Winning in the turns

This article provides three key tips about how you can 'win in the turns' at minimal cost and based on variables entirely within your control.

“Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.” Andy Grove, former global CEO of Intel

We all remember Stephen Bradbury’s gold medal winning speed skating race in 2002. Bradbury became the butt of many jokes winning gold because everyone else in the race fell over. From that point on he became known as the ‘last man standing’.

‘Having a Bradbury’ has become Aussie slang for anyone that wins not due to their own efforts but because of the competition's incompetence or failure.

Bradbury however, and as you might expect, sees things very differently. He had a very intentional strategy going into that race knowing that victory would be won or lost in the turns, as he describes in the video below.

"Heading into a turn, when momentum is shifting, visibility is poor & the outcome uncertain, is the single best shot to pursue and seize the lead" according to Gartner's Jackie Wiles.

Research across the Fortune 1000 (read here) shows the same applies in business. During the GFC a very small number of companies (n=42) broke away from the pack. They crossed the finish line first in their industries out of the GFC. But more importantly the gap between their performance and the rest continued to widen for the subsequent decade, delivering 13% annualised EBITDA growth compared to -1% in the control group of 542 Fortune 1000 companies.

Companies would be only too fortunate to have a 'Bradbury moment' on this basis. It is a great compliment & one organisations should actively work towards. 

This notion of ‘winning in the turns’ is not new. It is central to Joseph Campbell’s research from the last century comparing many of the world’s great religions, literary classics and mythology. In his 1949 work The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell states...

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society [i.e. the turn]. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.”

This story line no doubt sounds familiar with almost every major motion picture from Star Wars in the 70's to this year's release of The Lion King being based on this script.

Prior to Campbell the great 20th century artist Pablo Picasso produced some of his greatest works in response to the upheaval of World War 1. 

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction” according to Picasso.

Polymath and Founding Father of the USA Benjamin Franklin famously said in the 1700's...

“the things which hurt instruct.”

Another great artist that embodies ‘winning in the turns’ is the 15th century’s Leonardo da Vinci. In Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography of the original renaissance man da Vinci is described as a blithe societal misfit: “illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical.”

In such times such attributes drew all kinds of societal angst. However for da Vinci it was a blessing. His illegitimacy meant he was not expected to follow in his father’s line of business as a notary and landlord. As a ‘bastard’ he was also minimally educated, in math and writing, rather than schooled in the Latin authors reserved for youths of higher rank.

“Untrammelled by authority, he was free to think creatively” Isaacson says of da Vinci.

His distractability led him to great insights about mathematics, mechanics, architecture, scientific law and nature which he then applied to his paintings and sculpture.

da Vinci's life is one of the most remarkable examples of just how fortunate our misfortunes can be.

Jumping right back to the second century Marcus Aurelius, emperor of the Roman Empire wrote

“the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Too often we see setbacks, obstacles and failure as reasons not to proceed. Those quoted above certainly had their fair share of such reasons but the difference between them and most of us is how they responded to such turns.

As Matthew Syed highlights in his recent book Black Box Thinking, which examines the high performance secrets of some of the most pioneering and innovative organisations in the world, in every instance

“the explanation for success hinges, in powerful and often counter-intuitive ways, on how we react to failure.” 

Those that 'win in the turns' think and react differently in at least three key ways.

1. They see setbacks and obstacles as a sign of progress.

Have you ever experienced a power out when you were walking around your house at night? The only way to ensure you don’t bump into something is if you stand still. But standing still won’t get you to the cupboard where your torch is located, or to the fuse box where the blown fuse can be fixed, or to the phone to ring the power company to find out what is going on. Only when you are moving will you bump into things but without moving you can’t find a solution. 

People that ‘win in the turns’ know that bumping into things is always going to happen when you are moving forward. In fact if they don’t experience setbacks and obstacles they may get concerned that they are playing too safe and not moving fast enough.

Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson (above) observed this phenomenon when researching the performance of medical teams in hospitals. She wanted to know do better teams make fewer mistakes. To her surprise she found the exact opposite. 

“The most cohesive hospital teams reported making the most mistakes, not fewer.”

Of critical importance to this research is that the best teams were comfortable talking about these mistakes, seeing them as both inevitable and central to learning, ergo point 2 below. 

2. They see setbacks and obstacles as a clue for continued progress.

One of my mentors asked me a few years ago why I hadn’t started my own business. “Three key obstacles” I said. “Firstly school fees for my four kids. Secondly servicing my mortgage. Thirdly would I win work on my own.” “Fantastic” he said in reply. “Now you know exactly what you need to do in preparing to go out on your own.”

From that point onwards I put in place a plan to cover the school fees and mortgage for 12 months after leaving employment. I also started talking to those that had started their own business about what they wish they had done or did do to set themselves up for success before leaving the safety of employment.

My mentor flipped the script, turning what I thought were obstacles into stepping stones to help me move forward with greater confidence.

Inventor Sir James Dyson (above) embodies this principle. Frustrated by how vacuums lost their suction he pulled one apart in 1978 quickly realising the obstacle related to fine dust getting caught in the walls of the vacuum bag. That was his first clue to creating the bagless vacuum.

The second obstacle however was if he removed the bag how would he separate the dust from the air? This 'turn' became Dyson’s second clue. A chance visit to a timber merchant provided the answer. By filtering the wood dust and air through a cyclonic tube centrifugal force would separate the two from each other.

Turning the first and second obstacles into clues resulted in Dyson revolutionising vacuum technology. Since then he has of course applied a similar design method to transforming other tech and amassed a personal fortune in excess of $3b and growing. Dyson sees ‘the turns’ as essential to innovation. 

“Creativity should be thought of as a dialogue. You have to have a problem before you can have the game-changing riposte.” Sir James Dyson

3. They focus on what they can control and accept, if not celebrate, what they can’t.

We are all familiar with Covey’s circles of control and concern. We know that focusing on what we are concerned about but can't control is not only a waste of time it can create significant psychological distress.

About a year ago I decided to stop watching the news on television. I was increasingly finding the whole experience depressing and distressing. So much going wrong and very rarely anything I could do about it. TV news gives no control to the viewer about what stories they will see, and lets face it most of the stories are bad. No wonder entrepreneur Peter Diamandis calls CNN the ‘Crisis News Network’.

Instead I read the paper online or in print. That way I choose what articles I will read, focusing on only things that I can do something with or about. Not only is it more efficient I also feel more informed and focused by doing so.

Business and leadership transformation guru Dr Peter Fuda has worked with CEOs and exec teams all around the world. One consistent trait he sees in the best of the best relates to this point, as paraphrased below. 

When confronted by a setback, obstacle or challenge there are only two options: change it or accept it. There is no place for complaining, whinging, regret or guilt when it comes to high performance… only control or acceptance.

I entirely concur with Peter and would go one step further. In addition to accepting ‘the turns’ I think in many cases we can also celebrate them. 

Stop reading this article for just a minute and consider all the great things that have happened to you in your life. 

• Your partner.
• The best job you’ve ever had.
• That 'never to be forgotten' holiday experience.
• Your kids.

So many of the best things that happen to us result from factors outside our control. 

• Yes you went to that party where you met your life partner but you had no idea that they would be there. 
• Yes you applied for that job but you never knew the company was about to sky rocket off the back of changes in the general market. 
• Yes you booked the holiday but you had no control over the weather, the tour guide, the people you were travelling with etc etc etc. 
• Yes you decided to have kids and helped make them but had no choice over the DNA they inherited, the timing of their birth, their gender, their personality on so on.

When I finished school I was dead set on becoming a physio. In my final exams I got the necessary results to get in based on the previous year's intake, but due to demand the mark went up in my year. I ended up missing out by 1%. I was devastated.

The university suggested I enrol in a Science degree and then apply to transfer if my first year results were high enough. I did all that but in my first year I also discovered psychology. I never transferred to physio and have never looked back. I completed my psych undergrad, then psych honours, psych masters and more recently post grad studies in positive psychology. Over my 20+ year career I have used this knowledge to help companies and leaders get the best out of themselves and their teams. I celebrate regularly that the entrance mark for physio jumped up that year. Totally out of my control, but such a blessing.

We are quick to claim credit for the best things in our lives, and are right to say we played a role. However the reality is there is so much more outside of our control than in our control. So often the things outside our control work in our favour and can be celebrated. Maybe Covey should update the outer circle in his model to the ‘circle of celebration’?

I say this fully cognizant that life doesn’t always work out the way we hope for. We have all or will all experience great hardship in our lives, either within or outside our control. In the last decade I have lost a son, my dad and my mum. My family has also experienced mental illness and major physical health issues. 

Am I suggesting I celebrate such things? Respectfully I say yes for it has been through these times that I have grown the most. I deeply believe that whatever you go thru grows you, if you so choose. I also acknowledge that such a choice at times can feel almost impossible, but it is always there, no matter how small and distant it may feel.

Learning your ABC’s

Professor Martin Seligman (below) is considered by many as the founder of positive psychology (not to be confused with positive thinking or pop psychology). I describe positive psychology as the science behind how humans think, feel and behave when at their best.

Seligman describes a simple and powerful process related to the three points above as ‘learning your ABCs’. 

A stands for adversity (the turn), B for beliefs and C for consequences. When exposed to adversity we quickly interpret what it means based on our beliefs. We then ascribe meaning to the adversity which in turn generates thoughts, feelings and ultimately a behavioural response.

When our beliefs are pessimistic we tend to interpret adversity as a threat and our response is appropriately focused on surviving.

The great news is we can train our brain to be more optimistic. By doing so we can learn to interpret adversity as an advantage and our response will be more focused on thriving.

As Churchill said...

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

The video below does an good job capturing the difference between pessimistic and optimistic explanatory styles if you'd like to know more about how they differ. The 'rubber band' technique sounds a bit lame but bizarrely it works, at least in the short term. The video also provides a link that unpacks explanatory styles further worth reading.

Yes it is true that some of us are ‘naturally’ more pessimistic or optimistic than others, but Seligman's research proved that our natural point on the pessimism-optimism scale is not fixed. We can all learn to be more optimistic.

Can you be too optimistic? 

Sure. Pessimism has its place but far less often than we think. A more useful mental position to take is to develop ‘realistic optimism’. Social psychologist Heidi Grant (below) captures the essence of realistic optimism below in this excerpt from HBR.

“to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it’s the difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist.

“Realistic optimists believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies. They recognize the need for giving serious thought to how they will deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things done.

Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them — that the universe will reward them for all their positive thinking, or that somehow they will be transformed overnight into the kind of person for whom obstacles cease to exist.

One of the clearest illustrations of the dangers of unrealistic optimism comes from a study of weight loss. Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen asked a group of obese women who had enrolled in a weight-loss program how likely they felt they were to reach their goals. She found that those women who were confident that they would succeed lost 26 pounds more than self-doubters, as expected.

But Oettingen also asked the women to tell her what they imagined their road to success would be like — if they thought they would have a hard time resisting temptation, or if they’d have no problem turning down free doughnuts in the conference room and a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. The results were astounding: women who believed they would succeed easily lost 24 pounds less than those who thought their weight-loss journey would be no walk in the park.”

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist[ic optimist] adjusts the sails. William Arthur Ward

In closing this article lets’ return to where we began. 

‘Winning in the turns’ is not only an option for us as individuals like Bradbury, Campbell, Picasso, Franklin, da Vinci and Aurelius it also applies to organisations such as the Fortune 1000. 

Not only is winning in the turns possible it is quite possibly the best time to get ahead and stay ahead.

Rather than blaming the external environment or complaining about factors outside our control the winners in this research leverage ‘the turns’ to differentiate and outperform in the short term and widen the gap between them and their peers over the long term.

Of course nothing is guaranteed or totally in our control in life or in business. We know for example that some 88% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 are not here today, victims to the many 'turns' over the last 60 odd years. 

Fortunately we also know that the likelihood of success is significantly improved by how we respond to ‘the turns’ such as setbacks, obstacles and failures and our response is 100% within out control. The importance of this cannot be overstated. As author Matthew Syed says...

“We need to redefine our relationship with [the turns], as individuals, as organisations, and as societies. This is the most important step on the road to a high-performance revolution; increasing the speed of development in human activity and transforming those areas that have been left behind. Only by redefining [the turns such as failure] will we unleash progress, creativity and resilience.”

And finally embracing the potential that the best things that happen to us in life are so often outside of our control can liberate us from the fear of future 'turns'. We live in the most peaceful, abundant, educated, democratic, healthy time in human history. We have every reason to look ahead with realistic optimism and confidence that with the right beliefs, as described in this article, things will get even better.

My best to you for winning in the turns.

**************************************************************************

Rich Hirst is a leadership, change and high performance psychologist. His insights are based on real world experiences from his work with 10,000+ leaders and over 1,000 CEOs, underpinned by his knowledge as an organisational psychologist and expertise as a change agent supporting organisations for more than 20 years going through major transformation.

For more information please go to www.richhirst.com or contact me via email on [email protected]. Please find below links to my previous monthly posts.

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