ContrarianAgrarian on Nostr: I learned a very useful life lesson years ago in a course on emergency medical ...

I learned a very useful life lesson years ago in a course on emergency medical response.

In a crisis some people lose their mind and can be a net negative on a situation: their actions actually make everything worse rather than contributing towards the situation. This can sometimes be mitigated if you can task them with something to keep them distracted. Ideally it’s something at least marginally useful like keeping a record of a patient’s respiration or heart beats per minute, but the point is to direct their energy into anything not counterproductive.

I’ve applied this a few times in life while working on group efforts. Sometimes people are, for incompetence or any other reason, actually a net negative on contributions. It’s essential to find them a task they can dive into. Ideally you can help align it with their strengths and help them be a value add, but at a minimum it should mitigate the damage they can cause. They will need to believe the task is important regardless if it is to really get buy in and it needs to be simple enough they can handle it autonomously without it causing more work for the people who are able to contribute.

#LifeProTip