Why Confronting Reality is Vital to Success.

As business leaders or founders our ability to balance realism and optimism in a dire situation is key to our success. The Stockdale Paradox is a concept that was popularised by Jim Collins, in his book, “Good to Great”. James Stockdale is a former Vice Presidential candidate, who was a POW for seven years in Vietnam. He was repeatedly tortured and had no reason to believe he would make it out alive.

He found a way to stay alive by embracing both the harshness of his situation with a balance of healthy optimism. He paradoxically hoped for the best but acknowledged and prepared for the worst. After years in captivity, Stockdale was released.

Positive Visualisation Vs Reality.

Such paradoxical thinking of making it through hardship to achieve goals is one of the defining philosophies for all great leaders. Confronting the entire brevity of your situation is instrumental for success. Positive visualisation needs to be counterbalanced with a thought that you can actually fail, and feel miserable and hopeless. Learn to embrace both feelings in opposition to one another, and realise they are necessary and interconnected. When it comes to business leadership and management, this duality helps to guard against any disappointment that will hit you in the business world. Optimism may drive innovation but must be counterbalanced by reality.

Plan for Challenges Ahead.

The Stockdale Paradox can help an organisation assess a current situation and plan accordingly to tackle the challenges that they come across. Tragic optimism is also a similar paradox thought up by another POW in the Second World War…Frankl. They both express a paradoxical idea about acknowledging your current difficulties intermixed with a positive belief that, in the end, you will still triumph.

Get the Right Mindset.

The coronavirus demonstrated a naive lack of balancing realism and optimism. The world was caught off guard and had to deal with the unknown. Leaders didn’t have the right mindset and we were led into a false sense of blind optimism. We were told that things would change by a certain date and when they did now, we lost faith. People lost hope and society as we know it broke down. People were unable to cope with not knowing the truth.

Get Support.

Our ability to come back from the pandemic is still being tested. Our global economy has suffered badly and plunged us into a cost of living crisis. Winter energy bills will test consumers and business owners to breaking point. How can we survive this difficult time? As a business or individual what is your frame of reference to your time scale and how does it relate to the Stockdale Paradox? Have you got the adequate level of personal support you need to be able to get you through this? People to talk to. If you are a business, find a confidant or independent advisor to talk to.

If you want to chat about winning over adversity and how to set your business back on the right track in front of a tough winter, get in touch or if you are looking for more information head over to my website boolkah.com.