Never waste a good crisis!

Hyper growth, high performance, turn arounds, taking share, game changing, disrupting and other wonderful business clichés may sound appealing and attract attention but in these times of increasing uncertainty one outcome is perhaps the most critical of all… how we respond to adversity, setbacks, crises and failure.

The title of this article is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill and referenced more recently by Hillary Clinton when addressing the European Parliament in 2009 as US Secretary of State. If she only knew what was coming!

A few years ago Professor Carol Dweck of Stanford University spent some time with us at the CEO Forum. Carol’s research and advice regarding the importance of developing growth mindsets in our children, students, employees and most importantly ourselves is particularly relevant in times of adversity. The diagram below does a good job of summarising the alternative ways we may look at the world.

Carol recounted a story from one of her interviews with an influential Japanese academic who asked her ‘why do people in the west associate pain with negativity? Pain is a pathway to growth.’ We know this from our children experiencing growing pains, from the discomfort we feel when physically working out, how hard it can be when studying for an exam, or the stress of preparing for a big presentation or pitch at work. 

Pain is so often the precursor to progress, so why do we go to such great lengths to avoid it and struggle when it is unavoidable?

Part of the answer to the first question is biological. We all know about our largely hardwired instinctive programming designed to protect ourselves from harm so I won’t go into that here. Part of the answer however is cultural, as the Japanese academic highlighted before, and that part of it is therefore open to change.

Andy Meikle joined us this month to share his insights about ‘strong minds’. Based on his research spanning 26 years and over 30,000 elite performing individuals from every field imaginable Andy has identified a number of overwhelming patterns that underlie strength of mind.

Andy provided the example of Tour de France competitors training for six weeks in the hills before the le Tour that they call their ‘phase of suffering’. Cadel Evans said of these six weeks ‘that you just need to get it out of the way and during that time suffer well’. This particular pattern Andy has identified in countless elite performers. He calls this principle ‘do pain well’.

Most people spend their lives trying to work out how do I keep away from pain. Elite performers ask how do I do pain well?

Andy proposes that asking ‘how do I do pain well’ leads to strong minds for two reasons.

Firstly this question puts the control dynamic with the individual, ie. it sets the you up to work out what you can control about the painful situation. The alternative is to focus on avoiding variables outside your control, which can lead to feelings such as helplessness, fear, regret, and disdain, as well as taking your attention away from the performance at hand.

Secondly the more we expose ourselves to any stimuli the more we become desensitized to it. Andy refers to this process as ‘extinction’ and it explains how people like Cadel can tolerate levels of physical pain during training that would be unbearable to most humans, and best position himself for the ultimate prize... the yellow jersey.

Courage is a hot topic these days. Next month Major Matina Jewell (retired) will be joining us to talk about courage on the front line from her time in the Australian military. As one of Australia’s most decorated female leaders in Australian military history she knows a thing or two about courage, having served on the front-line of a devastating war between Israel and the Hezbollah, boarded ships smuggling contraband in the Arabian Gulf, and tracked-down a notorious militia leader in the Solomon Islands, to name but a few missions.

There are many theories and perspectives about where courage comes from and how/whether it can be developed. There is agreement however about its importance in a world that is increasingly uncertain. 

For mine there is a clear link between courage and our response to pain. If pain is entirely negative and serves no purpose then facing it dead on indeed requires enormous courage. However if pain and discomfort are actually formative, providing a pathway to progress that otherwise would go astray, then it does not require the same level of courage to face.

I do not mean to diminish the role of courage or suggest that those that display it simply have learned to do pain well, however I do think that our efforts to be more courageous will be significantly advantaged by realizing that trial, adversity, setback and mistakes are a natural part of the journey. As mentioned in a previous post

setbacks don’t mean you have failed, they mean you are human. 

Setbacks are also a powerful informant and perhaps we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. One of my favourite quotes from all the CEOs we’ve worked with over the years is from Jane Huxley at Pandora Internet Radio in Australia & New Zealand. Jane said

“Failing every day is a part of the role. My job is to get it wrong”.

Leading Pandora in A&NZ enables Jane to try new things in this market and apply the learnings to Pandora's larger home market in the USA. As she humorously but poignantly points out a $2m mistake here would cost $100m in the US so by getting it wrong here she’s actually saving the business $98m.

I caught up with an old friend today Sam Cawthorn. His life was literally turned up-side-down when he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and had a head on collision with a truck, their combined speeds approximating 206km/h. Sam miraculously escaped death but lost his right arm, broke countless bones in his body, and was told he would never walk again. 

Over a decade later pain for Sam continues to be a daily experience, albeit far from what it was in the first few years. One of the core philosophies that has kept Sam going, one which he embodies in every fibre, is that

"crisis creates opportunity".

Such a sentiment is not only wise counsel but also steeped in evidence. Professor Stephen Joseph is one of the world's leading researchers of post-traumatic stress disorder. His approach to treating sufferers of PTSD profoundly changed when he realised that trauma had resulted in both negative and positive implications for his clients, and that negative and positive go hand in hand.

Key to what Joseph describes as post-traumatic growth (PTG) is our ability to ascribe meaning to the trials and pain we experience, to see trauma and stress as an engine for transformation. Joseph is not by any means trivializing trauma. Far from it. Much of his work is focused on the ameliorating the damaging effects of trauma.

However Joseph believes much of the effects of trauma have been overestimated and that the majority of those who face potentially traumatic events are relatively resilient (picture of Joseph's book on this topic above). Most importantly he states that

"many people find benefits in adversity that can provide a springboard to higher levels of functioning than before".

I have referenced but a handful of sources in this article that promote the power and importance of crisis, challenge, trial, pain and trauma in our lives from an almost-president, to a Stanford Professor, to a high performance researcher, a multinational CEO, a near-fatal car crash survivor and finally a world leading expert in PTSD & PTG. All share the common view that

“whatever you go through grows you...”

if you so choose it. The choice IS yours.

Having journeyed through PTSD myself I know that the choices available at times can seem incredibly distant, if not absent altogether. In those moments the choice may be limited to something as basic as getting out of bed. But over time the depth and breadth of the choices available to us do return and it is more than possible for us to not just recover but to ultimately be a better version of ourselves as a result of the trial. There is no need to waste a good crisis! Holding on to this truth is key to achieving this outcome.

Please find below links to my previous monthly posts.

• Your best bet yet for a year of success
• What will your New Year's Evolution be?
• Are you ready for the 'gig economy'?
• Are you working with an energy vampire?
• From counting people to making people count
• Five novel tactics for better leadership
• Mid year reviews: Ubiquitous but ridiculous
• Talent pipelines are broken
• Australia: The innovation immigration correlation
• Time to reimagine HR
• The secret to successful disruption: The innovation colony
• How to survive and thrive in the supermatrix
• The biggest predictor of career success is...
• The secret to high performance is not what you think...
• Where are you on the digital vortex?
• Diversity does not equal inclusion
• How to catch and hold the rebound expat
• The e-factor is the new x: the ultimate growth multiplier
• Are you working with a waste of space?
• Iron Man needs you!
• Collaboration: the new super skill
• Leading innovation from the Australian subsidiary
• Insurgent or incumbent: the key to a future every company wants is...
• Why the talent war is over
• How 'the other GDP' is causing a talent crunch

Rich Hirst is a Director of CEB's International Executive Forums, providing a range of services specifically and exclusively for the most senior executives in the Australian operations of foreign-owned multinational corporations.  

CEB's International Executive Forums operate four peer groups: the International CEO Forum with over 3o0 CEO members; the International CFO Forum with almost 180 CFO members; the International HRD Forum with some 160 HRD members; and in 2016 we launched the International CSO Forum for heads of sales functions. In addition to our peer group services, we also provide a range of opportunities for our member companies to develop their up-and-coming talent through a series of events with a particular focus on women and emerging executives. For more information please call +612 9955 2848.

CEB is a best practice insight and technology company. In partnership with leading organizations around the globe, we develop innovative solutions to drive corporate performance. CEB equips leaders at more than 10,000 companies with the intelligence to effectively manage talent, customers, and operations. CEB is a trusted partner to 90% of the Fortune 500, nearly 75% of the Dow Jones Asian Titans, and more than 85% of the FTSE 100.