#364 from Innovative Leader Volume 7, Number 10          October 1998

Finding Opportunity When Things Get Really Bad
by Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D.

Dr. Stoltz is President of PEAK Learning Inc. (Flagstaff, AZ; phone 800-255-5572).  He is author of Adversity Quotient:  Turning Obstacles into Opportunities (Wiley, New York, 1997), from which this article is adapted. www.peaklearning.com

Why is it that some people thrive when others give up and quit?  What skills and abilities are going to be critical to lead others in the next millennium?  We all have our problems, a few very serious; others just minor inconveniences.  How do you deal with what you consider to be serious problems?  The way you handle adversity can play a critical role in your ability to succeed. 

In these days of computer dependence, you've probably have had the experience of a hard-drive crash.  An extreme response might be, "Oh, no! Everything's ruined! The entire project zapped in a single moment.  I'll never get back to what I've lost.  Besides, if it could happen once, it could happen twice.  There's no use even trying.  I gave it my best shot, and I blew it.  I guess I can kiss that promotion goodbye."  This response reeks of defeatism, catastrophizing, and helplessness.

Imagination or Evidence?

In the case of the scenario above, or even less extreme responses, you could examine for CORE dimensions of your response to adversity:

1.  Control.  What evidence is there that I have no control?  The answer is "none." While it's theoretically possible that you’ve no control, there's no evidence that such helplessness exists in this case.  The only fact is that the hard drive crashed, freezing your computer.  That's it!  Everything else is conjecture.

Why assume the worst?  Certainly there's no reason to accept a complete lack of control until it’s proven!  If you went to the doctor with a headache, would you assume it was a brain tumor before you saw the results of your tests?  In most situations, it doesn't pay to assume the worst until evidence supports it.  Why jump to conclusions, especially when those conclusions can hurt you?  So, without more information, you cannot assume you have no control.

Can you imagine a situation in which you literally have no control?  Vicktor Frankl, Nazi concentration camp survivor and prominent psychologist, found that, even in the most unimaginably horrific conditions, he had the ultimate control--control over how he reacted to any given situation.

It can be so tempting to play victim and give up that control.  If things happen to you, and you are merely a puppet of the system or a piece of driftwood floating down the river of life, then you need not accept responsibility or have any expectations of yourself.  There’s no doubt that, at least in appearance, quitting is easier than pursuing.  It's in the long run that one must pay the price or reap the rewards of one's decisions.  I know of no decision more tragic than to quit.

You see the sad results of this decision daily: a friend rejected in the job search stops trying to advance her career; a coworker gets unfavorable feedback on a performance review and decides to resign rather than get tough; a team member stops being creative because of colleagues’ snide comments.  Quitting is pervasive and insidious.

You must honestly confront any assumption of helplessness when, in fact, you always have some level of control.  Helplessness may appear to be an easier, attractive alternative to accepting control, and with it some implied degree of responsibility.  If you're helpless then you’re free of responsibility; people may feel sorry for you, and someone else has to take action.  But, such a choice may prove devastating.  Given the option, in that moment of reaction, between helplessness and control, it's always best to err on the side of control.

2. Ownership.  To what extent do you hold yourself responsible for dealing with this situation?  To what extent are you accountable for what has occurred?  Accountability is the backbone of action.  Yet managers and executives complain of a dearth of accountability and a dramatic rise in finger pointing.  People who blame others for bad things then to deflect accountability, fueling greater victimhood and helplessness.  People who step up, holding themselves accountable for dealing with situations, they may or may not have caused, tend to feel more control over any situation.  When asked, “Who caused this to happen?” the best answer may be, “It doesn’t matter, what am I going to do is help make the situation better.”

3.  Reach.  What evidence is there that the adversity has to reach into other areas of your life?  Many people argue for what's called the "domino effect," which implies that one bad event will invariably cause another and another.  "It'll just crash again!"  It's easy to see how this response could quickly make you feel overwhelmed.  You cannot afford such a direct blow to your sense of hope.  In the process of disputing your response, you must therefore separate your assumptions from what you know.

The truth is, while the adversity could reach other areas of your work, or even of your life, there's no evidence that it has to!  So again, despite your best efforts to catastrophize, the answer to this question is "none."

4.  Endurance.  What evidence is there that the adversity must last any longer than necessary?  There are always reasons the adversity might endure but, rarely, is there evidence that the adversity must endure, without improvement.  Even the world environment, which represents adversity of global proportions, could continue on its current dire course, but doesn't have to.  So, the answer to this question is also, "none."

This is great news!  You’ve just separated assumptions from fact, and the fact doesn't, as of yet, support your response to this adversity!  At minimum, you need more information.  Seeking that information is, in itself, a positive action, moving you toward learning and improvement.

A Case for Action

You need to be organized and active in order to surmount a difficult adversity.

Ask yourself these six questions:

1.  What additional information do I need?  How am I going to get it?

2.  What could I do to gain even a little control over this situation?

3.  What could I do to limit the reach of this adversity?

4.  What could I do to limit how long the adversity endures in its current state?

5.  Which of these actions will I take first?

6.  Exactly when will I take this action?  What day, what time?

In the case of the crashed hard drive, what additional information do you need?  Wouldn’t you want to know what, if any, data were lost before you assumed it was all gone?  If you can retrieve the data, wouldn’t you want to know the cost and time involved in recovering it?  There’s some truth to the adage, “Information is power.”  Information gives you the ability to react to known realities rather than vague, destructive suppositions.

Any actions you wrote down are likely to elevate your perceived control.  Taking action, in itself, boosts your sense of control.  What about limiting the reach?  Did you decide to do whatever it takes to recreate any lost data?  Were there people you wanted to contact to mitigate the fallout from this potentially serious setback?  These same actions you took to limit the reach might also limit how long the adversity endures.  You may have also realized that you could contact a data recovery specialist, or some teammates, to determine when the last back-up was performed.

The Funnel Approach

A mere list of actions can be dangerous.  It may relieve you just enough that you stop the process, of bettering the adverse situation, in its tracks.  The problem is, once you’ve made the list, you have still done nothing to improve the situation.  It’s like buying an organizer to make your life less chaotic.  The organizer won’t reduce the chaos unless you use it.  But it might make you feel good about yourself for a little while.  We’re not out to create the illusion of effectiveness, we want enduring improvements!

What happens when you turn on your crashed computer and it’s still frozen?  You have a great list, but nothing has changed!  You need to take action.  Pick one action to take first, then pinpoint the day and time you plan to take that action.  Do this for each action.  Using such a funnel approach, you’ll move from a list to committing to a specific action and time.  This guides you to take that first critical step, which might be to call, within a half an hour, a computer-savvy friend to recommend someone who may have the expertise to diagnose your crash.

Of course, you may consider a hard-drive freeze-up a minor inconvenience when compared to your failed multi-million dollar project, or not receiving the promotion you dreamed about, or being transferred to an undesirable location.  But no matter how dismal things may seem at the moment, take control!

Imagine the power you could unleash if you allowed yourself to fully, actively tap the wellspring of potential that lays largely dormant inside of you.  To pump its rich bounty into your work, and into your life, you must forever change and improve what you do when the defining moment of adversity arrives.  It can mean the difference between career and personal successes and failures.