Normally, when you´re a houseguest, your hosts don´t bang on your bedroom door an hour before dawn has begun pinking up the edges of the far horizon. Unless, of course, there´s a plane to catch. But on an unusually balmy October morning (and I´m speaking strictly in the technical sense here) in Albuquerque, we all bundled into a roomy car and headed for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We were just in time for the "dawn patrol," which again seems to be mainly a technical term. The black sky was filled even blacker with balloon shapes that would suddenly flare up into brilliant colors and then sigh down again into black shadows like fireflies. The sight that will stay with me until I die, though, is a single black balloon shape hanging in front of the brilliant full moon.
As the day began to brighten, we watched all the action on the field that was littered with gigantic, deflated balloons. Each balloon and gondola had its teams, all pulling, tugging, firing heat, and pulling some more. Five, six, even more were doing an awful lot of hard work, but only one or two actually got to take the ride, have the view from aloft, and be seen by the admiring fiesta goers on the ground. And the rest would pile into chase cars to track the balloon, meet it on the ground somewhere distant, and then undo all the work they just did.
Being a writer, I´m always on the look-out for good management metaphors, like a Saturday suburbanite picks through a yard sale (I´m also big on similes.) And so I thought to myself, "Hmmm." It will probably show up in a PowerPoint presentation one day. And then I thought, "rise above," "rise above." Which brings to mind resilience, which even the centenarians on CNN were talking about this past weekend as one of the secrets to longevity.
In the winter of 2001, I had the privilege of exploring resilience with 26 corporate and government leaders as we discussed what they thought we needed to manage the chaos that lay all around us and face the future with a balanced mix of optimism and realism. Chaos has taken on different shapes since those early days of shock and devastation. But as the CNN centenarians would tell us, that mixture of optimism and realism remains essential for us to rise above.
And so, here are a few of the answers to the one question I asked everyone: What is the essential ingredient for resilience?
"We need to be comfortable with who we are. By understanding and accepting ourselves, we are able to understand and accept others better. We must be accountable, be willing to be accountable and have a sense of self-respect."
Marjorie Randolph, Senior Vice President, HR, Walt Disney Studios
"The ability to adapt to, and learn from, change. When we suffer a setback, a lot of people just walk away or go back to an old answer rather than try to deal with it directly. You have to be able to take blows and then get up and analyze them, then move on."
John Alexander, President, Center for Creative Leadership
"Staying educated and remaining receptive to outside ideas and information. Don´t get locked into the thought that the way things are is the way things will continue to be."
Theodore G. Shackley, Associate Deputy Director of Operations (retired), Central Intelligence Agency
"You have to be able to take a hit. Take the defeat and move on. Like a goalie in hockey you´re going to get scored on. Once you have been scored on, let it go and focus 100 percent of your attention on not getting scored on next time."
James Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer, General Mills
"Having a purpose."
Peggy Conlon, CEO and President, the Ad Council
"Resilience not only comes from one´s inner strength, but also replenished by human interactions. You must be able to continuously believe that people´s kindness toward you is genuine and that your life goal is to bestow that kindness three or five times more on others."
Tai-chin Tung, Chief Financial Officer, Charles Schwab Investment Management
"There has to be a total belief in what you´re trying to accomplish. That belief needs to be rooted in your value system. And when it is, you´re willing to be resilient in its pursuit, to overcome adversities, to mitigate risks, and assess potential costs of failure...This is service over self. There is no limit to what a selfless person can accomplish."
Michael P. Carns, General (retired), U.S. Air Force
"Behind whatever doubts you have, you must have an underlying faith that you can start all over...that you can bring it all to a close and then begin again."
William Bridges, author, Transitions
Despite the talk in the business magazines, there will never be a "new normal." But there never really was an old normal. I expect that the CNN centenarians might laugh at you if you tried to talk to them about the Good Old Days.
But there is one constant variable: This is a human saga we´re in. As an HR leader, you can inspire, coordinate, and motivate all the pulling, tugging, and flame to lift your organization off the ground. Whether you get to ride in the gondola or you´re wiping desert-dusted sweat off your face as you race down the dirt roads in your chase car, if you use the principles of resilience, you have what it takes to rise above.
