There was a moment during our recent phone conversation when he said, “It’s just crazy out there. Uncertainty, risk, doubt. Everything is totally unpredictable. Core systems and structures are in question. Every problem is an adaptive problem. There is no normal. Crazy and chaotic is the new normal. It’s a sideways cyclone in the midst of a Grand Canyon of chaos. And you know what? I haven’t a clue about how to lead my people though this.”
Then, there was a long pause. I just waited. After a bit, he continued, “What am I supposed to do? How am I suppose to plan for the future when I am not sure how, on one level, we are supposed to get through the coming month?”
As he continued to share his frustrations, I was reminded of something Jim Collins and Morten Hansen wrote in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperCollins, 2011). As they explained, “We cannot predict the future. But we can create it.” It is an important point. We can create the future or we can react to the future. All the research within this book is based on a single question: “Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?” Their answer is a powerful one: “they create.... they prevail.... they thrive.”
First, now is the time for leaders to pull this book off the shelf and begin to reread it. They need to study and think about the implications of this research. At the same time, they need to get copies for their entire leadership team. Then, the group as a whole needs to discuss the content and insights within the book.
Second, within this book, we need to focus on how companies approach and manage risk. In particular, we need to understand the three categories of risk, namely Death Line Risk, which can kill or severely damage the enterprise, Asymmetric Risk, in which the downside dwarfs the upside, and finally Uncontrollable Risk, which cannot be controlled or managed. Common language around risk is going to be very important as we make critical choices moving forward.
During our phone call that morning, I reminded him of a line in the book where the authors wrote, “Rapid change does not call for abandoning disciplined thought and disciplined action. Rather it calls for upping the intensity to zoom out for fast yet rigorous decision making and zoom in for fast yet superb execution.” I believe that disciplined thought and disciplined action in the face of uncertainty and risk are mission critical to short and long term success.
After that phone call, I continued to reflect on all that was shared. In particular, I was reminded of something that Kevin Cashman explained in his book, The Pause Principle: Step Back to Lead Forward (Berrett-Koehler, 2012). As he wrote, “All too often, we allow ourselves to be carried away by our busy-ness. We are too hyperactive, too reactive to even notice the hidden value-creating dynamics waiting just under the surface within us and around us. Tethered to our smartphones, we are too caught up and distracted to take the time necessary to sort through complexity or to locate submerged purpose. In our urgent rush to get ‘there,’ we are going everywhere but being nowhere. Far too busy managing with transitive speed, we rarely step back to lead with transformative significance.”
The choice to pause and step back is a powerful choice. It is just as important as creating a plan and executing a plan. Cashman notes that “Managers assert drive and control to get things done; leaders pause to discover new ways of being and achieving.” The act of pausing is a disciplined choice to discover new insights and new perspective. And when things are chaotic and crazy, this is a very important choice.
Now for some, the best way to describe this current environment is to use the term VUCA which stand for a a time period where events and things are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. VUCA was introduced by the Army War College and by Bob Johansen in his book, Get There Early (Berrett-Koehler, 2007). Johansen contends that we have “to flip the VUCA forces to terms that create possibilities and refine VUCA as: Vision; Understanding; Clarity; Agility.” I like this perspective and think it is a powerful choice in the midst of current events.
One element of this flipping process, according to Cashman in the aforementioned book, is to routinely pause. As he writes, “The Pause Principle is the conscious, intentional process of stepping back, within ourselves and outside ourselves, to lead forward with greater authenticity, purpose, and contribution.”
Cashman notes that there are three kinds of pauses. They are as follows:
- The Backwards Pause: Stepping back when things are not working in order to analyze how to take a new path.
- The Mission Pause: Stepping back when we have lost our way and need to restore a sense of purpose.
- The Forward Pause: Stepping back to envision aspirational dreams for imagining a big or new possibility.
Each of these moments of pause help a leader gain new insights and new perspectives. But what most leader miss is one element within the definition of The Pause Principle, namely “the conscious, intentional process of stepping back, within ourselves.” We often frame up the definition of a pause as a focus on “what is outside ourselves,” but not on what is within us. This is a normal response when life is busy, complex, and complicated. But it is not a productive path if we seek to gain new insights about how to move forward based on clarity and commitment.
Furthermore, each of the three, aforementioned pauses can be an opportunity to do our own internal work before proceeding to lead others through the external work. It is the combination of the two, the internal and the external, that will generate the right decisions in the midst of critical challenges.
Currently, we are experiencing a loss of faith in the future, a loss of meaning in our daily work, and the feeling of a loss of control over our choices and options. Thus, planning for the future is hard, and leading people through the current reality is challenging. Still, with adequate support from allies and confidants, plus the willingness to do our own inner work, we can make the critical choices in the midst of these difficulties. Paraphrasing Collins and Hansen, we can create; we can prevail; we can thrive. The first step is to pause and regain inner clarity and inner alignment before stepping forward to generate outer clarity and outer alignment. My challenge to you this week and this fall is a simple one: start with yourself and do the work. Then, over time, the rest will start to fall into place.
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