Last week I was in Mumbai facilitating a session with senior managers on Inter-Cultural Intelligence and Global leadership. We had a privilege to taste the amazing energy and light of the Dawali festival in Mumbai. The proud Mumbai celebrators told us that Mumbai is the city where the festival originated. Well, with our hotel being on the sea front boulevard called 'the necklace' we were treated with a unorganized show of about 5 hours of fireworks. All along 'the necklace', which is about 10 km long, the one rain of colors after the other went up in the air.
Driving was an amazing experience of 'live and let live' a true community perspective on driving. If there is room for six lanes on a 3 lane road... why not. And if there is even more room for bicycles and carriages, rickshaws and animals, why not? All are on the road to somewhere, and why not be patient and tolerant with one another as we try to move somewhere. I must say I could appreciate the attitude, but was wondering if there wasn't a faster way to organize the flow of traffic...
Contrast this with the sessions we facilitated in Germany 4 days after the sessions in Mumbai. It was an amazing difference between the streets of Mumbai and the 'autobahn' of Germany. So organized, so disciplined, the precision of everything was unreal. I had the opportunity to experience the traffic in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands as I drove about 1500 km to different meetings.
While I was enjoying a steady 160 km/h on the Germany highway I was getting impressed with the high level of 'flow'. The way people would automatically create two cars distance between cars, resulted in the ability to anticipate and think/act in advance and kept the flow incredibly high. I was just starting to admire the way the Germans had managed to make driving work at it's highest level. BUT: my thoughts we interrupted by a lady who didn't see the Mercedes driving in front of me. She put her indicator on and started moving from the second into the third lane. The Mercedes had to hit the brakes to create enough space and wasn't happy with the move. The driver experienced something they now call flooding in neurological research. The frontal lobe of the brain was flooded with a large number of neuropeptides linked to the anger he experienced. The anger neuropeptides seriously hamper the brain from thinking clearly and I wasn't sure if the driver was going to react...
The driver was very unfortunate... Within six seconds he was on the bumper of yet another car; an Audi that didn't feel like moving from the third to the second lane for a Mercedes... The Mercedes driver got another surge of anger triggered neuropeptides into his frontal lobe and was starting to show non-verbal communication signs. The Mercedes driver pushed close to the Audi, who was gracious enough to move back to the second lane as soon as there was a gap. But the Mercedes driver had by now started a serious snowball of flooding in his frontal lobe. One surge after another of anger triggered neuropeptides was so much hindering his ability to think that he was signaling to the Audi driver something that looked like: "You have just signed the last day of your life." type of 'language. The Mercedes driver forced the Audi driver onto the bumper lane and it was looking like he was going to take the risk of a physical confrontation. In the mean time I was at 160 km/h again cruising to Frankfurt airport to catch my flight back to Dubai. Hmmm, what was that again about the amazing discipline displayed on the German roads??
PS: Great Emotional Intelligence = to consistently follow the: 'Feel, think, act' sequence.
Low Emotional Intelligence = to follow the: 'feel, act' sequence.
Driving was an amazing experience of 'live and let live' a true community perspective on driving. If there is room for six lanes on a 3 lane road... why not. And if there is even more room for bicycles and carriages, rickshaws and animals, why not? All are on the road to somewhere, and why not be patient and tolerant with one another as we try to move somewhere. I must say I could appreciate the attitude, but was wondering if there wasn't a faster way to organize the flow of traffic...
Contrast this with the sessions we facilitated in Germany 4 days after the sessions in Mumbai. It was an amazing difference between the streets of Mumbai and the 'autobahn' of Germany. So organized, so disciplined, the precision of everything was unreal. I had the opportunity to experience the traffic in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands as I drove about 1500 km to different meetings.
While I was enjoying a steady 160 km/h on the Germany highway I was getting impressed with the high level of 'flow'. The way people would automatically create two cars distance between cars, resulted in the ability to anticipate and think/act in advance and kept the flow incredibly high. I was just starting to admire the way the Germans had managed to make driving work at it's highest level. BUT: my thoughts we interrupted by a lady who didn't see the Mercedes driving in front of me. She put her indicator on and started moving from the second into the third lane. The Mercedes had to hit the brakes to create enough space and wasn't happy with the move. The driver experienced something they now call flooding in neurological research. The frontal lobe of the brain was flooded with a large number of neuropeptides linked to the anger he experienced. The anger neuropeptides seriously hamper the brain from thinking clearly and I wasn't sure if the driver was going to react...
The driver was very unfortunate... Within six seconds he was on the bumper of yet another car; an Audi that didn't feel like moving from the third to the second lane for a Mercedes... The Mercedes driver got another surge of anger triggered neuropeptides into his frontal lobe and was starting to show non-verbal communication signs. The Mercedes driver pushed close to the Audi, who was gracious enough to move back to the second lane as soon as there was a gap. But the Mercedes driver had by now started a serious snowball of flooding in his frontal lobe. One surge after another of anger triggered neuropeptides was so much hindering his ability to think that he was signaling to the Audi driver something that looked like: "You have just signed the last day of your life." type of 'language. The Mercedes driver forced the Audi driver onto the bumper lane and it was looking like he was going to take the risk of a physical confrontation. In the mean time I was at 160 km/h again cruising to Frankfurt airport to catch my flight back to Dubai. Hmmm, what was that again about the amazing discipline displayed on the German roads??
PS: Great Emotional Intelligence = to consistently follow the: 'Feel, think, act' sequence.
Low Emotional Intelligence = to follow the: 'feel, act' sequence.
Powered by ScribeFire.
