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.