Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

By Marshall Goldsmith

In early 2009 I was talking with a lawyer named Tom about the bankruptcy of the large law firm where he had been Vice Chairman. It was a 120 year old firm, specializing in a narrow segment of securities law that had vanished overnight with the financial meltdown the year before. As one of the firm’s leaders, Tom was besieged by the downsized attorneys for advice. Most of them had never experienced such a setback, and they felt lost.

I was eager to know what advice he gave them; he began by telling me a story about his first year in law school.

“A big part of our training as lawyers,” Tom said, “was to interpret a pattern of facts so we could advise a client. Our teacher gave us a hypothetical set of facts and go around the classroom asking, ‘What would you do?’ Every student responded with a course of action. The answers weren’t always correct; sometimes they were desperate. But the students always came up with a rationale, something to act on. At no point in these exercises did anyone say, ‘I’m going to wait until the situation changes.’

“And yet,” he continued, “that’s what a lot of my highly educated attorneys, and likely many others facing similar setbacks, do. They’re looking around and telling themselves, ‘I’ll be ok when the economy improves.’ “

“In other words,” I said, “they’re doing the opposite of what they were trained to do in law school.”

“Yes,” Tom said. “They’re waiting for the facts to change back to something they can understand, something more palatable. They’re refusing to accept that the situation has already changed dramatically—and it’s unlikely that things will go back to the way they were. It’s not the way history works. They’re denying the evidence in front of them.”

“So what did you tell them?” I asked.

“I gave them a cold shower; I said that the firm we worked for is not coming back. It’s not magically resurrecting when the economy revives. Something else may take its place, but we don’t know what that will be. And you can’t sit around waiting for the situation to change. You have to come up with a course of action like we did in law school. Find another way to use your skills. There are many options; just don’t wait for a new career to come to you.”

Waiting for the facts to change—rather than deal with the facts as they are—is a common response to a setback. But when people wait for uncomfortable facts to change into something more to their liking, they’re engaging in wishful thinking. The result is often “under-acting”….instead of doing something, you’re frozen in place while you wait for a more comforting set of facts to appear. In a world that’s constantly moving forward, this is akin to moving backward. That’s a Mojo killer.

When the facts are not to your liking, ask yourself, “What path would I take if I knew that the situation would not get better?” Then get ready to do that. if the world changes in your favor, you haven’t lost anything. If the facts don’t change, you are more ready to face the new world.

Excerpted from Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It!.
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has authored 28 books including What Got You Here Won't Get You There - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. Succession: Are You Ready? is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series. Marshall's latest book is Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It