PANIC IS EXPENSIVE: THE BUSINESS COST OF AN UNCOMPOSED MIND

The Greatest Intelligence May Be a Composed Mind: Lessons from Football, Leadership and the Workplace

A reflection on my late cousin, self-composure, communication, leadership and the discipline of the mind

There are moments when we wake up and find ourselves thinking deeply about someone we loved and the lessons they left behind.

This morning, I found myself reflecting on my late cousin.

I do not want to turn his life into a long story, because the lesson I remember from him is bigger than a particular event. What continues to stay with me is his composure.

From an early age, he carried himself with a remarkable calmness. He did not seem interested in unnecessary arguments, unnecessary excitement, or situations that could easily disturb his peace of mind. There was something organized about the way he approached things. He could observe, understand and act without appearing overwhelmed by everything happening around him.

At the time, I simply admired it.

As I have grown older and become more involved in business and leadership, I have started to understand it differently.

I have come to believe that one of the most underrated forms of intelligence is the ability to compose oneself.

Not because a composed person knows everything.

Not because a calm person never experiences pressure.

But because composure creates space between what is happening and how we choose to respond.

And sometimes, that space is where good thinking happens.

The football lesson I never forgot

I remember watching my cousin play football on one occasion.

The ball came to him, and there was pressure around him. Attackers were closing in from behind. In a situation where another player might have panicked and simply kicked the ball away, he remained composed.

He controlled it.

He looked.

He processed the situation.

Then he made his move.

It was a small football moment, but to me it represented something much larger.

Pressure does not always require speed. Sometimes pressure requires composure.

Modern research in sports science gives us an interesting explanation for what we often observe in highly skilled players. Research on expert soccer players has found differences in perceptual and cognitive processes, including anticipation, attention and decision-making. Skilled players can become better at identifying relevant information and ignoring information that is less useful.

That means great performance is not necessarily about reacting to everything.

It can be about knowing what deserves your attention.

That is exactly what I saw in my cousin.

He did not appear to be fighting every stimulus around him.

He was reading the situation.

And perhaps that is one of the secrets of excellence.

The composed person does not chase every thought.

This is especially important in today's world.

Our minds are constantly being attacked by information.

Messages.

Notifications.

Social media.

Business problems.

Family responsibilities.

Financial pressure.

Opinions.

Distractions.

Other people's expectations.

Dreams.

Fears.

And sometimes, our own imagination.

We can spend an entire day chasing every thought that enters our minds and still accomplish very little.

Composure tells the mind:

Stop. Observe. Decide. Then act.

That is not weakness.

That is discipline.

Composure is not the absence of pressure

It is important to make one distinction.

Being composed does not mean that a person has no emotions.

It does not mean ignoring problems.

It does not mean being passive.

It does not mean refusing to confront difficult situations.

And it certainly does not mean that we should avoid every disagreement.

Instead, composure is the ability to remain sufficiently regulated to think and act deliberately, even when circumstances are demanding.

Research on stress and cognition helps explain why this matters. Studies and reviews have found that acute or chronic stress can affect executive functions such as working memory, cognitive flexibility and attention, although the precise effects vary according to the type, timing and intensity of stress.

In ordinary language:

When the mind becomes overloaded, our ability to process information and make decisions can suffer.

That is why composure matters.

It gives us a better chance of keeping our mental resources directed toward the problem instead of allowing the problem to consume the mind.

From football to business

The lesson becomes even more interesting when we move from football to business.

Business also has attackers.

They simply wear different clothes.

Sometimes the attacker is a difficult customer.

Sometimes it is a competitor.

Sometimes it is a financial problem.

Sometimes it is an employee issue.

Sometimes it is an unexpected expense.

Sometimes it is a failed project.

Sometimes it is a business opportunity arriving when you are already overwhelmed.

And sometimes the greatest attacker is inside your own mind.

Fear.

Impatience.

Anger.

Overthinking.

Desperation.

The temptation to make an immediate decision.

I have personally found that when I approach business matters with greater composure, I often think differently.

I listen better.

I communicate better.

I notice details I might otherwise miss.

I am less likely to respond emotionally.

I can separate an urgent problem from a genuinely important one.

And I can think about strategy rather than simply reacting to circumstances.

Management is built around activities such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Communication runs through all of them because managers need to receive information, interpret it, make decisions and coordinate people toward objectives.

This is where composure becomes a management skill.

A leader who cannot manage his or her own reactions may struggle to manage a situation.

The organization needs composure too

This reflection also took me back to something I have studied in Principles and Practices of Management: organizational communication.

We often talk about communication as though communication simply means speaking.

It does not.

Management communication involves speaking, listening, reading and writing, and effective managers need to use these channels deliberately.

This has made me think differently about what happens inside organizations.

Consider a meeting.

One person is presenting an important issue.

Another person is whispering.

Someone is laughing at the side.

Someone is discussing an unrelated matter.

Another person is checking their phone.

Someone interrupts before the speaker has finished.

Another person is physically present but mentally somewhere else.

These behaviours may appear small.

But organizations are built from small behaviours repeated every day.

A meeting is not merely a room where people sit.

It is a concentration of organizational attention.

When people consistently fail to listen, interrupt unnecessarily, create distracting side conversations or introduce irrelevant noise, the organization may gradually lose something valuable:

collective focus.

Research on cognitive control shows that task switching and dual-tasking can carry performance costs, because attention and executive control have to be divided or shifted between competing demands.

Research examining workplace interruptions likewise describes the cognitive burden involved in repeatedly shifting attention away from a primary task and then attempting to return to it.

So when a meeting is continuously disrupted, the problem is not merely that people are being "impolite."

It can also become a problem of attention management.

 

 

 

 

But is informal communication bad?

Here, management requires an important distinction.

Informal communication should not automatically be treated as the enemy.

In fact, organizational research has found that informal communication can serve useful functions. One study of employees in Germany found that informal communication was associated with employees feeling better informed and more committed, and the researchers did not find that informal communication reduced productivity.

This is important.

The lesson is not:

"Never speak informally."

The lesson is:

"Know when informal communication is appropriate."

There is a difference between colleagues having a healthy conversation and colleagues disrupting a meeting with irrelevant side discussions.

There is a difference between building relationships and spreading gossip.

There is a difference between asking a colleague a useful question and invading another person's privacy.

There is a difference between being friendly and becoming unprofessional.

A strong organization does not eliminate human interaction.

It gives communication structure, purpose and boundaries.

 

Formal communication is not about sounding complicated

When I talk about formal communication, I do not mean that every employee should speak like a lawyer.

Formal communication does not require difficult English.

It does not require big vocabulary.

It does not require jargon.

And it certainly does not require hiding a simple message behind complicated language.

In fact, professional communication should often do the opposite.

It should make meaning clearer.

Say what you mean.

Use the right words.

Give the necessary context.

Avoid unnecessary ambiguity.

Respect the person listening.

And make it possible for the other person to understand what action is expected.

Clear communication strengthens the formal structure of an organization and helps people exchange information, coordinate work and achieve organizational objectives.

That is why I strongly believe organizations should teach people not merely how to speak, but how to communicate responsibly.

Stop hiding behind jargon

One of the habits I would like young professionals to reconsider is excessive jargon.

Sometimes we use complicated words because they make us sound important.

Sometimes we use vague expressions because we do not want to take responsibility for saying exactly what we mean.

Sometimes we create what I would call hide-and-seek communication — a message is there, but you have to search for it.

A good professional does not make communication difficult just to appear intelligent.

A good professional makes communication understandable.

The objective of communication is not to impress the listener with vocabulary.

The objective is to create understanding.

A manager should be able to say:

"We need this completed by Friday."

Not:

"Let's see how we can synergize our operational deliverables within the upcoming execution framework."

The second statement may sound impressive.

The first one actually tells somebody what needs to happen.

Clarity is professional.

Listening is a management tool

Perhaps one of the most neglected professional skills is listening.

We teach people to speak.

We teach people to write.

We teach presentations.

We teach customer service.

But many people never seriously learn how to listen.

Listening is not waiting for your turn to speak.

Listening means making an effort to understand.

A manager who listens carefully receives information that might otherwise be missed. OpenStax's management material identifies talking and listening among the major channels through which managers communicate and emphasizes the importance of communication for obtaining information and coordinating organizational activity.

Good listening involves several behaviours:

Pay attention.

Do not interrupt unnecessarily.

Ask questions when clarification is needed.

Do not assume you already know what the other person means.

Observe both the message and the context.

Confirm important information.

And sometimes the most powerful sentence in a workplace is simply:

"Let me make sure I understand what you are saying."

That sentence can prevent an argument, a misunderstanding, a financial mistake or a damaged relationship.

Composure and listening belong together

This is where I return to the lesson from my cousin.

A distracted mind struggles to listen.

An agitated mind wants to respond.

An insecure mind wants to prove itself.

An impatient mind interrupts.

A composed mind has a better opportunity to observe.

And observation comes before good judgment.

Research on team learning provides another important lesson. Amy Edmondson's influential study of work teams found that psychological safety — the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking — was associated with learning behaviour, which in turn was associated with team performance.

This means that a well-managed organization needs two things at the same time:

discipline and openness.

Employees should know when to listen.

They should know when to speak.

They should know how to disagree respectfully.

And they should feel able to raise legitimate concerns without being humiliated or silenced.

That is very different from allowing meetings to become chaotic.

A disciplined meeting can still be an open meeting.

A formal organization can still be a human organization.

Respect for privacy is part of professionalism

There is another lesson that should never be overlooked.

Every employee is also a person.

People have personal lives, personal information, private conversations, personal challenges and personal boundaries.

Professionalism includes knowing when information is yours to know and when it is not.

Curiosity is not permission.

Access is not ownership.

Working together does not mean knowing everything about everybody.

Organizations should encourage people to communicate about matters relevant to work while respecting appropriate personal boundaries and confidentiality.

This is another area where composure matters.

A composed person does not need to chase every piece of information.

They understand that not everything requires their attention.

The discipline of selective attention

Perhaps this is the deeper lesson.

A powerful mind is not necessarily the mind that thinks about the most things.

It may be the mind that knows which things deserve attention now.

Expert athletes provide an interesting illustration. Research on soccer and other team sports suggests that skilled performers can develop more efficient visual search and anticipation strategies, directing attention toward more informative cues rather than processing everything equally.

Business leaders need a similar skill.

Every customer complaint cannot become a crisis.

Every competitor's action cannot become a reason to panic.

Every social media comment does not require a response.

Every idea that enters your mind does not immediately become a business plan.

Every disagreement does not have to become an argument.

Every problem does not need an emotional reaction.

The mature mind asks:

What matters here?

What information do I need?

What can wait?

What should I ignore?

What should I act on?

That is composure in practice.

What I am trying to build at Robotech

These reflections have also influenced how I think about the kind of working culture I want to encourage.

At Robotech Digital Solutions, the goal is not simply to provide digital services, solve customer problems or complete technical tasks.

There is a deeper question:

What kind of professionals are we becoming while we do the work?

Technology changes.

Business models change.

Customers change.

Software changes.

Skills change.

But professional character remains important.

I want a working environment where people understand that competence is not only about knowing how to use a computer, design a poster, build a website, solve a technical problem or serve a customer.

It is also about knowing how to carry yourself.

How to speak.

How to listen.

How to handle pressure.

How to disagree.

How to receive correction.

How to respect another person's privacy.

How to remain focused.

How to communicate without unnecessary jargon.

How to avoid turning every small issue into a conflict.

And how to think before responding.

That culture does not need to be announced loudly.

It can simply be practiced every day.

 

 

A lesson for young people

To the young person reading this:

Do not allow the world to convince you that being loud means being intelligent.

Do not confuse speed with effectiveness.

Do not confuse confidence with arrogance.

Do not confuse argument with strength.

Do not confuse constant activity with productivity.

And do not confuse having many thoughts with having a clear mind.

Learn to become comfortable with silence.

Learn to observe.

Learn to listen.

Learn to pause.

Learn to ask questions.

Learn to control your first reaction.

Learn to organize your thoughts.

Learn to speak clearly.

Learn to respect people.

Learn to work under pressure without becoming controlled by pressure.

Your mind is one of your greatest working tools.

Protect it.

Train it.

Discipline it.

 

A lesson for parents

For my children, and for the children of the generation coming after us, I would want this lesson to begin early.

Education is important.

Skills are important.

Technology is important.

Academic performance is important.

But we should also teach children how to compose themselves.

Teach them how to listen.

Teach them how to wait their turn.

Teach them how to express disagreement respectfully.

Teach them how to lose without collapsing.

Teach them how to win without becoming arrogant.

Teach them how to focus on one task.

Teach them how to stop and think before responding.

Because intelligence is not only what a child knows.

It is also how that child uses what they know.

The ball is still coming

When I think about my late cousin now, I do not only remember the young man I knew.

I remember the lesson.

I remember the football.

I remember the pressure around him.

I remember how calmly he controlled the ball.

And I think about how much that moment resembles life.

Sometimes the pressure is behind us.

Sometimes everybody expects an immediate decision.

Sometimes there is noise everywhere.

Sometimes several people are speaking.

Sometimes our own minds are producing hundreds of thoughts at once.

And still, the ball is coming.

The question is not always:

How quickly can I react?

Sometimes the better question is:

Can I remain composed long enough to see what is actually happening?

Because when the mind is composed, we have a better opportunity to observe.

When we observe, we can understand.

When we understand, we can decide.

When we decide carefully, we can act strategically.

And when organizations learn to communicate with the same discipline — speaking clearly, listening attentively, respecting boundaries, reducing unnecessary distractions and creating room for constructive dialogue — their people have a stronger foundation for working together.

My cousin may never have intended to teach me a management lesson.

But he did.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest things a person can leave behind:

Not merely memories.

A way of thinking.

The ball is still coming.

Stay calm.

Look up.

Listen.

Think.

Then make your move.

Final thought

The greatest mind in the room may not be the one speaking the most. It may be the one that remains composed enough to understand what everyone else is missing.

Selected research and management sources

The ideas in this article draw on established work in management communication, organizational behaviour, cognitive psychology, stress and executive function, and sports expertise, including:

• OpenStax, Principles of Management, chapters on managerial communication and the major communication channels of management.
• Edmondson, A. (1999), Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, Administrative Science Quarterly.
• Geißler et al. (2023), systematic review of acute stress and working memory.
• Shields, Sazma & Yonelinas (2016), meta-analysis of acute stress and executive functions.
• Koch & Denner (2022), research on informal communication in organizations.
• Research on perceptual-cognitive expertise, visual attention and decision-making in soccer and other team sports.
• Research on cognitive control, multitasking and interruption costs.

This article uses the cousin's experience as a personal reflection, not as a claim that his individual story proves a scientific theory. The scientific literature is used to explore why composure, attention, communication and cognitive control can matter in learning, teamwork and performance.