Adapt and Overcome - Take This With You

The recent rescue and continuing story of the Chilean miners buried for more than two months is inspiring and instructive. It's hard to imagine the difficulties thirty three people experienced trapped in a cramped space thousands of feet deep, stifling hot and humid, unsure of their futures, and still arrive at the surface in apparent good health, mentally and physically.

One still can't discount the potential for some to develop post traumatic stress disorder (mental health experts note about one in five do fall prey statistically with the onset often delayed) but these individuals adapted to a hostile environment and uncertain future and overcame all local problems to not only survive but thrive.

Watching this drama unfold I observed some familiar things. In the years since the attacks of 9/11, we have witnessed increased numbers of our military youth struggle with severe physical and mental injuries from the war zones. Their experiences may have been harrowing and their recoveries may be daunting but their abilities to adapt and overcome are not just by chance and are worth examining for lessons to be learned and absorbed into skills.

It was in the military that I found these skills. In every discipline, we were taught to adapt to changes and overcome the obstacles to achieving success.  The training imparted to everyone who wears the uniform, the cloth of our nation, embodies the blood stained lessons learned from those who went before us. Often our training contained scenarios that were not winnable in order to instill the resilience to never give up while searching for and sometime innovating solutions under extreme stress. Most certainly the more salient and cogent lessons are gleaned from life and death experiences and we often learned from the examples others gave us in their deaths.

For sure these skills are not unique to the military.  Nearly every walk of life has every bit as much challenge and opportunity witnessed by cancer survivors, accidents of all kinds, and personal as well as professional hardships. But in the military comes, for most people, the most concentrated and valuable training anywhere in dealing with all kind of issues.

Some say the difference between survival and loss is only a matter of attitude or will.  There is obviously a strong element of that but there is more.

I have seen and lived that...

A.   Human beings are at their best under extreme adversity

B.   Management, leadership and organization are important concepts in every facet of life including overcoming adversity

C.   Embracing emotions help humans adapt to extreme conditions

D.   And being part of a group enhances survival

These observations are at the foundation of skills to adapt and overcome and are embedded in the lessons I have previously noted.

To help get you started thinking about how to adapt and overcome when hit with adversity, here's my list of practical tips:
 
#1. TRUST you can prevail and come out of it stronger. 

When in the midst of a maelstrom it may feel more like blind faith than trust in what you can't see but it is true; your best will come out when under pressure. In my darkest hour, when I was personally attacked by an unknown person, or persons, who held falsely against me and I lost a job and a career I loved, I trusted I would be able to find my way out of the ordeal in good stead. 

As a result of that will, I have a new career with more rewards than I anticipated and have real contentment in my life particularly with the variety of challenges I find exhilarating. It all started with trusting I would prevail and used the stress of the moment to find salient solutions to tough issues. Some noted I made my own good luck.
 
 

#2. FOCUS on what you want the outcome to look like. 

You can't roll back any clock or go back to how it was before but you can visualize where you want to be at the end of the crisis. Make that your goal or objective. That way you won't be susceptible to the panic that causes us to over-react to a situation.
 
As I flew in to Islamabad, Pakistan in 2005 to deal with the devastating earthquake in the Himalayan Mountains with few resources and very little guidance, I had to focus on how the Pakistani people and leadership viewed our outside assistance. This was not easy as we were instantly viewed with great suspicion about our wanting to use the cover of a natural disaster to go after terrorists. 

With the help of a small team, we created a focus in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief for less than 3,000 engineers and medical people from eight different countries that aided nearly 267,000 locals in distress. We wanted our forces to leave Pakistan with those people willing to ask us back if need be. As a result, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was not only asked to come back but invited to establish a permanent office in Pakistan.
 

#3. BUILD -- lead or manage -- an organization, a team, you can identify with. 

For it can help to plan your way ahead with concrete steps to bring action to the effects you need to develop in meeting your objective.
 
When I worked in the Pentagon at 9/11 and 200 of my friends and colleagues were lost instantly to the hijacked airliner hitting the building I was initially overcome with grief, rage, and panic. I had to visualize what I wanted my world to look like especially since hundreds of subordinates were looking to me for guidance. 

I developed in my mind a picture of my group heads down and urgently finding an appropriate response, set of responses really, to what Usama bin Ladin had done to us regardless of the terrible destruction and fire that was around us. In a matter of two days our team was there with determined purpose, sharp focus and concrete ideas that went up to our national leadership.
 
 

#4. CONTROL your emotions in that you will experience some or all of the stages of grief in crisis. 

Learn to embrace the feelings that turn chaos into order, anxiety into purpose, and recognize feelings are our warning and guidance systems. Start by under-reacting to situations.
 
As a pilot, I lost a number of friends and colleagues to horrific aircraft accidents around aircraft carriers over the years. If I had not been able to compartmentalize my emotions to keep them under wraps and bring them out when I could deal with them, I could not have brought myself or led others back into our cockpits within hours to carry on our missions. We would have been non-functional. It's not about suppressing or hiding your emotions, it's about keeping them under control and dealing with them in the right place and time to be able to continue functioning.
 

#5. TAKE CHARGE of yourself and others. 

Social collectives where everyone has a voice are inherently problematic. No one is going to fix your problem for you -- unless you hire someone specifically to do it -- so just do it.
 
In the military, one sign of a good leader is recognition when to take charge and when to support and follow others when they are in charge. Group meetings are good for sharing ideas but not making decisions; management by committee does not work. When I have been in group field exercises, like senior leadership seminars or survival school when I was a Naval Officer, I realized if I did not take charge or support one who did, we did not get the objectives accomplished. Somebody has to stand up and manage a problem to get a solution--"if not me, then who..?"

Regardless of the circumstances we are faced with, we can adapt to almost anything thrown at us IF we trust that we have the abilities, focus on an outcome, realize and admit we can't do it alone, and keep our heads. We can overcome just about any obstacle IF we create and see an intended endstate and engineer steps to get from where we are to where we want to be. 

If young Soldiers can walk and ride bikes again after having their legs blown off and miners can be rescued after extraordinary time of being buried alive, then we can adapt and overcome our adversity too.

Take this with you and keep hold of it in case you need it one day...