So what do you do when the inevitable happens? You’re stuck in a big hole and you feel like you need to fight for your life. This is where training and practice really pay off. You don’t want to find yourself stuck in a big hole before you have the skills to get out of it.
First of all, it’s important to remain calm and stay in your boat. Novice kayakers will bail out of their boats in challenging situations. Once you are separated from your boat, the boat itself becomes a danger that could pin you against a rock, not to mention the fact that you’re now swimming the rapid you were once kayaking — using your body instead of your boat to bounce off of rocks and other obstacles. In business, your boat is whatever keeps you afloat — your team, your partner, your kids. Don’t abandon them when the going gets tough. If you do it will be a bumpy ride and it just might do serious damage to them or to you.
You’re still in your boat and you’re stuck in a hydraulic that is churning you up and down as if you were inside a huge washing machine. You’re stuck in it sideways, so the hole is trying to suck your entire boat under water. You’re not sure what rocks are underneath. You put your paddle out to the downstream side and move it back and forth, front to back to brace yourself and avoid turning upside down. You try to use this feather brace to move to the side of the hole, hoping it will kick you out if you can get part of your boat into the downstream current. But this particular hole is a “keeper” — it’s not going to let you go.
The next thing to try is to “go deep.” Every hole is made up of water that is flowing downstream but has been temporarily diverted into the recirculating hydraulic. If you turned off the flow, the hole would disappear and all the water would flow down hill. So the secret is to find the nearest place where the current is moving strongly down stream and use it to your advantage. Often in a big hydraulic that place is down deep. So you do what feels counter intuitive, you turn upside down and reach your arms down toward the bottom of the river searching for the down stream flow. You feel it instantly when you reach it… it’s the stronger of the fundamental forces at play. Your arms are pulled back and your body and boat follow, pulling you out of the hydraulic. Now you can roll back upright and get some air, safely downstream of the hole.
The keeper hole is a metaphor for a business process or relationship that keeps you stuck in one place, impeding forward momentum. You try to work with it, respecting its boundaries and moving left or right to see how you can get what you want. But ultimately it’s not a good situation to be in and you need to find a way to move on. Look for the downstream current — it may be as simple as articulating your business goal as aligned with the goals of an authority figure in your organization. It may require their direct endorsement. Or you may be able to ally with another effort that has already figured out how to avoid the hole that trapped you. Their momentum could pull you back into the flow. Find a way to make the hole irrelevant by working effectively with more powerful forces going in the direction you want to go.
