Revisiting The Stockdale Paradox - The Power of Confronting Reality

Recently a colleague of mine sent me an article about the Stockdale Paradox. Essentially it is about the need to confront and deal with the world as it is, not just as what you wish it were. It was a great reminder to revisit Jim Collins' book “Good to Great” that details this:

The name refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner’s rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisoners who would survive unbroken, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda....After his release, Stockdale became the first three-star officer in the history of the Navy to wear both Aviator Wings and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

How on earth did he deal with it when he was actually there and did not know the end of the story?”

“I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said, when I asked him. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Finally, I asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused given what he’d said earlier.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end–-which you can never afford to lose–-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

This is somewhat contradictory to the plethora of self-help gurus and consultants who constantly espouse focusing on "the positive" and "visualize success and it will come". They frequently leave out the part that flummoxes so many people - the inability to face the situation as it truly stands, and deal with it properly. These people then surround themselves in a selective information bubble of only good news and "yes-men" that only feeds their confirmation bias that somehow magically things will all work, and proceed to shun and drown out the messengers who conflict with the narrative. In the process, leaders not only fool themselves but fool others into a distorted reality.

Take, for example, a multi-year digital transformation project that has "status green" all the way through until the day of go-live it flips to red. A long sales campaign that has been forecast as a 'sure thing' until the day you learn you lost the deal. The funding round that you believe you're entitled to, but never closes. The business idea that you had, but has run its course. The team member you think will turn around but never does. There are so many more examples in business that have succumbed to the Stockdale Paradox.

One of my mentors always used to say to me: "In business, only the paranoid survive, so understand and confront the facts as they stand today, no matter how brutally painful, and focus on solutions," It's been invaluable advice that I think remains so vitally important that more people need to embrace, and ensure that the organizational culture is open to confronting bad news instead of candy-coating it with perception management.

Where in your career have you seen this play out, and what are you doing to resolve not to fall into this trap?

(btw much gratitude to Walter "Ted" Carter who shared this inspiring anecdote 4 yrs ago when he reshared this article: "I met VADM Stockdale and his wife Sybil in 1999 to receive his leadership award while I commanded the VF-14 Tophatters. Sadly, it would be the last time they both attended his named prestigious award together. Lynda and I spoke at Sybil's funeral (2015) at the Naval Academy together. (VADM Stockdale passed away in 2005)...this piece below is every bit of VADM Jim Stockdale's philosophy on not just how to survive but how to thrive. I have based much of my leadership philosophy over my 38 year career in the Navy on this principle and continue to do so at Nebraska University.")