Making decisions under pressure, taking a step back!

Last week, I had the honor of working with Bernard-Xavier SPOKOJNY with an international team in charge of business development for a major French industrial group, Safran Landing Systems.

A demanding environment.
Volatile markets.
High targets.
Different cultures.
And constant pressure to make decisions.

🎯 The theme of the presentation:
decision-making under stress in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world and taking a step back to put things into perspective with military culture.

Drawing on my operational military background, we worked on a simple idea—but one that is often misunderstood:

👉 Stress is not the enemy of decision-making.
👉 Preparation and training allow us to channel it.

Under pressure, the brain does not become less intelligent.
It becomes more predictable.
It falls back on automatic responses, reduces options, and speeds up time.

This is true in the military field.
It is just as true in a negotiation room, when dealing with a strategic client or an unstable market.

💡 What we explored together:

• how to decide when information is incomplete,
• how to avoid paralysis or rushing into decisions,
• how to prepare options rather than seek certainties,
• how to remain collectively clear-headed when everything is accelerating.

🧭 In an increasingly turbulent world, performance does not depend on the disappearance of pressure—it depends on the ability to make decisions despite it.

Thank you to the teams for the quality of the discussions, their open-mindedness, and their good humor throughout this intervention. Special thanks to their boss, Laurent Fiard, a remarkable, open, curious, and approachable personality.

At PEARL Crisis Response and S.O.E Leadership, we help management and operational teams prepare for these uncertain environments:
acting under constraint, deciding under pressure, thinking outside the box — together.

#VUCA #decision #leadership #teams #crisis