How Youngs Are You?

I know what you’re thinking. Spell check! Grammar! Punctuation! 

No, I didn’t forget them, so bear with me. I just wanted to talk about leadership. And your approach to it.  As an engineer by training, I thought I might use the results of hours spent in a lab when I was young to help us.

The title refers to Young’s modulus, named after a 19th century British scientist. It explains the stiffness of a solid material when elastically deformed, linking stress and strain[1]. Terms that seem pretty common in our modern world.

Elastic deformation is reversible. The material returns to its original shape after the load is removed. We know that from our everyday lives.  From elastic bands to work: it’s why we take a break and the most enlightened organisations insist on people taking their holidays – it’s good for them and productivity. It makes room for inspiration and innovation. 

Plastic deformation is not reversible. Once stretched out of shape the material does not recover and is usually weakened. Sometimes fatally and often without being obvious to the casual observer. Ever seen someone knocked out of shape who you’d normally expect to shrug off a setback but this time appears to be floored?  Plastic deformation at work. In everyday life.

So back to engineering and leadership.

Initially the stress–strain curve for a material being stretched is linear, following Hooke’s law (stress proportional to strain), as shown below:

Source: Nuclear-power.net

?[1] Stress is represented by the force per unit area and strain by the amount of deformation.

Which means that when the load, or stress, is removed things return to the way they were. But there are some health warnings: 

• Few materials are linear and elastic after small amounts of deformation
• Many materials deviate from Hooke's law well before reaching their elastic limit
• Material stiffness should not be confused with strength, stiffness, hardness or toughness.

Meanwhile, back in the corporate world, what does all this engineering mean for leadership?

Try something.  

Take a moment to reflect on your resilience: where are you and your organisation?

Are you elastic? You’ve been knocked out of shape but can recover once the stress is removed.

Or are you in the plastic zone? How do you know the difference? Once the stress has been removed, for example CV19, you won’t go back to how you were before. Crucially you’ll be weakened in a way you perhaps don’t realise.

At the moment everyone is saying that we won’t return to how we were before. Remote working, technology, health and work / life balance issues will be more important. Many good things can happen. There’s certainly some truth in those thoughts.

But now think about the engineering analogy. The trouble with plastic deformation is that it weakens the material, often in a manner that isn’t obvious. You don’t realise you’re there, that you’ve passed the point of elasticity.

Think about another dimension: our new online ways of working. Have cyber criminals gone away? Does ‘working remotely’ undermine their business model?  Or has it actually increased the risk? Are scams and on-line fraud decreasing? Organised crime has taken a different view of ‘community’ and ‘being in this together’.  Do you have a resilient workforce or business model?  How can cyber criminals attack you?  Because they’re out there trying.  Right now.

Connected.  But secure? Picture: Economic Times, India

And now think about the balance between holding tight during the crisis and making your move. It might be comforting to delay, to wait until the market recovers before making that investment, addressing that known weaknesses or undertaking a review. But if you delay, you’ll probably miss the opportunity.

Counterintuitively, now is the time to act – it’s when you can make most impact. Prepare whilst you have the time and before you’re business is too bent out of shape to recover. After all, when things pick up it’s going to be frantic and you really can’t risk pushing your business to breaking point because you sat and watched the world change around you. Success is rarely achieved by following the herd. If you wait until all the lights are green, you’re too late. Just because everyone is telling you publicly that they’re waiting, is that a reason for you to do the same?

The Albiano Magra bridge collapsed in April.  It looked fine, until it wasn’t.

Not everything is bad. There are opportunities out there and now is the time to seize them. Pivoting to a new product, service or way of delivering what you already do. Alternatively, priming the pump so you’re ready to accelerate when the first rays of light appear. You just need to be alert to the threats, risks and vulnerabilities that your choices bring.

I wrote previously about three observations in crises management:

• Keep your receive filters open 
• Know when to act and when to reflect
• Respond don’t react

It’s likely that you need some help to do that when Covid-19 is testing the very fabric of our world. That’s where GRI comes in.

I encounter many prejudices around asking for external assistance: ‘we don’t need help, we can do it ourselves; it doesn’t work; it’s expensive’.  We’ve all been there and had bad experiences, including myself when I was the one doing the hiring.

Maybe that is the case but I’ve seen time again that the added value of external expert help, well defined and well managed is high. Although you know the answers, you’re time poor and focussed on your core business. Consultancy doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to be all about change: maybe you just need confirmation that your plans are robust.  What I learnt was that success was based on finding the right partner and knowing exactly what problem you needed to solve. Covid-19 is definitely a clear and present danger but it’s impacting differently on every organisation. 

Which is why the team at GRI work with you to find the right fit.  And we’ll tell you straight away if we’re not the right answer for you. The worse that can happen is that we confirm you don’t need us; in which case you can bask in the glow of being ‘Youngs enough’. Of course, you may find that you need a little help.

Finally, the more observant out there will have noticed the term ‘Strain Hardening’ on the graph. What does that mean?

Basically, if you keep deforming something it loses its ability to recover. Think elastic bands. If you keep stretching them repeatedly, time and time again, they break. If you try to unwrap a band that has been stretched around something for a while it often snaps (it’s also been age hardened). The graph shows this area as the ‘proportional’ limit, beyond which we reach the yield point. Very quickly. Past the yield point you’re in unchartered territory and there’s no coming back.

And yes, the ultimate strength on the graph lies beyond the yield point, so the sceptical may still believe they should push on.  Reach the maximum. Go for it!  Look a little closer though and you’ll see that it’s all downhill from there and fracture, or failure, to you and me is inevitable.  What the graph doesn’t show is the total collapse of internal structures (capacity, productivity and utility) that starts happening then. An organisation in chaos. Sound familiar?

To remind you of the caveats mentioned earlier: don’t confuse the ability to recover with strength, hardness or toughness!

Have you or your team been stretched repeatedly? Have you been changing back and forth, adapting, coping with new stresses? Ever been tired?  Chances are that you’re in the stress hardened zone. And you’ll probably need some help to reset. 

These guys know all about strength & elasticity

(Image from the 2004 Disney / Pixar film The Incredibles)

That’s what 200 years of engineering teaches us. The accumulation of many years’ experience. Reflected in modern leadership.

To improve the ‘engineering’ of your organisation, talk to us – it’s what we do.  We can help you stay in the elastic zone, keep things proportionate and away from the yield point. We can help mitigate the effects of stress hardening and build your ultimate strength, keeping your safety, security and leadership flexible and responsive for whatever comes next.

So, on reflection how “Youngs” are you?

www.globerisk.com

Tim Stockings is Strategic Adviser for GRI. He has been a senior leader in global public, private, not-for-profit and military organisations. He leads international operations, advises on security strategy and implications, holds Board roles and specialises in strategic transformation.