Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
How you deal with it speaks volumes
As part of my job I talk a lot about change and (hopefully) help organisations adapt to it. But despite spending so much of my time preaching the need to be open minded and responsive, I’m a little daunted by all the changes happening in my life. Work, family, friends and relationships have all turned a bit topsy turvy recently. So I decided to write this to inspire myself with others’ examples and maybe it will remind me how to make lemonade from lemons.
My thinking is that if you have good people around you who “get you” and you yourself are optimistic and believe in what you’re doing, you will be more successful at responding to the unexpected. While I like a good to-do list, I’ve always thought extensive planning activities for scenarios where you do not know many details is a bit futile. I love what Brian Chesky, co-founder of AirBnB, said to his team in his blog:
Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion…When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. People can be independent and autonomous.
OK, so in the context of an organisation I know culture and trust is important as it evolves. What about in our personal lives, how does that translate? When the sh*t hits the fan for people, they can crumble. But mostly what I see is people step up and demonstrate unbelievable optimism and strength. Let’s take my dad for instance:
Almost 4 years ago my mum (then only 53) was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimers. Early Onset is very different from the more traditional dementia in the elderly and there is little awareness of the condition. Thankfully it is relatively rare. It does mean, however, that there wasn’t a lot of information or practical tips out there to help families who are trying to adjust when an incredibly intelligent, vivacious and independent member gets struck down by this incurable disease.
Fortunately for mum she has an incredibly supportive family and a husband whose superpower appears to be unflagging optimism. Dad takes every day of mum’s deterioration with renewed energy, thinking of innovative new ways to make her life as easy and stress free as possible. When mum started leaving her handbag in random places in the house dad tied the loudest mobile phone on the market to it and has the number on the house speed-dial (with mum’s face stuck on!) so we can always track it down.
Dad still works everyday but when mum started to lose the ability to fix herself lunch, he had meals ready to cook in the microwave at the close of the door while they FaceTime every day at 12pm. Faced with the lack of a support group with people of the same age and stage of dementia he founded one — it’s called the Dire Straits Support Group and 14 couples (carers and those with dementia) go to gigs, comedy shows, plays, pubs. They give each other support and a good social life during this difficult period in their lives. The list goes on — dad as an engineer by trade is a problem fixer and he experiments until something works. He has never cracked under pressure or even complained. I asked him how he stays so strong and he said:
There is no point worrying about that train coming down the tunnel. Worry is a waste of effort and energy, and potential. It will just make you stressed and sad. And it is a total waste of time. And other people don’t want to hang out with a worrier, a loser, someone who moans and makes them feel down. Rather hang out with someone who is enjoying life and makes them feel good. Then it becomes mutually beneficial.
I think this is the difference between a defeatist and an optimist. A defeatist would whine about things until they’re hit by the train. The optimist would try to change the course but failing that they make the most of the ride.
With this in mind don’t all geniuses/entrepreneurs/artists/generally the best people in the world meet problems head on and enjoy trying to fix them? Sometimes something wonderful happens by accident and it’s having the bravery to dump the original plan and keep going which leads to genius. Orson Welles once described a good director as “A man who presides over accidents”. If directors had not let their on-screen talent improvise sometimes we’d be missing some of the most iconic moments in cinema history, such as one of my favourite one-liners in Spielberg’s Jaws:
History is littered with brilliant things coming about because innovative people made mistakes and embraced them. Unfortunately it’s also littered with people who weren’t brave (or smart) enough to give things a go if they didn’t align to their original plan. One of my favourite people at Yammer, Stephen Danelutti, wrote this in his recent blog about how people changing and inventing things are similar:
What if you cant be bothered? Progress dies, we stultify, we become comfortable and part of the status quo. We don’t solve problems, sometimes ones that we created as part of the progress we made in our last cycle. And this applies to us as individuals and as living beings in aggregate.
So someone always has to be bothered. Someone has to step up and be the inventor or the changemaker. We have to do this even if it means we have to step outside our comfort zones and move to the edge. We may even have to start again. But that’s okay because every day is day one.
Life, and all of its composites (work, love, friends, $$$), is not a science. It cannot go to plan because there frankly isn’t one. What I’ve learnt is to be better at expecting and managing the unexpected with a certain outlook about life:
- Surround yourself with good people ✓
- Experiment — To do more of
- Enjoy the unknown ✓
Luckily I’m a born optimist. It’s in my genes and mostly in the people around me. So I’m going to go make some lemonade. How about you?
