Every
leader knows that despite Herculean efforts things can go terribly wrong. Just
when you least expect it, something explodes a key employee quits and blames
you, you’re passed over for a promotion in favor of someone less qualified, the
boss blows up after you lose a key account and fail to make your numbers.
There’s no way around the fact that the leadership role brings with it a
certain amount of emotional pain and anxiety.
Let’s face it: The source of
workplace stress is usually a people problem the kind that wakes you up at 3 A.M.
replaying yesterday’s scenarios, imagining all the things you should have said
then, and might have to say tomorrow. The real question is not how to avoid stress, but how to
deal with it head on. Prominent leaders agree on one remedy: Transform your
greatest problems into precious assets.
Most of us
subscribe to the theory that problems can convert to opportunities. But how?
Until now, no one has given leaders a practical roadmap to implement this idea.
I have such a roadmap. I call it Recasting: The LeaderShock stress buster and
one of most unique rules in the program. This single leadership behavior can
change your life.
WHAT
IS RECASTING?
Distinctly
different from the concept of reframing, which entails shifting your
perceptions to something positive, Recasting exploits problems for what they
can teach you about what’s not working and how to break ineffective patterns.
It is at once efficient, surprising, and acutely analytical. Best of all, you often
emerge having not only rid yourself of the problem but with something better than
you had before the problem arrived.
Fundamental to
the process is something thriving leaders are adamant about: Rather than deny
an issue exists (by burying it, wishing it would go away, or just not talking
about it), they engage it directly and honestly.
Recasting has three
stages: emotions, meaning, and opportunities.
STAGE
1: EMOTIONS
Surprising but
true, this business process starts with emotions and nothing but emotions. Even
the most logical, no-nonsense leaders have learned that when they deal with
stress-producing issues, their first question has to be, “How do I feel about
this?” Here, “feel” means the real thing—angry, scared, hurt, sad, perhaps even
happy. If you come up with answers like “Concerned” or “Surprised,” try again.
Go for the
underlying emotions. As you will learn, the first stage of Recasting is
anything but touchy-feely. Rather, it’s an analytical step critical to good
business decisions. Skipping the emotions stage of Recasting is like trying to
enter your house without opening the door. It doesn’t work. Your emotional
reactions are based on your professional experience and judgment and are
primary indicators of what’s truly happening.
There’s a wealth
of information to be gathered simply by being attuned to your feelings. And
besides, suppressing emotion is typically what causes the stress.
STAGE
2: MEANING
Next, the best leaders
postpone fixing anything in order to take a discerning look at the reasons for the
problem. The self-revealing questions they ask include
• What does it
say about me that I have this problem about my practices, my departmental policies,
my relationship with customers and staff?
• What can I
learn from this?
• How can I make
this situation useful to me and my employees?
You’re on shaky
ground if you attempt to fix a problem without first understanding what it
means to you and the organization. By looking for inherent meaning, you open a rich
treasure chest of valuable gems that lead to new information, insight, and opportunities.
STAGE
3: OPPORTUNITIES
Not until you’ve
understood how you feel (Stage 1) and the meaning surrounding the issue (Stage
2), are you prepared to explore Stage 3: Opportunities. Here you transform your
learning into possible new approaches. You open the creative floodgates and
ask, “As a result of the problem, what are the new opportunities for me and my
department?” Let your imagination flow. Examine every new idea and approach.
Only then are
you adequately armed to make informed decisions to fix a big problem.
(Remember, quick fixes are reserved for small, everyday issues.) Ultimately, Recasting guides leaders through even the
most traumatic situations by unearthing
the golden nuggets of growth
and insight they contain. Recasting becomes your tool to look
at things differently: To know that you don’t have to live with stress and that
learning from painful events can be productive, creative, and ultimately,
exhilarating! As you’ll see in the remainder of this discussion of Rule 4, Recasting is a process that any leader can use
to address three troubling types of issues personal work stress, a team or
entire company with tough issues, and even a community confronted with a
crisis. Let’s turn to an example.
RECASTING
PERSONAL WORK STRESS: BETRAYAL ON THE JOB
Elena, Product
Development Supervisor of a chemical company, applied not only Recasting during
a personally painful episode, but also the other three leadership rules we’ve
learned so far. Elena attended an offsite conference with Todd, the
get-ahead-at-allcosts, politically savvy new V.P. of Marketing. The event
seemed unremarkable to Elena. But upon her return to the office she was stunned
to learn that Todd had widely reported that she drank excessively at the
conference and misrepresented the company.
Neither of his
claims were true but because of Todd’s close relationship to the president, she
feared that Todd’s words would have more credibility than her own. That night
Elena was haunted by all the worst possibilities, the most scary being that
she’d be fired.
I know Elena well.
She’s high on integrity and professionalism, a sharp analyst, and a
self-motivated leader. Driven to solve the problem immediately, Elena was
stumped. All the fixes she contemplated offered dubious results because they were
defensive postures. She considered and then rejected persuading others that
Todd’s allegations weren’t true. She discounted the idea of keeping her head
down until everything blew over. And quitting to look for a new job wasn’t what
she wanted either. Having recently attended a LeaderShock seminar, Elena
decided instead to call on her Recasting skills.
STAGE
1: EMOTIONS
Elena tends to
be a thinker, not a feeler, so she really pushed herself to focus solely on her
feelings an uncomfortable place for her to be. How did she feel?
Her answer: Not
just angry, but furious, taken advantage of and violated! And maybe above all, frightened
about her job security.
STAGE
2: MEANING
Elena segued to
asking “What does this predicament say about me? What does it all mean?” After
taking a hard look at the situation and her role in it, new understanding emerged.
Her initial insight was the realization that she was allowing one person (and not
a person of integrity) to damage her reputation and stellar work record. As a
result, Elena set an Intention to take hold of her power. Rather than blame
Todd, which would have been easy to do, she took the high road and focused
exclusively on the question “What’s my part?” (See Rule2 for more details on this.) Elena’s inquiry prompted further
exploration and new questions about what it all meant. “Why did Todd’s word have
more credibility than mine?
Am I adequately
valued in this company?
Are my strengths
being used? Do I feel fulfilled in my work?”
Elena concluded
that she was being neglected and suddenly began to understand why. She’d been
complacent. She wasn’t selling her talents, highlighting her accomplishments or
making herself visible.
STAGE
3: OPPORTUNITIES
What were the opportunities? Turning
an episode this distasteful into an opportunity seems inconceivable. Nonetheless,
after completing Stage 2, Elena came up with opportunities that did more than
just eliminate the problem; they turned her career around. She saw this as a
chance to deal with some longstanding concerns. With her behavioral strategy in
place, she went to see Marta, her boss. Elena shared her Intentions to both
respond nondefensively and address gnawing career issues.
Impressed by her
accountable and professional response to a messy situation, Marta, accompanied by
Elena, paid Todd a visit. Even though Todd denied the matter and cleverly
avoided an apology, things were resolved. Marta also cleared things up with the
company’s president and Elena felt relieved. With the initial issue behind her,
Elena was ready to repair her overlooked career. She energetically began
opening doors to spotlight her talents. Volunteering to make a presentation for
prospective new clients garnered positive attention from the Sales Manager. After
a career-focused lunch with him the following week, Elena was appointed to a
prominent new task force. And as a grand finale to the story, 4 months later
Todd mysteriously left the company.
When you find
yourself in a situation like Elena’s, the natural tendency is to turn inward. Some
of the most effective leaders I know who normally reach out easily to customers
and employees, withdraw and internalize when it comes to dealing with their own
work-related stress. Believing that a real leader should be stoic and capable
of handling any issue alone is a LeaderShock trap. You’ve heard the adage, “Don’t
die alone in your bunker!” Well, don’t! Every leader needs support. One of the
beauties of Recasting is that you can use the process for engaging other people
in your bunker to help you deal with the things that keep you up at night.
Pull a few people,
your best support network, together and ask for help. Walk through each of the
Recasting steps. Tell them how you feel and the impact of the problem on you.
Solicit their ideas about the meaning of the problem and then ask them to brainstorm
new opportunities and approaches.
Regardless of
the issue, this group process works, and sometimes with surprising results. Infact,
it’s not uncommon for the Recasting partner who knows your job least to infuse
a blast of energy into the proceedings by coming up with the most creative and practical
ideas. By encouraging your colleagues to unleash their collective brainpower and
share their perspectives, you’ll often walk away with a fresh mental picture.
You may also find that you:
• Relieve your
anxiety altogether.
• Get affirmation
for the ideas you’ve already come up with or find relief by simply being able
to talk out loud about them.
• Receive ongoing
support from your Recasting mates because now they clearly understand what
you’re up against. You might be surprised to learn that they are secretly dealing
with the same things.
TEAM
RECASTING
It’s exciting to
see great leaders aggressively manage group learning through team Recasting
sessions. Leaders first create a candid environment by encouraging the real
issues to surface. Getting problems on the table in organizational cultures
where failure is hidden or punished might initially feel like trying to swim
upstream. Creating a Recasting-positive culture requires some preliminary
steps.
The swiftest way
to foster culture change is through cues you give about how people should behave.
As a prelude to Team Recasting sessions, it’s crucial to set behavioral norms.
Admit mistakes to your staff so they’ll have a model for doing the same to you.
Talk about ways you were instrumental in things that didn’t go well. Further, set the stage by building
in Intention statements. Tell your team that you encourage candid disclosure of
errors and concerns and that disclosures will be used for learning, not for
punishment. Then get the most critical issue out in the open. With the issue fully
exposed, you’re poised to follow the three stages of Recasting, adapted for use
by a group. First get everyone’s emotions
out on the table. (It’s crucial that you enforce a no-blame-nogripe policy
during this stage). Next, analyze the meaning of the problem, and then
brainstorm new opportunities and approaches. The following story illustrates
how an entire company chose to Recast.
FINANCIAL
CATASTROPHE STRIKES
When catastrophic
problems threaten everyone’s livelihood, companies are well served by engaging their
leaders in Recasting. This was the case several years ago during an intensive
5-day LeaderShock seminar I was leading for the fifteen division heads of a
high-tech company with about 800 employees.
The organization
had been hit hard by new competition in a declining economy. Each seminar
participant reported to one of the five executive leaders and all had multiple
layers of staff reporting to them.
On the fourth day,
I received an urgent message from the president: First quarter numbers had just
come in. Although they’d hoped for a turnaround is sales, numbers had
precipitously declined to a dramatic low. When I called him back he pleaded,
“Please don’t mention anything about this to the group. I don’t want to upset
them until I have to.” I disagreed.
If there was
ever an opportunity to deal openly with a company-wide crisis, this was it! I
asked if he and the rest of the executive group would drop everything and drive
down to the conference center. After lunch, the participants were greeted by the
president and executive team who presented the sobering numbers. The group was
stunned. When standard operating procedure would have been to immediately begin
problem solving, we didn’t. With no philosophizing, analysis, or resolutions
permitted, I asked each seminar participant to share only real feelings about
what had just been announced.
What surfaced
was a cornucopia anger, blame, frustration, even, from one person, happiness
that the company had finally hit rock bottom and would now take drastic steps.
From the responses we realized that everyone was unquestioningly committed to
making a turnaround work. This adrenaline pumped room was ready for Stage 2. In
Stage 2, I led a group discussion spurred by the question: “What does it say
about us and our organization that we have this monumental problem?” The analysis
left no stone unturned. Here were just a few of their revelations:
• If we’re caught
this much off guard by the numbers, we don’t have functional financial systems
in place.
• Efforts we’ve
been making aren’t working. We have to do something dramatically different.
• We’ve been in denial.
We just keep performing the routine duties prescribed by our job descriptions
as the company falls apart right before our eyes.
The results of these
first two stages informed everything they would do for the ensuing 2 months. We
can only speculate on what might have happened without their acute level of
analysis and team involvement. Most likely their course of action would have
been less befitting the severity and scope of the situation.
Now we were poised
to look at possibilities for forging ahead. Our brainstorming centered on
imaginative ways of identifying new short-term roles for everyone, ways to quickly
shift priorities, and ways to hold one another accountable. As we ended our discussion,
there were still no
solutions to
increase revenue, but the team was poised to attack the problem with a fresh
backdrop, and they were jazzed about getting started. On Monday morning all
previously established ways of doing things ceased. Abandoning their normal job
functions, leaders instituted a daily morning meeting. They gave themselves
over to the war-room atmosphere of a ferocious political campaign. Minute to
minute they monitored daily income data, used swat teams to rally employees around
productive activities, and held themselves accountable for every action. In the
crisis came unity and spirit. Nobody pursued business as usual.
The I.T. manager
got out from behind her computer and began calling new prospects. The
manufacturing manager hit the streets to follow up on sales leads. The result?
Everyone chipped in with a crackling energy not experienced for way too long. Each
person became instrumental in saving the company. This organization not only
survived (by the skin of its teeth), but now, a year later, is inching toward
financial health. The heroes? Every single leader. When you consistently use
the Recasting process with your people you’ll make profound changes in your
organizational culture. You’ll create an environment where people feel safe to
bring up bad news, that is free of negative judgment and blame, and where people
are rewarded for candor. That’s why thriving leaders these days are spending less
time in production meetings rehashing what’s going well, and more time recasting
failures and disappointments to ensure future success.
RECASTING
ON A GRAND SCALE
Even though this
book is dedicated to analyzing unsung leaders rather than the rich and famous, there
is a powerful example of a leader who reached folkloric status by guiding an
entire city, and ultimately a nation, through the Recasting process. In 2001,
then Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, followed each Recasting stage
(whether he had a name for it or not) when he faced one of the greatest traumas
in American history. In less than 4 months, he catapulted himself from a lowly
32 percent approval rating to Time
Magazine’s Person of the Year. Just prior to 9/11,
Giuliani had been a media target for his controversial lifestyle and divisive politics,
but by year end Time was praising him
as a “global symbol of healing and defiance” and “the greatest mayor in the
city’s history.” Regardless of how any of us might view his politics, it’s
worthwhile to dissect his remarkable Recasting odyssey. Immediately after the
twin towers fell, Giuliani made a pivotal move. Employing the feeling stage of
Recasting, he decided that New Yorkers “needed to hear from my heart.” He led,
not by strategizing behind closed doors, but by publicly exhibiting his grief
and inspiring the city with an emotional Intention statement. “We are going to rebuild,”
he announced, “we’re going to be stronger than we were before . . . I want the
people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country and the rest of
the world, that terrorism can’t stop us.” Like any good Intention, this was a
clear declaration of personal desire and motivation. Giuliani was not afraid to
publicly state his personal feelings. “The number of casualties will be more
than any of us can bear.” For a man who up until this point had been seen as a
rigid, unfeeling, no-nonsense politician, this was a striking turnaround. In
the weeks that followed, Giuliani devoted most of his time tending to the emotions of the city, appearing at more
than 200 wakes, memorials, and funerals, and giving eulogies at many. In these
eulogies he inspired survivors with his feelings about honor, sacrifice, and
loss. These appearances were also the vehicle for his personal Recasting of the
trauma. “I realized that one of the ways I could get through this is by going
to the (memorial) services. They’re heartbreaking but inspirational.”
Without a doubt,
the most important step he took in his meteoric rise to hero status was to unabashedly
reveal his humanity. Giuliani’s feelings provided a powerful medium around
which the feelings of all New Yorkers could coalesce although at the time
running from them would have felt easier and safer. Herein lies a dramatic
example of why, during the really tough times, leaders must never skip the emotions stage. Although
countercultural for most men and women,
particularly during times of trauma, thriving leaders consider it their responsibility
to be courageous enough to state how they feel.
Though Stage 1
is my focus here, for the sake of completeness, let’s follow through with
Giuliani’s other two Recasting stages:
• Stage 2:
Giuliani looked for meaning, saying, “Maybe the purpose of all this is to find
out if America today is as strong as when we fought for independence or when we
fought for ourselves as a Union to end slavery or as strong as our fathers and grandfathers
who fought to rid the world of Nazism.” Again, his own search for meaning was a
model for the search of millions of people.
• Stage 3: What
were the opportunities?
Rudolph Giuliani
pushed hard to reopen New York and urged everyone to get back to their lives,
bringing together civic and business leaders to get people working together to
move forward. He became a beacon of strength showing up everywhere pushing his
message and sharing his thoughts about newfound opportunities.
Again, whether
or not you agree with Giuliani’s politics, it’s undeniable that each Recasting
step was critical to his personal success. Each step was also critical to the
people of New York who needed a hero capable of guiding them through the trauma
and addressing all their fears.
I offer this
Recasting process to leaders everywhere. I’ve used it with clients for small
interpersonal issues and for the very biggest traumas like unexpected mergers,
bankruptcy, and the effects of 9/11. And I will use it for those that will
inevitably come in the future. So can you. When you find yourself awake at 3 A.M.
worrying, let Recasting be your guide. Understand that you have a roadmap out.
Think about how you will implement each stage and then go back to sleep.
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SUMMARY
OF RULE FOUR
LeaderShock Trap No. 4: The Quick-Fixer/Denier
When
we’re hit with a stressful problem, we either apply a quick but ineffectual
Band-Aid to the situation, or try to sweep it under the rug.
New Intentions
•
I will deal with stressful issues head on. I understand that my best course
of action is to invest time upfront engaging in the Recasting process.
•
I Recast by following these three stages:
•
Explore my emotions and let them be my guide
•
Find the meaning and lessons inherent in the problem
•
Open up new opportunities and approaches without locking into simplistic solutions
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