EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED

Things are never going to go smoothly all the time. The 3C's are to be expected. Perhaps the company misses its earnings target or has to recall a product because of a safety issue. Any number of challenges can and will arise, and the bigger the organization, the greater the likelihood that something, somewhere will happen. It's a question not of if but of when. Faced with one of these challenges, people in the organization will often wonder how to respond. Without effective leaders to guide them, their questions quickly become concerns, which escalate into stress, worry, anxiety, and even panic. These emotions are not helpful; if anything, they cloud the issue and create confusion. To avoid this, you and your team need to be disciplined, focused, consistent, and credible as you respond.

The time to prepare for the 3C's is when things are going well. When you're not in the midst of a challenge, you are better able to strategize on how you will respond the next time an issue arises. This doesn't mean you shouldn't take time to celebrate today's victories, but you cannot let success make you complacent. Virtually no organization can achieve its goals year after year without interruption. The problem, however, is that the longer the stretch of good fortune, the easier it is to become lulled into thinking that the status quo will continue indefinitely. Then discipline becomes lax, and preparation gets sidetracked. Only by being aware and staying alert for the 3C's can you mitigate the impact when something does occur.

For me, being prepared to handle just about any situation comes down to two factors. The first is my own thought process through self-reflection, which enables me to examine situations as they arise and determine the right thing to do. No matter what the challenge, I am prepared to deal with it because my values as a leader have been set. I know that even if the right response is not immediately apparent, a fantastic group of people who are grounded in the same values has been assembled on the team. I trust that balance will enable my team to seek as many opinions and viewpoints as possible, in order to focus on doing what's right instead of being right. Genuine humility allows me to change my mind and the course of action when necessary. The second factor is my commitment always to do the best I can. These two elements simplify what I must do—which won't be simple, mind you, but which can now be done without a lot of unnecessary distraction and confusion. What appeared highly complex is reducible to the essential issues.

When I was the CFO and later the CEO, people would sometimes ask me, “How do you deal with stress, worry, and anxiety?” My answer was simple: as long as I stayed focused on the four principles of values-based leadership, did the right thing, and remained committed to doing the best I could, then stress, worry, and anxiety would be minimized. I'm sure some people thought I was being simplistic. It's not that the problems we faced as an organization were not serious at times. However, if our thinking and our commitments were in the right place, there was no reason to panic or become paralyzed. We did not need to be overly emotional, because we were clearheaded about what we were facing and how to respond.