How Shared Adversity Builds Trust And Reveals Character

3 reasons why sharing adversity can help bring your organization to the next level

One of the strongest ways we build trust with each other is through sharing experiences. Any experience that we can share as a team will help build trust, from eating lunch together to collaborating on a project. However, the amount of trust developed from any experience is in direct proportion to the intensity and duration of it. When I get together with my former teammates, either from the Marines or the football field, we don’t tell stories about the days where everything went our way. We don’t talk about the games that we played in perfect conditions- we laugh and joke about games and practices in freezing rain, where our cleats would sink 4 inches into the muck, and the warmest place was in the huddle surrounded by our teammates. We don’t talk about the easy missions we conducted while Marines- we reminisce about those times when everything was “wrong,” or went wrong and we needed to rely on and push each other to accomplish the mission- when we needed absolute and total trust in each other. Our shared adversity during training helped ensure it when we needed it the most.
 

We develop as leaders (and as teammates) when we are outside of our comfort zone. Sharing those experiences when we are outside of our comfort zones is, in fact, one of the most powerful tools for developing personally, as a leader and teammate, and in creating a world-class culture throughout an organization. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked or straight out eschewed. The following are three reasons why sharing adversity can help bring your organization to the next level.

Accountability is key to creating and sustaining a world- class culture. The genesis of our ability to hold each other accountable is trust. Trust is the foundation of any relationship. We need to have enough trust in our teammates that we can hold them accountable and know that they aren’t going to argue or hold a grudge against us for doing so. We also need to trust that our teammates will do the same to and for us. We do so because by holding each other accountable, we help ensure that we become the best versions of ourselves which in turn helps our organization accomplish its mission, regardless of the battlefield on which it fights. 

It is often said that adversity builds character. This is untrue. Adversity, however, does reveal character. “Everyone is a hero when it is seventy degrees and sunny.” Unfortunately, that’s not when you need them! We need great teammates and great team leaders when it’s not! We have very few “seventy degrees and sunny” days; days when everything goes exactly as we had planned. We don’t control all the variables that would make a typical game or workday perfect. We never control the heat, the cold, the rain, the sun. We don’t control an unexpected request from a client in Asia right before we are planning to leave for home or the amount of time our newborn baby slept the night before our biggest presentation of the quarter. Games and our workdays go into overtime. We have challenging personal and professional relationships and interactions. We face some form of adversity and a corresponding level of stress every day of our life. 

How we react to adversity sometimes is how we react to adversity all of the time. At The Program, we work with over 160 teams every year. We know with absolute certainty that a program manager who gets emotional and snaps at their teammates during the first sign of adversity during their training with us will do that same thing when their team is struggling with a project… unless they address it. A soccer player who quits when he or she becomes tired and faces some physical adversity while training with us will do the exact same thing on the soccer field during the season… unless they address it too. By the same token, an individual who remains physically, mentally and emotionally tough while facing adversity during their training with The Program, will do the same when adversity strikes them and their team on the playing field, in the board room or whatever their battlefield. Sharing adversity as an organization allows us to evaluate our teammates and ourselves and make the necessary changes we need to make. 

There are two clearly delineated types of environments: controlled and uncontrolled. A controlled environment is one where we control the variables: we choose the location, duration and intensity level of any training. An example would be practice or the weight room for most athletic teams. For Corporate America, examples include a simulated cold- call training session with our sales staff, or simply a “normal,” business day. In an uncontrolled environment, there is an enemy out there trying to kill us, figuratively (athletic or corporate) or literally (military combat operations, police, fire and other emergency first- responders). For Corporate America, we can think of an uncontrolled environment as any “normal,” day that becomes abnormal: our biggest client unexpectedly leaves us, our firm lays off 10% of its workforce or we are rushing to meet a deadline.

In training and practice, leaders should make their controlled environments seem uncontrolled. We can never truly replicate the stress of combat or of an uncontrolled environment- a “2 Minute” drill in practice is NOT the same as a “2 minute” drill in a stadium filled with 100,000 screaming fans.

However, we must add adversity to our controlled environments to help ensure our success in uncontrolled ones. We should try and replicate game-time or battlefield conditions: do a “2-minute drill,” but give the offense one minute to do it in, blast loud music, tell our corporate teammates that their simulated cold- calls will each be five minutes in duration and then make them three. 

By the same token, leaders must make uncontrolled environments appear as controlled as possible. Many don’t. Leaders may not be responsible for “the fire,” but there is no need to add fuel to it. Unfortunately, many leaders make uncontrolled environments appear even more “out of control.” Behind in a game, coaches yell, scream and smash clipboards not only at players, but amongst themselves, as well. Business leaders get just as emotional and make already tense, challenging meetings or days even more so.

Instead, even if you don’t feel cool, calm and in- control, act like you are!* Leadership is influence. If a leader “loses their cool,” that influences their subordinates and they will lose theirs, as well.

Making controlled environments appear as uncontrolled as possible and then ensuring that we do the opposite while in uncontrolled ones allows our teammates to focus on the mission in front of them instead of the fear within them. As business leaders, if we ensure training in controlled environments appears uncontrolled and when operating in an uncontrolled environment, we ensure it appears controlled, our corporate team, despite any adversity, will still be able to provide more products and services to our clients, allowing us to reach our sales targets, increase salaries and provide bonuses. As coaches, we will still be able to compete for championships. And as Marine Corps Officers, it allows us to bring our Marines home safely from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Shared adversity allows us to grow as individuals and more importantly, as a team. It is an opportunity to develop trust within ourselves and within the teams we are privileged to be a part. Shared adversity provides an opportunity to evaluate ourselves and our teammates to ensure that we learn, grow and respond positively to adversity when it next occurs. 

Adversity striking is guaranteed. Our ability to still accomplish our mission when it does, is not. However, our sharing adversity in a controlled environment prior to it actually occurring, will help ensure our team’s ability to do so. 

*Communication is key in “acting like you are!”

Eric Kapitulik was an Infantry Officer and Special Operations Officer with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, 1st Marine Division. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 2005 and founded The Program in 2008. Eric has participated in eight Ironman Triathlons, is also an avid mountaineer and has summited five of the Seven Summits (the highest peaks on each of the seven continents). Connect Eric Kapitulik Visit www.theprogram.org

A Lead Instructor with The Program, after graduating from Tufts University, Jake MacDonald was commissioned as an Officer in the United States Marine Corps. While on active duty, he completed two combat tours to Iraq as a Light Armored Reconnaissance Platoon Commander. He continues to serve his country as a Major in the Marine Corps Reserves and recently deployed to Afghanistan as a Scout Sniper Platoon Commander. Jake has received multiple awards for combat valor as well as a Purple Heart after being wounded in action. Connect Jake MacDonald Follow @theprogramorg

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