Embrace the Suck!
I’ve been in business long enough to know that there is a never a crisis that can’t be overcome. Several times in my career I have lost sleep over some crisis that I was sure would get me fired, bankrupt the company, or both. The reality is that in every case I allowed myself to make the monster much bigger in my mind than it was in reality. It’s kind of like when someone cuts you off in traffic and you fume and swear at them as they drive away. In all likelihood you will still be hot under the collar by the time you get to your destination. And what about the driver who cut you off? They never gave it a second thought and were not disturbed in the least. Two people involved in the same incident, each one will react in their own way. It’s the same with a crisis. Different people will respond in their own way.
Let’s examine the words REACT and RESPOND for a moment. They are sometimes used interchangeably but when faced with a crisis one is much preferred to the other. Imagine you are faced with a medical issue that requires you to take a prescription drug. If you have a REACTION to the drug that would be a bad thing. However, if you RESPOND to the treatment that is a good thing.
It’s the same with a crisis. The way in which one approaches the crisis may be the most important part of the equation. Looking back on my career thus far I can point to many times I have been required to deal with a crisis. In one instance my company was experiencing repeated and unexplained failures of a highly engineered product for a customer in the Middle East. These failures were very costly for our customer. We began an investigation after the first failure but at that time we had no reason to believe we were dealing with a systemic problem. But it soon became apparent that we had a serious problem on our hands and we had to move quickly to limit the damage to our client. I was in Thailand at the time with plans to travel on to Japan. I asked my team to set a meeting with the senior executive at the client company most impacted by these failures. I took a red eye flight that night and was in the customers’ office at eight o’clock the next morning. With the help of our local manager, I explained to the executive that despite our best efforts we had been unable to find the cause of the failures. I advised him that he should discontinue using our product until we could determine the cause of the failures. I further told him that after we felt confident that we had identified and corrected the problem we would provide his firm with five of the products free of charge. If those five units worked fine we could then discuss placing our product back in his rotation. Our client was very pleased with this response to the problem. And we did figure it out and we did provide the five units free of charge. Everything worked fine and we were put back in the rotation and our business recovered fully in a matter of months.
When I reflect back on the story above it occurs to me that we never panicked. We were calm and methodical in our approach and open minded to the possible causes of the failures. We worked as a team always mindful of our obligation to the client. Equally, we never lost sight of the possible negative impact to our business. But we kept it all in perspective.
One trick I use to help me keep things in perspective is to ask myself the following question: “Ten years from now will this issue matter to any of us”? The answer has always been “No”. If no one is going to remember anyway I would be crazy to let it have an outsized impact on my life today.
So, what’s the takeaway? In a time of crisis keep your eye on the future and keep moving forward. Don’t stop! Instead double down and embrace the suck. If you are really good you will see the crisis as an opportunity to get to the next level. Because the way you respond when the chips are down will be an indication of your future trajectory.
