First Step is the Hardest

When first faced with a significant challenge - be it a crisis, bad news, the worst thing that could happen [you get the gist] - extreme difficulty, the normal response is to freeze.

These moments can be paralyzing and our thinking capacity seems to only run in survival mode, that is ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ - erupt in an outburst or flee the scene. It has happened to me, plenty of times.  From airborne emergencies when I was a Navy fighter pilot, to being shot at in combat, to having overwhelming events take me over such as the attack on the Pentagon at 9/11 where I was posted.

In any scenario, it is our central nervous system that kicks in flooding the brain and body with chemicals, such as adrenaline, that makes coherent conscious thought a virtual impossibility. This emotional distress response instinctively causes us to flinch or put up our fists, literally or figuratively, until our brain overpowers it. The hardest thing to do is to get over that initial overwhelming feeling that paralyzes us and start making good decisions towards solving the problem...taking the ever important first step.

After years of experience in just this environment here are a few things I have learned that work the best:

 1.  Condition your mind with steps. 

As a fighter pilot, I learned that under extreme stress our minds revert to what they have been trained for. In many cases, the first – almost instinctive – reaction is what the mind was last practiced to do. As an F-14 Tomcat pilot for more than twenty years, I spent many calm moments in solitude thinking of my hand-to-eye movements in an emergency, beforehand:

• Aviate – get control of and fly my aircraft…if I could not, I had to bail out and that decision had to be made before I ever took off;

• Navigate – figure out where I was and where I needed to go…if I was upside down or pointed straight at the ground I needed to right the aircraft, pull out of the dive and then turn towards the closest suitable landing strip—in combat that meant getting back to friendly lines or my aircraft carrier at sea;

• Communicate – someone needed to know what happened to me, what assistance I needed, and what information other(s) would need to prepare for my recovery, including bailout.

For professional athletes, developing instinctive reactions is often known as muscle-memory. Football players keep running or pushing until the whistle blows. Basketball players shoot the ball anytime a foul whistle sounds. In the case of emotional distress it is mental-muscle-memory. Your brain will do what it is conditioned – or last practiced – to do.

This kind of behavior is applicable to anyone who finds themselves in a stressful situation but I want to focus it here on business. Whether a professional or personal shock, and I have had both, the initial emotional response is the same and has to be dealt with quickly.

To translate my military flyer training above into the business realm, the initial reaction has to be forcing aside the panic. “STAY CALM!” Talking yourself ‘down’ by saying it or thinking it can actually stave off the adrenaline rush. We do it all the time in many situations like when our kids get hurt and we have to take charge of the situation until we get help—we stay calm for them.

But you have to practice thinking and saying this to yourself in calm solitude before that unplanned shock occurs—it is what your brain will subconsciously remember. AVIATE.


 2.  Under-react, especially in front of others.

Second, as you fight with your fears for control try to under-react especially in front of others. Force yourself to examine your demeanor, “do I appear calm and in control in front of others?” Now jump to the next step.

For most any situation, it is to ask questions of others about the report you just received. Is this a first report? How do we know it is accurate? How much do we know? What else do we need to get the whole picture?

I guarantee you that almost always you will not have enough or even the right information and it will take time to get it. In any case, this will be a step in internalizing what you know and what you do not know, both of which are important. But, what you immediately begin to form is a context for the situation that gives way to which direction to take next. NAVIGATE.


 3.  Externalize and ask 'who knows?'

Third, you must externalize by asking ‘who knows?’ and ‘who needs to know?’  By communicating, even what you do not know, you are taking ownership of the problem and a solution until relieved by someone else or have the situation under control.

Think about the ‘who’ in terms of internal and external audiences. In today’s world of instant communications including the ever-present personal social media, no news withheld gets better with age. Recall the many good and bad examples we all have witnessed when it comes to dealing with difficulty—in every case good communications always made the best of any situation while poor to no communications made things worse. In today’s world one thing is for certain...whatever you are dealing with will not be kept a secret for long. COMMUNICATE.

Remember, from the initial stage of your challenge take a finite amount of time—between 15-60 minutes—to go over pertinent questions and write down answers, in solitude, before going to or forming your team. Get yourself collected and as ready as you can before leading others. This solitude, as is critical for training your brain, is what will separate you form other managers in dealing with extreme adversity where the first step is the hardest.

John Stufflebeem on How Adversity = Opportunity

Adversity = opportunity.  I know this firsthand as fact.

There are many techniques taught in a variety of media to deal with crises whether they are through leadership training, public relations, or self improvement seminars, books, what have you.  But I learned simple techniques that worked even when I was in the most inhospitable reaches of the world with no apparent ways out.

In my experience, the most effective technique to deal with a significant challenge is an effects-based methodology known as Effects-Based Thinking.  To help you attain an outcome vision (team build), create a series of steps including the matching messages that go with them to get you from where you are to where you want to be (plan), and then measure the progress of yourself and your team with as many metrics as you can validate obtaining quick wins along the way to build momentum (execute)...YOU WILL SUCCEED.  The process actually repeats itself constantly even if only in review to develop resilience—a required skill of successful managers.


Effects-Based Thinking can be summarized in the following three steps:

1) OBJECTIVES


2) EFFECTS


3) ACTIONS

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."  - Albert Einstein

These 3 steps are set into motion through a series of questions and responses.  Even in a brief amount of time, one can understand and build a plan to turn challenges into opportunities by examining a set of issues—the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’—that help lead to the right solutions and success.



1)  OBJECTIVES 

Important questions to consider in this first step...

- What is/are the potential opportunities I want from this crisis* ? 


- What do I want the outcome to be or look like and how long do I think it will take to make it happen? 


- What can I do in the next few minutes or hours to make a start towards that outcome? 


- What are the steps we should build and what process or processes should we use or adopt to create a plan of action to guide us through to the desired outcome? 


- What are the assumptions that must be examined now and re-examined later?

* Opportunities are what you make of them and can include: a better position in the marketplace, a better advantage for your customer, correctly dealing with a product recall, avoiding impending financial disaster, a stronger company or division from adversity, and more. The point is to look for what doors are opened from a challenge—they are always there but how do you or your team members see them?



2)  EFFECTS 

Noteworthy questions for this second step...

- What steps or actions can I take to create a positive effect? 


- How can I position myself to be more effective in generating positive effects? 


- What positive effects can I create for those around me? 


- How can I mobilize those on my team to get them into action? 


- What is the plan of action that will create the effects I need? 


- How should I communicate my plan and who should receive it?



3)  ACTIONS

Key questions for our third and final step...

- What are the factors that I can control and what are those that I cannot? 


- What aspects of this situation can I directly influence to change the course of events? 


- What would a manager or leader I admire do in this situation? 


- Who on my team can help and what is the best way to get that person (or persons) on my team? 


- How do I figure out or assume the specific causes of the situation and contain them? 


- What do I do to reduce the downside of the situation, even by a few percent, and what do I do to maximize the upside, even by a few percent? 


- How can I get quick wins to build confidence and foster more to the tip-over point? 


- What are the resources and strengths I – and my team – need to have or develop to address this situation? 


- What are the things I can do – and my team collectively – to minimize the damage and turn this challenge into opportunity?



SOME ALONE TIME IS GOOD

In the initial stage of your challenge take a finite amount of time—between 15-60 minutes, but limit it in any event—to go over these questions and write down answers. Do it in solitude and have your team members do the same; the best creative thoughts come from individuals, not from groups.

Ever notice that you normally come up with your best ideas in the shower, or driving to/from work, before tweeting or spending time on Facebook or during a workout?  Later, get the team together and share answers to build the outline of a plan of actions. In my experience, you save vastly more time doing it this way than trying to build a plan from group-think.

While advocates for strategic communications and crisis management argue for pre-planned responses and checklists [some will even sell you theirs] my experience from the world over is that human nature will cause managers to hope for the best in advance and deal with the worst when it happens. Some have never dealt with real challenge in their meteoric rise to their elevated positions and others have been bailed out by supervisors who took ownership of the problems.

But the best I have seen, those who are truly extraordinary take on challenges as opportunities and revel in it. They grow faster and in ways they have not imagined and they have trained themselves or build a resilience to be better prepared for the next one. From my experiences and by the example of others, I have come to look forward to adversity for just those reasons...I get smarter, more confident, and actually find exhilaration in turning tough challenges into success.

For me, there is tremendous personal and professional satisfaction and reward in crisis management and strategic communications. It can be this way for you too but until you achieve that level of confidence, this is a simple, logical way to focus your energies and turn challenges into opportunities.

3 Steps to Handling Adversity - by John Stufflebeem

One of the most difficult things in life to deal with is adversity, especially when it comes as a crisis. 

Whether personal or professional, it always seems to take a very personal toll and the initial response almost always is fear, panic, or a loss at how to get started fixing it. But anyone can learn how to deal with adversity that assures a positive outcome from dealing with the media to overcoming personal attack. In my years as a military officer, I had to deal with adversity constantly and learned how to prevail.

When adversity strikes, the most natural human response is emotional and like grief, there are early moments of denial, e.g. “this can’t be happening to me”…or…"why is this happening to me”…or…”it’s not my fault”…or…”who did this to me?” This is often followed by self-examination, e.g. “what do I do?”…”how do I get out of this?”… which often quickly results in self doubt or even mental paralysis. These are natural responses but what happens next is most important.

One quickly has to gain composure, especially in front of others, establish calm and begin a process that is logical, focused, and effective. To be in charge, you have to look like you are in charge even if you do not know what to do yet. Here are some steps that I found worked very well when I was faced with extreme adversity.


Step 1 – Take a deep breath, hold it, and then exhale. 

Force the initial panic and self-doubt to the back of your mind. Everything is going to be OK but it might just take a little time. Think about other bad times you have been through and how, with time, most everything worked out. While hard to wait, especially at first, the facts of a crisis and solution always become evident once a little time has passed and context is gained.

At the beginning of a crisis, every problem looks as overwhelming as trying to eat an elephant whole. But the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So, at the beginning of a crisis, affirm to yourself that you will get to figure out a way ahead but you must allow the time necessary to get there even when it appears that there is no time. In a crunch-time environment, there is a phenomenon of speed of decision which is another topic for another day worth understanding.


Step 2 – Under-react. 

Crisis brings out panic and some individuals who are there want others to be there too. Do not go there. When you get the initial reports of bad news realize that first reports are often wrong, or at least not wholly correct or complete, and under-react. It has an immediate calming affect not only on you but on others as well and when you appear to be in control, it instills confidence in nearly everyone.

I once told some excited subordinates, who brought me bad news, and in their panic pushed me to give them a solution. But I had no facts I could use so I told them “I did not know yet what we should do but I will soon” and started by asking questions which they had to go research and report back on. It worked.

Step 3 – Decide where you want to be when this crisis is over.

Take a strategic view of how you want this to look like once out the end of the adversity. Focus on a desired outcome. You must get to and keep the big picture of what the end-state should be as everyone around you – senior, peer, and subordinate – starts diving for tactical details in earnest but inefficient effort. For a company or individual you should think in terms of ‘stronger’, ‘better positioned,' and ‘wiser’ as attributes to go along with an outcome. 

Turning Adversity into Opportunity

Doing just these three things gets you started in turning the challenge of adversity into opportunity as well as becoming a better leader and manager, having a stronger company or team, or at least preventing the worst to come true in say a lawsuit, collapse, or failure. And, in going through a trial such as this, you build resiliency for when something bad happens again in the future.

Now come the details of a process in moving calmly, with confidence, which leads you from where you are to where you want to be with the caveat that you or someone responsible must stay at the strategic level and not get bogged down in the operational and tactical details.  I will give you that process in my next article.