyian, his 60 Minutes Sports producer, and a TV cameraman were actively filming in NFL Control the moment the lights went out, part of a behind-the-scenes feature on the Super Bowl for Showtime. They were able to document much of what transpired during the unscheduled 34-minute timeout that I would never have been able to recall as accurately. Before being asked to turn off their cameras, they captured the shadowy footage that aired on the next day’s edition of CBS This Morning. Vanity Fair, referencing the CBS report, posted that the team at NFL Control handled the power outage “without cursing, sweating, or throwing a single walkie-talkie through the glass window of their Superdome box in frustration.” They weren’t sure whether “the [presence of the] CBS camera crew, preternatural calmness, or anticipatory dosages of Xanax should be credited” with the response at NFL Control. It wasn’t any of those things.
That’s why I’m so grateful that the footage exists and that most people perceived that we were outwardly calm. I don’t remember feeling calm. I remember feeling nervous. I recollect feeling some of the symptoms of anxiety, the rush of adrenaline, and an empty sensation deep in the pit of my stomach. I’m sure I was not alone in feeling any of those things, but the moment Armen Keteyian alerted me to the fact that half the lights were out was the last time I remember anything about him or the TV camera being there at all.
We felt the pressure of urgency and appreciated just how screwed we might be. After our adrenal glands did their job, unbidden milliseconds after electrons stopped flowing along the deactivated feeder cable, each of us at NFL Control began prioritizing our individual and collective responses. That is why my first question to Doug Thornton was, “What do we do and when do we do it?” As the stadium’s senior executive, he not only had decades of facility operations experience, but he also had managed the Superdome when the building infamously served as an emergency refuge of last resort during Hurricane Katrina. The Superdome had been heavily damaged during the storm, the roof had been breached, and rising floodwaters had threatened to swamp the stadium’s back-up generators, the only source of power available for the sweltering building and for the 15,000–20,000 people who had taken refuge there. Our problem was not nearly as life-threatening as those dreadful days in September 2005, when 1,833 people lost their lives in New Orleans, or as dangerous as the conditions later experienced inside the Superdome. Had the stadium gone completely dark during the Super Bowl, which turned out to be a real probability had Doug and his team not responded as quickly and decisively as they did, a sense of panic could have descended on the fans and the ramifications of that are, thankfully, unknown.
As for the team at NFL Control, I am often asked how we resisted panic. I truly believe that the annual game day simulations we conducted 10 days before the Super Bowl contributed immeasurably to the entire team’s ability to calmly, quickly, and collaboratively shift to a problem-solving mode. (See Chapter 7.) We had previously managed responses to an ammonia spill, a mysterious fatality, and a spray of a powder of uncertain origin on the field, at least as drills. Notwithstanding that adrenaline was flowing liberally through our arteries, we approached the power failure as though it was another drill, though clearly it was anything but.
When something goes wrong, it is the most ancient part of our brain, the limbic system, that literally gets things moving. Before we consciously perceive the problem, the amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure that processes emotions, tells our bodies that we are in danger. It signals other primitive parts of our brain to get the adrenaline pumping and as a result, we feel stress and anxiety. Like the rest of our bilaterally symmetrical brain, the amygdala is tucked below each half of our cerebrums, the larger, evolutionarily newer parts of our brain that facilitate problem-solving. Psychologists have proven that we can consciously fight back against the anxiety generated by our limbic systems by engaging the thinking parts of our brain with tasks involving cognitive and motor activities, that is, by thinking or doing something like solving a problem, incident, or crisis. This conscious refocusing forces our cerebrums to take command over from the unconscious work of the amygdala and other brain structures that give rise to the emotion of anxiety. To put it simply, if we get busy fixing a problem ASAP, we are too busy to panic. That’s how people who routinely launch into action in the face of a crisis, like brave first responders, avoid falling victim to panic.
Conversely, if we indulge our anxiety to the tipping point of panic, our conscious mind is focusing on what we are feeling rather than what we need to do to stop feeling that way. We are not problem-solving or sorting out the options. We are not acting correctively or managing the outcome. In essence, unless we consciously focus on switching gears and concentrate on addressing the issue, we will be paralyzed from managing the problem before us.
It is important to note that some people are susceptible to, and suffer from, debilitating anxiety- and panic-inducing disorders that are often initiated and escalated for no direct discernable reason. These are real clinical conditions that require professional and medical guidance, and this chapter is not meant to provide that. What we are talking about, however, are responses to an identifiable stimulus, something that has gone wrong in our professional or personal life. The good news is that many of us can choose to override the preprogrammed anxiety produced by a stressful event. We can even better tolerate these stresses if we have, indeed, taken good physical care of ourselves. (See Chapter 15.) Although the bad news is that we can’t prevent the primitive parts of our brain from doing what they were designed to do, it was once a very good thing. The limbic system is what kept each of our respective ancestors from being eaten or flattened before they produced the next generation of our predecessors, and why we were eventually born. That’s why we get that jolt of adrenaline faster than we can think about it. But remember, it’s what you do after that jolt that counts.
We have all heard the expression “take a deep breath” when we react too quickly, too angrily, or yes, too anxiously. That is spectacularly appropriate advice because a common reaction to stress is hyperventilation, a greatly increased pattern of breathing that can significantly amplify anxiety and lead to an attack of panic. Hyperventilation literally changes your blood chemistry, increasing the percentage of oxygen in your bloodstream and greatly reducing the level of carbon dioxide. As a result, the affected person can start to feel shortness of breath, sick, and dizzy; these sensations of losing physical control, in turn, can further increase anxiety. The old remedy of breathing into a paper bag works because breathing back in what you just breathed out rebalances the level of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream. So, when you feel that first release of adrenaline, by all means take that deep breath, engage your cerebrum, and get to work solving the problem. That’s how you will combat your own panic.
There is another important reason to take that deep breath and to consciously redirect your anxiety to problem solving. That is because panic is contagious. It is particularly virulent if you are leading the team evaluating and managing the problem. If we exhibit symptoms of panic, one of two things are inevitable. The first is that some members of your team will also tend to panic. They will think: “People around me, including our leader, are losing control, so things must be hopelessly and irretrievably messed up.” The second alternative is perhaps a little better. Your team will begin to ignore you and concentrate on what they need to do to avoid panicking themselves. Remember, panic is often characterized by irrational behavior. Who is going to take remedial cues from someone who is not thinking logically or clearly?
It is also difficult for team members to maintain their own composure under stress if another teammate is exhibiting the debilitating symptoms of anxiety or panic. As poorly behaving colleagues can have a deleterious effect on the team’s overall response, it is often best to remove those people from the situation until they have recomposed themselves, assuming they can at all. It is not usually effective to simply instruct overreacting participants to calm down, especially when they are in the throes of an extreme case of anxiety and panic. It is better to separate them from the response, and if possible, remove them physically from the scene.
An experience described in the Report of the Director of Hawaii’s Emergency Management Authority illustrates this point. (See Chapter 18.) The individual who activated the alarm failed to respond to instructions to send a notification canceling the civil defense message and instead sat inertly and confused at his station. Another team member had to take control of the dazed individual’s computer to send the cancellation. According to the report’s findings, the unresponsive team member did not contribute in any way to the effort to correct or recover from the incident.
Fortunately, “not panicking” is likewise contagious. A calm-and-focused environment encourages everyone working on a problem to behave similarly. There was certainly a sense of urgency at NFL Control to get power restored as quickly as possible, and there was a significant amount of uncertainty as to what had really happened. There was an enormous amount of stress when the lights first went out and the combined biomass of the room was no doubt thick with adrenaline. But there were no raised voices, no pounding of tables, and no fleeing to the exits. There was only an atmosphere of “What do we do now to get the lights back on and what do I need to do to help with the response . . . just like I did 10 days ago?” Thanks to the drills we had performed, switching from being held hostage by our limbic systems to applying our cerebrums to overcome them was a completely familiar tack.
We did not take flight, physically or emotionally. We stayed to fight through the problem mentally. Immediately after I asked Doug Thornton for his insights into “What do we do and when do we do it?” we recognized that the fans in the stands had even less information than we did. All they knew was that the lights had gone out. Connectivity to the outside world, and within the stadium, was extremely limited. All data access points, telephone antennae, and radio transmitters on our side of the stadium were dead, but the other side of the stadium was still powered, and it was likely that fans were checking their social media feeds and texting their friends and families. We did not know what rumors and misinformation might be circulating and we had to ensure that those rumors, or the absence of information, did not increase anxiety or incite group panic. We didn’t have much information yet, but it was essential for us to be the source of the most authoritative information as soon as possible, with whatever we had.
With no power to the video screens, we could start texting to the opt-in database of ticket holders, but the only way to get to everyone was with an announcement over the public address system. Most stadium and arena PA systems have backup batteries for just such life-safety purposes. The public address announcer, however, was not at NFL Control. He was in the booth where controls for the video scoreboard and audio systems were located, on another level of the stadium. We hurriedly sketched out a script for him, and one of our teammates sprinted down the darkened staircase to get him the message: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced a partial interruption in electrical service. Please remain in your seat and service will be restored momentarily.” Everybody heard the announcement, but many people didn’t listen.
Instead, they got out of their seats and went on a search throughout the concourse for beer taps that were still working. They succeeded. The NFL enjoyed the best half-hour of beer sales in the history of the Super Bowl during the partial power failure. And, while fans were breaking beer consumption records instead of breaking through exit doors, NFL Control got very busy.