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Find the Path Forward — Head Toward the “Who” Not the “What.”

In times of uncertainty, this framework can support you in stepping more fully into the leader you long to be.

This article is the second of a three-part series (read part one: Who’s Driving the Bus?). The series, entitled Active Reorientation — Befriending Fear, Discerning What Matters, and Bringing Agency in Times of Uncertainty is intended to support and help us navigate our experiences in times of chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty.

The recent upheaval of our current social, economic, and business environment has raised questions for many of us in these times. In one form or another, we carry these questions:

• What is the path forward?
• What shifts in investments, headcount, and expenses are needed?
• To what degree do we continue with our current priorities?
• What opportunities and realities should we be planning for now?
• What will be the new normal? Will there be one? When?
• What is, or will be, the new picture of success?

If any of the above questions resonate with you, then you’re probably thinking through what the near-term targets should be and how to align your business to them.

And this is where things can get a bit tricky.

Traditional Approach — Determine the “What” and Align the “How”

One of the most common approaches to strategy is first to be clear about the outcomes one seeks (the “What”) and then develop the plan (the “How”) to take us from where we are to where we want to be. It’s pretty straightforward, rationally sound, and often works well.

The approach particularly works well when we’re operating in an environment that’s predictable and well understood. We define the targets, (the “What”), align a plan to the targets (“How” aligned with “What”), and then we get busy (the “Who” in this), executing the plan and delivering the results.

This approach is ingrained in many of us. It’s older than any relationship we have with the business world. It’s the same approach we’ve used often in our education, and it even shows up in our expressions. “Focus!”, “Eyes on the Prize!”, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!” Outcomes then execute against the plan. It works! But in times of uncertainty, it’s overly simplistic, and a bit of a false friend — something you’d like to count on but unlikely to deliver on the promises when it matters.

In upheaval, the backdrop, and context are importantly different from stable environments. We can’t take for granted that things will be as they were or work as they have in the past. There’s more risk in applying what’s worked and banking on expected results.

In fact, if we rigorously apply a traditional approach, matching the patterns we recognize with what’s worked in the past, we might miss sensing a bigger picture at play, exploring our uncertainty, and addressing our fears and concerns present in these times.

In times of upheaval, the approach can also provide a false sense of security because “we now have a plan.” We run the risk of becoming too attached to the logic and rationality of the plan, and missing the opportunity to tend to vital things that matter, and the dynamics of the environment that influence what matters. But what else can we do?

In the Presence of Uncertainty — Suspend the “What”, Head to the “Who”, Align the “How”

In uncertain times, we embrace uncertainty and adjust this approach. There’s a similar start to the traditional method.

We start with the “What” — the outcomes we seek, the targets, and the image of success, and then check in with ourselves. In times of uncertainty, we may feel or sense an inadequacy about the goals, or about the way we’d achieve them.

We may see that our rationality of it all is sound, but there might be something lacking, unaddressed, inadequately accounted for, or simply that what we’ve come up with is not that compelling to us. The targets may not seem entirely on point:

• A founder CEO sees her company’s runway dramatically reduced with substantial funding nowhere in sight during a challenging time for funding. A reduction in headcount seems necessary and imminent. But she wonders “Is this the best we can do?”
• A medical school chair is appointed chief of the new telemedicine department and is tasked to launch immediately. The hospital goals require that he and his team use the newly purchased, but onsite, equipment and software systems. He understands the intentions and business justification but having his team onsite adds unnecessary constraint as the team considers an alternative distributed approach that makes great use of the recent purchases and greater flexibility across the system. Is mandating centralized the right path to take?

Sometimes we can know when it’s not quite right. This discomfort we experience is a clue that we may not have adequately addressed the uncertainty or upheaval of our times. Logic and reasoning are limited to the environments in which they are relevant. We must lean into the uncertainty to see more fully what’s calling for our attention.

Uncertainty and turmoil are experienced quite personally, and sometimes it’s independent of the external environment. We don’t need a global event to experience upheaval! When we experience uncertainty, our choices may appear limited.

Stress, fear, and confusion may influence our reactions; and when we’re stressed, we’ll quickly turn toward “What should I do?” as we try to just get out of this mess. The “What” may seem a narrow choice of options driven by an equally limiting logic. Here’s an illustration:

• A senior executive in turmoil -The CEO is enraged and frustrated by the company’s performance and current predicament. Over the course of several months, a CEO berates the senior exec for matters beyond the executive’s responsibilities. At other times, this top exec is appreciated and treated as a trusted advisor by the CEO. The company respects and admires this senior executive, and she feels a real opportunity to lead, grow, and contribute to the overall welfare of the business. She loves her work. The full picture is quite compelling, yet the rollercoaster relationship and unpredictable CEO outbursts are becoming untenable. The senior executive’s confidence is shaken. She now feels that there are only two options available to her. Either she tells the CEO how she feels, an act she believes will result in termination, or she quits and pursues a path beyond this company.

The logic is understandable, yet the options (the “What”) appear overly simplistic. Each option has a degree of being compelling up to a point, yet entirely inadequate in other ways. The presence of “compelling” yet “inadequate,” too, is a clue that there is something more to this. The choices and perspective are heavily influenced by stress and anxiety and continued focus on the “What” (the options) is no longer helpful in this upheaval.

Suspend the What

“If something doesn’t feel right to you, then it is probably not right for you.” — Robert Iger

It’s natural and useful to develop goals and then plans to realize them. But if we notice that something seems off in our approach, it probably is. Keep whatever targets or outcome choices that you’ve come up with readily available. Don’t discard them or judge them in any way. Just recognize that there’s likely to be something more to the picture than what’s recognized up to this point.

Rather than cycling through options of targets and plans, we suspend this part of the approach and place our attention elsewhere. We’ll come back to the “What” shortly.

Turn Toward the Who

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm

Now we bring our attention to the “Who” in all of this. It could be “me” as an individual, or the senior executive in the earlier story. It could also be a specific team or everybody in the company. If I’m the one experiencing the challenging times and trying to make good decisions and lead well, then the “Who” is me.

Bringing our attention to the “Who” is an invitation for us to bring ourselves into the picture. When we bring ourselves into this, we bring new questions and perspectives to the entire situation. It’s an opportunity for us to remember who we are, what we value, what matters to us at this time and to connect with purpose.

By suspending the “What” and turning to the “Who,” we give ourselves permission to stop strategizing for the moment and to lean into what we’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing. We create a pause allowing us to see, feel, and understand more completely. This step provides information not acknowledged up to this point and enables us to proceed with a new perspective.

• The senior executive above, with the help of her coach, explores the turmoil. She sees the CEO's outbursts as shocking and disorienting, throwing her off balance and into a defensive stance. She feels misunderstood and like a little child. What follows after that is as if she, as a child, is trying to manage the turmoil. The advice she gives to herself in these situations is to recognize the child, but bring in the more resourced adult of herself to meet the CEO in these outbursts. Rather than responding to the outbursts as if they were “facts” to respond to (as a child), she now sees the outbursts as the CEO’s turmoil. She sees new options for how to proceed such as giving herself some time to process the outbursts, and exploring the outbursts with her CEO, together, when they are both at their best and free from any triggering events.

Turning to the “Who” is to also reconnect with who we are at our best. It’s us “on the right side of the road” — a grounded, resourceful, intelligent, creative, loved, and capable adult.

Reconnecting with this aspect of ourselves, alone or with the help of a friend, a coach, a therapist, or a mentor, we can turn towards the uncertainty that is with us and not be overwhelmed in the drama. From this resourced “Who” of ourselves, we can explore the fears, worries, and concerns that may be holding us back or limiting our perspectives, and also come to see more clearly what matters to us in this situation so that we can engage it with agency — actions aligned with our own will.

To help connect with this resourced and capable “Who” of yourself — and especially if you’re feeling anxious, pressured, or not quite your best at this time (like the executive above) — consider the following journaling exercise.

Be as specific as you can as you journal about your experiences. By experience, rather than the situation, you’re invited to notice what you’re feeling, sensing, and tracking. Your experience includes the “facts” of your “situation,” but is much more than just the “facts.”

Journaling Exercise: Connecting With Your Best Self

Allow yourself to connect with a past challenging time when you and the team you were a part of were at your best. A peak experience, that you’re proud of and that, even though it may have been profoundly challenging at the time, you see now with the benefit of hindsight that it was rewarding and valuable to you

• Write down some of the highlights that made this a peak experience for you.
• Next, notice the qualities that were present in you as a leader. Name the qualities, and remember the experience of having them.
• Notice and name the values that must have been present that brought out the best in you and others.
• Notice all that supported you during this peak experience. Name the resources you were able to draw upon that helped make this experience rewarding and a success.
• Now, notice anything that stands out for you that made this experience exceptional beyond what has already been named.
• What aspects of yourself that were present then, would you like to have with you now?
• How might you bring your insights from the above alive in your current situation?
• What’s importantly different now from your past experience? And how might you draw upon yourself at your best to address the differences?
• What specific concerns are you carrying now, and how, with the agency available from your best self, could you tend to what matters?
• What support would you ask for, and from whom (leadership team, coach, partner, friend, mentor)?

Align the “How” With the “Who” and Head Towards “What”

“I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.” — Brené Brown

Grounded now with “Who” here, we bring back the outcomes we had been considering. We also align the plan with who we are, rather than depending on the outcomes to set the plan. When we do this, our actions, decisions, voice, and behavior align with who we are as our best and most resourceful selves.

• In the example above, as the senior executive brings her best self into the situation, new powerful options emerge as the “adult” exec engages the CEO’s turmoil.

An integrity arises when the “how” is aligned with “who.”

“Integrity,” used here, has a Latin root meaning “intact” and “whole.” The integrity now present and “intact” is across two relevant domains — ourselves and our situation. By engaging the “who,” we are whole and wholly present now in our circumstances.

In the old, more traditional approach above, we “follow the plan” and often leave aspects of ourselves aside, such as our concerns, our vitality, our creativity, and a sense of the bigger picture. We’re caught up trying to be the leader we think we should be in challenging times.

It’s in our language as we try to “get on with it,” “just do it,” and “make it happen.” As leaders and human beings, we’re splintered and disconnected from ourselves, using only a fraction of our wholeness in the traditional approach.

As we apply this new approach, leaning more fully into the upheaval of our situation with our best selves, we face and engage uncertainty and all that it brings up in us.

It can be all or a mix of things including discomfort, pain, exhilaration, anxiety, fears, hopes, grief, and the list goes on. It’s not necessarily all bad or good, and it can swing from one thing to the next.

Our feelings and sensations during this time may be helpful sensors trying to defend and protect what’s important and vulnerable, or trying to bring our attention to what’s done or finished whether we like it or not. In any case, leaning into our experiences, noticing what rises to the top, and then naming what matters to us can help us tend to what we see as important.

If we can see and name it, then we can bring our agency to it and plan accordingly — the “How” can align with what comes forth from the “Who.” All of these moves we’re making have more to do with who we are as people (the “Who”) than it has to do with outcomes and strategizing.

Bringing the integrity of ourselves into our circumstances helps to reveal the fullness of the situation before us. The situation is of integrity now, as we see the whole circumstance before us and engage more completely.

Toward the “What”

“Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own.”

— David Whyte

When we align the approach with who we are at our best and return toward the goals we seek, sometimes the goals themselves shift after we attend to the “Who.” The outcomes can be fine-tuned to also be of integrity for who we are and what we stand for in these times.

In other cases, the goals may not change, but how we go about them, and the attitude toward the plan differs dramatically. Here are a few examples of the goals changing and the goals staying the same with other shifts:

• A CEO knows that a reduction in force is needed, but senses that something significant is unaddressed as he approaches the reduction in the traditional way. As he brings more attention to himself at his best and the fullness of the situation the company is in, he sees that Sales needs to shift and that the company can actually come through this stronger if the leadership team leans into what’s been calling for attention. Layoffs will happen, but instead of a move for survival, the leader and team are moving toward company vitality.
• A CEO founder of a fintech company agrees to board recommendations to have a consulting company lead a financial restructuring of the company. At first, the CEO moves forward with the work but becomes defensive while trying to follow through with what he agrees is needed. On further reflection (turning toward the “who”), he sees he worries that the company’s purpose may be irreparably damaged in the interest of a stronger financial base and that he is at a loss to do anything about this. He names what matters to him, the purpose of the company, and considers ways to apply his agency to what matters. He sees what he hadn’t seen before — that company purpose can be restored and bolstered after a strong financial base is in place — and now leads the overall effort with conviction.
• A CEO and her leadership team are monitoring cash flow and expenses as a normal course of business during these uncertain times. She and her team see that a traditional approach suggests a reduction in headcount and moves toward a stronger cash position. But while the logic is sound, she sees that it is the contribution of every single employee that has brought this company to this level of overall success. She sees that now is the time for all employees to know how much they and their hard work matter. These contributions will shape their future. Layoffs and furloughs are off the table for now and backup plans to reallocate headcount to short-term positions if needed are being developed, as the cash position continues to be tracked.

It’s in times of uncertainty that we may come to step more fully into the leaders we each long to be. We can support ourselves if we pause the focus on the “What” and turn toward the “Who.”

Continue to part three of this series: Befriending Fear, Worries, and Concerns.