When it comes to solving technical or “fly” problems, speed is highly valued. If you’ve ever deployed a fly swatter, you know what I mean.

But, butterfly problems – those challenges that require a deep reorientation of thought, feeling, and identity – don’t respond to speed. They require stillness. Inner stillness in which you let go, or detach yourself, from the old patterns of thought and action that have served you in the past. Honor these patterns as you release them. They have served you well.

But, it is only by letting go of the old forms that  you can make space for something new to be born.

In spiritual literature this experience is called the dark night of the soul. Your old ways of staying on track no longer work. You are adrift in an inner sea without stars overhead to guide you. All you can do is be still. And, this is all you need to do.

It can be uncomfortable to embrace stillness, particularly if you’ve been accustomed to dealing with fly problems for most of your life. Fly problems can be solved by working harder, longer, faster. But, butterfly problems demand another part of you. Not the technical expert. The mystic. The part of you that appreciates stillness and can open to the wonder of “not knowing”.

Now is not the time for action but for stillness.

• What does stillness mean to you?
• How can stillness become a resource?
• How can you make more time/space for stillness in your life?

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are two major categories of problems that you encounter on the leadership journey: fly problems and butterfly problems.

Fly problems are primarily technical in nature and can be resolved using technical know-how and historically proven expertise. These problems are like bothersome flies that can be dispatched with an expertly handled fly swatter.

Butterfly problems are quite different. They confront you, not simply with a more complicated technical issue, but with a fundamental life challenge. The resolution of butterfly problems require a fundamental reorientation of identity.

You have  outgrown the beliefs, attitudes, images, structures, and goals that defined your life and work. The ways of thinking and acting that have worked in the past are not up to the challenge that you face. The  self that you identified with has become outmoded.

It is “butterfly” time. Time for turning inward and allowing the certainties of the past to dissolve away. It is a gooey time. A messy time. But, also the prelude to profound transformation.

• What are the fly problems that you are confronting in your life and work?
• What expertise is needed to solve them?
• What are the butterfly problems you are confronting in your life and work?
• What is your attitude towards the necessary dissolving of your old sense of identity?
• How do you make time for stillness and silence?

When we first moved to San Diego, we lived in a neighborhood called Ocean Beach. It’s close to the ocean and the airport. I loved being close to the beach. But, the regular roar and rumble of jets overhead tortured me. For about a month. Then, I habituated. More than getting used to the noise – I stopped noticing. The noise didn’t register in my awareness. Through habituation, the roar had receded into the background.

It’s natural to habituate.

Habituation serves a function. It’s necessary in this noisy world to shut out the racket. Your nervous system can’t absorb it all. There’s just too much input. So, you dial down your awareness. You habituate and allow much of the din and drone of life to recede into the background.

This allows you to function.

You’re not overwhelmed. But, you’re also not fully present; not in touch with what is happening around you.

Habituation protects you. And it blinds you.

Because, whatever you’ve habituated to hasn’t really gone away. It’s just moved into your psychological blind spot. It’s like those jets. They’re still roaring by. Filling the air with noise pollution. The din is still pounding away at the nervous system.

When you habituate to a situation, you stop noticing the effects.

It’s still affecting you. It’s still there. You’re just not paying attention. And therefore, don’t take action to change the situation.

It’s much easier to focus on new problems.

Your brain loves new problems. Your brain loves the stimulation of a new problem. The freshness. The vividness. The immediacy. New problems are like shiny new presents for your brain.

A new problem kicks your attention into high gear and focuses your brain on taking action.

It feels good to tackle new problems. And it can be important. But, it can also be a decoy that further distances your from dealing with the long term issues that have faded into the background.

Chronic issues fade into the background.

The longer a problem has persisted the more likely it is that your brain will habituate to it. It’s the lingering problems that we ignore not the fresh fight.

They’re not emergencies. You barely notice them after a while. Not because they’re not important to address. But, because you’re habituated to them.

Until you bring these issues into your awareness – they’ll continue to plague you.

The effects of these back-burner issues don’t disappear just because your brain has habituated to them. They still cause trouble. Undermine performance. And hold you back from fulfilling your mission.

How can you become aware of what you’ve stopped noticing?

It’s tricky.

Let’s face it – habituation has its benefits. Turning off your awareness does protect you.

So, before you make any changes, appreciate what the habituation has done for you. And with the very next breath, recognize that habituation can’t move you forward. Habituation never completed anything.

Here are the Three Steps:

Step 1) Go on a rant.

This is a very specific type of rant with a very defined goal.

The goal of this rant is to bring into awareness those concerns, issues, conflicts, etc. that you have ignored, given up hope about, and wish that someone would do something about.

To perform this rant successfully you cannot be polite. You can’t be indirect. You need to unload. Put your politically correct persona aside and give your rant free rein.

Here are some unfinished sentences to get you started:

• I can’t stand it when . . .
• I am so tired of people who . . .
• Why can’t we . . .
• I wish someone would do something about . . .
• What drives me crazy around here is . . .

Step 2) Discover what you really care most about (that’s hidden in the rant)

The rant is your raw material. The rant has released a torrent of emotional energy (if you’ve done it honestly). This is a delicate moment. The intensity of your emotions over the issue could easily be directed into blaming others (or yourself).

That’s why this second step is so essential. This is where you turn the emotional energy from simply fueling a rant towards taking positive action.

Here’s how. By recognizing that you wouldn’t rant about something that you didn’t really care about. So, turn your attention towards that caring. Focus on why this issue matters so much to you. Become aware of what it is that you really want, what you care most about – that led to the rant in the first place.

Complete these sentences:

• What matters most to me in this situation is . . .
• What I really want for us is . . .
• What I am deeply committed to is . . .

Step 3) Determine a small, immediate action

Now, that you know what you care most about – take action. But, not massive action. Something small that starts the ball rolling. Something you can do that:

• Reflects what you care most about
• Will engage others’ commitment
• Is relatively easy to start

Don’t expect the situation to be resolved with a single action. That’s not realistic. This three-step process is not designed to finish the job. Rather, these three steps are focused on breaking you out of your habituation – so that you can start to address those lingering issues that have faded, like the jet planes of Ocean Beach, into the background of your awareness.

My mother, Roslyn, and my Aunt Sena had a falling out in 1968. They stopped speaking to each other. My mother died in 2006. They never reconciled.

It’s now 2010 and Sena’s in a nursing home near my house. Her memory is dissolving away. Yet, when I say my mother’s name, Sena still scowls.

She doesn’t remember what happened all those years ago.

The details of the events have faded from memory. But, the emotional momentum continues. It’s an odd consequence of dementia – she’s still angry but can’t say why. The reaction is there, but for no known reason.

Organizations can have this kind of dementia, too.

It happens when the collective belief system – the culture – gets stuck in the past. When people’s behavior in the present are still shaped by events that have long faded from memory.

Here’s an example: the CEO of a client company was famous for repeating, “You can say anything you want around here . . . on your last day.”

He’d deliver this slogan with a sadistic grin on his face.

Or so I was told by the CFO. She’s one of the few employees who ever met him. The sadistic CEO left the organization 10 years ago.

Even though he was gone physically – his impact continued.

The climate of fear that he had instilled persisted long after his departure.

It was as though the emotional nervous system of the organization had been imprinted with the belief that “this is an unsafe environment – be careful of what you say”.

So, even though the CEO was long-gone, the cultural belief lived on. People were still afraid to be honest and open.

It’s as though the organization has a brain.

Just like a human brain, the organizational brain has three main sections.

There’s the neo-cortex. That’s the logical, rational, data-driven part of the organizational brain. It’s deals with strategy, tactics, metrics, planning and implementation.

Then, there are the mammalian and reptilian areas of the organizational brain – which are more primitive.

The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain shape the corporate culture.

The mammalian brain generates the emotional climate and emotional-driven beliefs of the organization. The reptilian brain governs the automatic, reactive, survival-based organizational behaviors.

These areas of the organizational brain set the mood, the morale, and the unwritten rules that determine how people interact.

The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain can lock onto an event and turn it into an enduring belief.

That’s why the impact of a bad leader can linger years after he or she departs.

Even if nobody was there when the actual events that transpired.

Because, when leaders act in ways that undermine trust – the memory of their betrayal lodges in the organization’s primitive brain.

The emotional impact of the events has it’s own momentum. A momentum that locks the culture – the people – into patterns of reactivity whose roots are in the distant past.

How can leaders overcome organizational dementia?

First of all, realize that you’re not dealing with logic, here. You’ve got to aim your communication to the more primitive – and more powerful – parts of the organizational brain.

These parts of the organizational brain:

• Aren’t convinced by numbers.
• Could care less about organizational charts.
• Don’t trust policies or procedures.

Please, don’t start with a PowerPoint slide show. The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain hate PowerPoint. They ignore it. Particularly if it’s filled with lots of graphs and numbers.

You can influence the primitive parts of the organization’s brain.

Here are ten strategies that can engage the mammalian/reptilian brains:

1) Create safety.

Any hint that you’re in attack mode, and you’re finished. The emotional culture that you want to transform is very sensitive to criticism and judgment. If you’re frustrated or punishing, in any way, the primitive parts of the organizational brain will shut you out.

These entrenched memories can’t be uprooted with a crowbar. They need a safe space in order to open up.

These patterns of behavior may have out-lived their usefulness, but they began as self-protective mechanisms. Tread lightly. And respect their original intention.

2) Be curious.

Ask questions. Learn about the history that shaped the culture. Invite people to tell their stories. Get interested in the unspoken beliefs and assumptions that underlie the reactive behaviors.

Bring these beliefs and assumptions out of the dark – where they operate automatically – and into the light of awareness.

Discuss the impact of the beliefs and assumptions on individuals, teams, and organizational effectiveness.

Ask:

“What are the consequences of this belief?”

“How does it impact performance?”

“How does it impact your experience of fun and fulfillment?”

3) Reveal your dilemma.

If you had a magic formula or a silver bullet to transform the culture – you’d use it. But, you don’t. Nobody does. So, share your dilemma, your dissatisfaction with the patterns of the past, and your longing for a new way of interacting with each other.

Declare your readiness to move on. Be personal.

Explain how you no longer want to let the old belief govern your thoughts and actions. That you’re ready to let go of that past pattern and want to move on.

4) Let people know what you long for – as a person.

Talk about what matters most to you at work. Not just in terms of the business. Name your deepest values.

Don’t play it safe and talk only about “productivity”, “effectiveness”, and other commonly accepted organizational values. Dig deeper. Explore and express the values that make life worth living for you. Maybe it’s love. Or spirituality. Or creativity. Put your values out there. And talk about what it would look like to infuse the organizational culture with these kinds of values.

5) Admit that you won’t always walk your talk.

You’re human. And while you aspire to live your values – you also have blind spots. You can lose your way and react out of emotion not principles.

Invite people to give you feedback about when you are and aren’t living your values. And when they give you feedback say, “Thank you. I appreciate the feedback and your willingness to help me grow as a leader.”

6) Be the change.

Start acting in accord with your values and your longing. Don’t wait for the culture to change. It never goes first.

Ask yourself, “What would it look like for me to express my values fully and authentically in this meeting?” This takes courage. It’s risky and powerful. Because while the culture will not immediately embrace your new stance, taking it will connect you with a source of inner strength.

7) Embrace resistance.

Your behavior will challenge the emotionally encoded beliefs of the past. This activates cultural survival instincts and people fight back. They may attack you. They’ll defend their behavior and attempt to marginalize your challenge as – idealistic, touchy feely, naïve, and impractical.

You’ll likely be made fun of (at least behind your back), ignored, marginalize, or accommodated (if you have enough positional power). It’s all part of the process.

It takes inner courage to persist in modeling the new behavior, without reverting to anger, blame, or power politics.

Engage people in renewing the organizational values.

If your organization has a statement of values, start a conversation on your team about what the values mean and how the reactive patterns don’t express those values.

This is not a training to teach values. It is a conversation that invites people to infuse the old values with new life.

Take any corporate value and have a team conversation. Ask:

• What does this mean to you personally?
• How does it connect with what matters to you?
• How would you express this value in action?

9) Encourage people talk about values from a personal perspective.

Don’t impose corporate definitions. Let shared understanding of values emerge though open dialogue. It’s the open dialogue that begins to recode the culture.

Your team’s definition doesn’t need to be a word-for-word replica of those on the corporate plaque. People need to make the values their own. And that means giving them meaning in words that resonate for them. It means envisioning what it means to live the values in their work.

10) Point out examples of the new values-in-action

Take time during staff meetings to celebrate individuals who have demonstrated the values-in-action. Invite team members to celebrate each other; to coach and support each other in living the shared values. By focusing on core values. By putting those values into action. By supporting each other in living those values – you can overcome the organizational dementia.

Questions for Reflection & Action

1) How is your organization suffering from dementia?

What are the outmoded beliefs, assumptions, grudges, fears that are shaping people’s actions/thoughts in the present?

How does this cultural dementia impact you, your team, those you serve?

2) What will you do to change this?

What is a small action you can take to “be the change”?

Who will you talk with?

What will you talk about?

(How can you purify any blame or judgment from what you say?)

When I was thirteen years old, I had to capsize a canoe and swim 100 yards to shore with all my clothes on. I was at a Camp Takajo in Maine and this ordeal was required before I could to take out a canoe on my own.

If you’ve ever had to swim 100 yards fully clothed, you understand a basic idea from physics – “drag”. Drag is the mechanical force that opposes your body’s motion through the water.

Dolphins don’t experience a lot of drag.

Dolphins slice through the water. Evolution has honed the dolphin’s body to minimize drag.

Not so with our human bodies.

Even the world’s fastest swimmers only convert 9% of their effort into forward motion. That means that 91% of their effort is spent moving water out of the way.

Jump into a lake fully clothed, on the other hand, and you’re literally drowning in drag. Swimming becomes a struggle. You can barely inch your way forward.

Great swimmers focus on reducing drag.

And if you want to achieve goals – in work or life – you need to understand and reduce drag, as well.

Drag is a factor of life.

There are many forces – within you and around you – that consume your energy – energy that could be channeled into forward motion.

The more you reduce drag – the more efficiently you translate your energy and activities into meaningful results. So, what creates drag in life?

What are the factors that create drag and eat up your life energy?

Drag is created by both internal and external factors. There are psychological, biological, behavioral, interpersonal, and organizational factors that create drag. And slow down your progress and consume energy.

Some of these can be easily reduced. Others are part of life. Struggling to reduce them just wastes more energy.

The idea is to reduce the factors that are reducible

Remember, drag is inevitable. Water is thick – but life is thicker. So, you’re not going to reach 91% efficiency. Don’t even try.

You can reduce drag by focusing on these 6 factors

1) Discordant goals

Discordant goals don’t fully reflect your core values. They are often expressions of greed or fear. Pursuing discordant goals takes a lot of energy. You have to pump yourself up, hype yourself up, threaten, cajole, bribe, and beg yourself to move into action.

Concordant goals, in contrast, do reflect your core values. They are expressions of what matters most to you. In pursuing concordant goals you are natural motivated. Every step of the journey – from idea to implementation – is a chance to embody and express your core values.

How can you refine/edit your goals to be more reflective of your core values?

2) Lack of priorities

Even when your goals are aligned with your core values, there is still the question of prioritization. In a given day, week, quarter, you’ve only got so much mental, emotional, creative, financial, energy to spend. How will you allocate your life energy? What matters most?

What are the criteria you’ll use to prioritize your concordant goals?

My friend Michael Bungay Stanier likes to ask:

What will have the most impact?

What’s easiest?

What’s the most fun?

Using these three criteria, sort your concordant goals and determine where you’ll focus your time/attention/resources.

3) Habits from the past

When I’m swimming, I have a hard time turning my head to the left. Why? I learned to breathe by turning my head to the right when I was six years old. I developed a habit.

Habits from the past can create drag. Particularly, if they aren’t concordant with your goals.

The good news is that habits are not inevitable. They’re learned. And so, new habits are also learnable.

What habits do you want to develop that will make this year more fulfilling, meaningful, productive?

(To see more on how to develop new habits go to this post)

4) People who reinforce habits from past

The people in your life are used to the way you’ve been. Even if some of your habitual ways of acting aren’t the most effective – other people have adapted to them. They’ve figured out what to expect from you and have developed complementary patterns of their own. You and they make up a complex system.

When you change your habits, the system gets disrupted.

Some people may celebrate (they’ve been waiting for this change). Others may not. Why? Because your change places pressure on them to change as well. In subtle (and not so subtle) ways, these people will encourage you to return to your former habits.

What can you do?

First you can explain to the people who will be affected by your change – what you’re doing and why it matters.

Enroll them in the process so that they support the changes you want to make.

And if they honestly can’t get on your side – look for ways to minimize their impact on your life.

5) Competing goals – in organization

If you’re working in an organization – then the goals you set may not fully align with those of other departments. Your win could be their loss. And vice versa.

Competing goals – whether between departments or within a single department – creates tremendous drag. Energy and attention gets consumed in power struggles.

Peter Block beautifully describes how to work through these political realities. He distinguishes opponents – where despite disagreements and competing goals there is trust; and adversaries – where lack of trust makes constructive dialogue more challenging.

The key in all cases is to:

Stay grounded in your core values

Clearly articulate the organizational value of your goal

Understand the challenge from their perspective

Be flexible without abandoning what matters most (values, mission, relationship)

6) No reflection time

A key to reducing drag is to stop doing and take time to simply reflect. Reflection is as important as action. Through regular reflection you are able to self-correct your attitudes and actions. You re-calibrate your goals to ensure that they are still concordant (expressions of your core values) and organizationally relevant.

Take time for both personal and team reflection.

When reflecting ask not just “what happened” but also “what were the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, assumptions” that shaped your actions and decisions. Look deeper. Become interested in exploring your own and others inner life.

Consider a recent meeting, conversation, or decision that you were involved in (one that went well or one that was dissatisfying).

What happened?

What were the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, assumptions that shaped your actions and decisions?

How fully did you embody your core values?

Looking back – what inner shifts in thought, emotion, belief, assumption would have been more useful?

How would those inner shifts have changes your actions or decisions?

What does this suggest going forward?

All these are ways for you to reduce drag.

And to move forward towards meaningful goals like a dolphin slicing through the warm Hawaiian waters. And with a big dolphin smile on your face, too.

So, how are you going to reduce drag this year?

It was his first week and he’d gone around the entire plant – sweeping, dusting, mopping, and picking up. The floor was clean. So, he sat down and pulled out a novel to read. (He was an English major).

“What are you doing?” a co-worker asked.

“Reading.” Marc answered innocently.
“You can’t do that. You need to keep the floor clean.”
“It is clean. I just finished cleaning it two minutes ago.”
“Well, if it’s clean, then look busy.”

It was an initiation moment.
Marc had spent the previous nine months at college. Reading (well, and partying, too). But, now he was in a new organization with a new culture. The culture of look busy. So, his co-worker was initiating him.

That’s how culture gets transmitted.
Through these moments of initiation. When someone takes you aside and explains to you how it is around here. They’re giving you the cultural scoop. The insiders view on reality. They’re reining you in. And helping you fit in.

Most of these conversations are pretty casual.
They happen in the hallway, after the meeting. Or over coffee. We don’t require an official training program to be culturally initiated. We’re tribal creatures, after all, and don’t relish being kicked out of the tribe. We’re wired to pay attention to the cultural signals so we can do what it takes to belong.

This is especially true when we’re new to a tribe – or a team.
The smallest comments carry great weight. It’s those short, potent comments like “Look Busy” that can shape behavior for years afterwards.

Questions for Reflection & Action
•    How were you initiated into the culture of your organization?
•    How do you initiate people into the cultural of your team?
•    What’s a simple phrase (“Look busy”) that describes the culture you have?
•    What’s one for the culture you want?

It takes effort – focused, conscious effort – to achieve anything in life. But, just applying effort isn’t enough. Relentless effort can become a mechanical process that mires you in a rut.

To breakthrough to a new level of creativity and productivity requires effortlessness as much as effort.

Effortlessness frees you from your habitual focus. Being effortless opens you up to receive information, inspiration, and direction from sources outside the boundaries of your effort-full focus. Whether those sources are other people, books, the unconscious, the spirit – or all of the above!! – it is  effortlessness that allows you to take them in. But, effortlessness, by itself won’t generate breakthroughs.

Too much effort and you get tight, rigid, and constricted. Too much effortlessness and you become diffuse, vague, and directionless. It takes both to generate breakthroughs.The place where effort and effortless meet – is the breakthrough zone.

Bill Russell, the legendary basketball great, describes his experience of breakthrough and the paradoxical brilliance that occurs when effort and effortlessness unite:

“At that special level all sorts of odd things happened. The game would be in a white heat of competition, and yet somehow I wouldn’t feel competitive — which is a miracle in itself. The game would move so quickly that every fake, cut and pass would be surprising, and yet nothing could surprise me.”

Questions for Reflection & Action

• Where do you want to create a breakthrough in your work or life?
• How much effort are you applying?
• How much effortlessness?
• What does this tell you?
• How can you adjust the balance of effort/effortless so that they merge into breakthrough?

When we see carpet on the floor – we know to pull it back.
The carpet invariably is covering up an aging wood floor that needs lots of attention.

Consensus can be like carpeting.
When teams misuse consensus it becomes a way of covering over differences – rather than engaging in constructive dialogue.

Instead of exploring legitimate differences, many teams use consensus as a way of avoiding differences and side stepping important conversations.

It goes like this:

The team needs to pick a new software vendor. There are three choices. When team gathers to decide which of three vendors to hire, the leader says she’d like the team to reach consensus.

“Great,” says the team leader, “It looks like we’ve got a consensus.”

But, what did she really have?
Silence . . . a deafening silence.
And silence isn’t consensus, by any means.

Rather, this group’s silence was filled to overflowing with emotions, ideas, un-resolved issues, and un-discussed concerns.

Let’s lift up the carpet of silence and take a look at what’s underneath.
Even though the team members were sitting there silently. Not all of them were having the same experience.
There were team members who:

•    Agreed with the team leader’s choice.
•    Disagreed with the leader – but were afraid to say so.
•    Had important technical information about the vendors – but didn’t bring it up because they thought the leader had already made up her mind.
•    Felt uncomfortable when team members disagreed – and were relieved when the leader stepped in.
•    Were tired of the conversation and just wanted to move on.
•    Didn’t really care one way or the other.

Yes, the silence was deafening.

But, instead of exploring what the silence was covering – the team moved on.
A decision was made, but there was no meeting of the minds.
As Gary Winters and I explain in our book To Do or Not To Do – every team decision presents a two-fold opportunity:

•    A business opportunity: to make a good business decision.

•    A team development opportunity: to build trust, improve communication, and strengthen team alignment.

Both of these opportunities are short-changed when silence is taken as agreement.

The practice of team decision-making puts pressure on the team to mature emotionally.
Every team it’s own emotional “thermostat” – a psychological mechanism that allows for a certain amount of emotional “heat” – and no more.

When conversations or meetings get too “hot”, too intense – the thermostat kicks in and either:

•    The leader takes over and makes a decision
•    The issue is set aside for “another meeting”
•    A task force is formed to take the issue “off line”

However it occurs, the heat is returned to normal.

And the team is “saved” from having to deal with the uncomfortable pressure of working through differences. Everything and everyone returns to “normal”.

Re-setting the team’s emotional thermostat takes time – and skill.
It takes time to build the team’s ability to work through differences. But, this is time that is not wasted.

It’s an investment in developing team maturity.

By, covering over the team’s tensions with deafening silence – trust erodes and people learn to stop participating whole-heartedly in business decisions.

The next time they’re asked for their opinion – people will hold back. Instead of saying what they really think. They’ll disengage. Or grudgingly go along – without sharing their insights or expertise.

The differences that are avoided today – resurfaces tomorrow as conflicts in other forms
Because even when you carpet over differences – they’re still there.
The unaddressed concerns and damaged trust will continue to shape how people interact long after the meeting adjourns.

So, the next time a meeting room is filled with deafening silence, recognize that it’s time to in your team’s maturity.
Instead of moving on, roll back the carpet of silence and draw out the divergent points of view that are hidden underneath.

“The future looked bright,” she enthused.

“That’s exciting,” I responded.

“Yes,” she said, “We spent two days on our ideal future. We lived in the blue sky of our vision.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now, I’m depressed.”

She explained, “The future is all creativity and possibility. It’s inspiring, but doesn’t really touch me where I live – which is in the present. In day-to-day reality.”

Blue Sky is not Enough
There’s a problem with many strategy efforts. They are overly visionary with little connection to the common ground of daily reality. Purely blue-sky inspiration is heady, exciting, but ultimately short lived.

We need to envision the future. But overly focusing on vision while ignoring the mundane facts of daily life is not vision. It’s  . . . fantasy.

I’m not sure if it was Robin Williams or some other wise-fool who said, “I’ve given up my search for truth. Now, I’m just looking for a good fantasy.”

I can relate. Funny as it is, such an approach doesn’t do much towards transforming a team or organization.

Reality is Not Enough, Either
It is important to face facts. Ignoring a situation doesn’t actually make it go away. But, simply dwelling on the cold, harsh facts of our day-to-day experience doesn’t work either.

Simply grinding away on today’s issues is exhausting. It can feel like we are pushing against an immovable mountain. And the mountain won’t budge. The challenges start looking too big and our efforts too puny.

So, how do you move the mountain?

How do you create the kind of momentum that will start rolling the juggernaut of today’s reality towards your ideal future?

The Stockdale Paradox
The secret is a timeless principle that was re-discovered by Admiral James Stockdale during his time as a POW Viet Nam. He had been shot down and imprisoned in the “Hanoi Hilton” for almost eight years.  As the highest-ranking officer among the POWs, Stockdale sought to encourage, guide, and lead his fellow prisoners through their ordeal.

What Stockdale noticed was that the people who persevered in those truly tough times were able to hold two seemingly paradoxical factors in mind simultaneously.

They were able to hold onto and focus on a hopeful future. They were able to, in Stockdale’s words,  “retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.”

Faith and focus on the future is one important element to moving the mountain. But, it is not sufficient.

You need to look ahead and have a robust sense of where you want to end up. But, just looking ahead ensures that you will trip over the insistent rocks of current reality that litter your path.

Don’t Be Optimistic
Stockdale distinguishes his attitude from simple “optimism” – and adds the other element to his paradoxical mindset – ” to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Being motivated by your vision is not enough to persevere through tough times. And while the challenges of your work environment will not come close to being the Hanoi Hilton, you will still face tough times and difficulties. You will still need to deal with the seemingly unyielding facts of your situation.

Just focusing on the vision leads to fantasy. Just focusing on the harsh facts of the situation leads to despair. Neither alone, is sufficient to move the mountain forward.

Move the Mountain
The secret is to face the facts of your situation without denial, excuses, or rationalizations AND AT THE SAME TIME maintain an inspiring vision of the future. Holding these two factors in mind is liberating. And, surprisingly neither perspective cancels the other out. It is not like a plus-one and a minus-one. Keeping these two views in mind doesn’t return you to zero.

That is the paradox.

By, keeping your vision and aspiration clear at the same time as you confront the harshest aspects of your current situation, you actually generate a tremendous creative energy. This energy is a live giving source of inspiration that feeds your commitment to create what matters most and fuels your ability to take action.

It is the energy that moves the mountain.

Questions for Reflection & Action

• What’s the vision that you’re pursuing?
• Where do you need to confront your current situation more directly?
• How can you hold both of these in mind at the same time?

Conflicts arise as mutual understanding shrinks. Conflicts shrink as mutual understanding grows.

How can you increase mutual understanding?

1) When you’re talking, do more revealing. Reveal how you arrived at your point of view. Reveal your feelings. Don’t be cunning. Be revealing. Make it easier for others to understand the values and needs that are behind your position.

2) When they’re talking, listen deeply. Get really interested. Learn more about how they arrived at their point of view. Pay attention to their values and needs. Don’t be critical. Be curious.

Questions for reflection & action:

• Where are you experiencing conflicts?
• Where do you want more mutual understanding?
• How can you be more revealing in those situations?
• How can you listen more deeply in those situations?