At approximately 3:25 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2009, the pilot and co-pilot in command eased their Airbus A320 upward off runway 4 at New York’s LaGuardia airport and, as aviation enthusiasts sometimes say, “Escaped the surly bonds of earth.”

At approximately 3:31 p.m. on the same afternoon, the pilots eased the Airbus downward and reconnected with a part of the earth that is not thought of as the best of landing sites for commercial jetliners.

Although the planned destination was Charlotte, N.C., Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, decided that considering the circumstances – a complete loss of thrust from both engines – it was best to terminate the flight after six minutes and ditch in the Hudson River. To make a long story short, everyone survived and was afforded an excellent view of the USS Intrepid Sea, Air and Space museum.

Here’s one of the many things I find interesting about this event. In a sense, Captain Sully was not thinking during this event, he was just doing. As business leaders, you probably intuitively encourage your employees to “think” all the time. And that is pretty good advice most of the time – but not during Sully-like events.

You see the human brain is made up of different areas that do different things. The cortex (more specifically the prefrontal cortex) is generally described as your thinking or executive brain. Among other things, it helps you analyze things, consider various consequences of different options, control impulsive behavior and make sound decisions.

However, under pressure the thinking brain relinquishes control of your behavior to another area of your brain sometimes called the limbic brain or system. Let’s just think of it as your emotional brain.

When this transfer of control occurs, you typically default to your habits – good or bad. That’s why they drill pilots, combat troops and people with similar type jobs on exactly what to do in stressful situations. In a nutshell, they want them to default to good habits – habits that will most likely produce positive outcomes.

If this process worked for Sully, why wouldn’t you do the same thing in your business? For example, why not gather a representative cross-section of your employees and get them to help you identify the three, five or 10 most stressful situations you can expect to encounter in your business. The more specific you are the better.

Together you can develop pilot-like responses to each situation and practice them until everyone can execute the response without really thinking.

For example, how will we respond to a customer who is furious about a real or perceived problem related to our product or service? How will we handle a power outage, an accident, a conflict between or among employees, a request for something highly unusual, or a robbery? Some businesses already do a great job of this, some don’t.

Do you have a plan for the Sully events at your business? If not, why not give it a try.

Chris Crouch is CEO of DME Training and Consulting and author of several books on improving productivity. Contact him through dmetraining.com.