As many of you are aware our launch has been hit by delay after delay, unexpected twist after unwanted turn. Through it all I’ve done my very best to keep a level head, a laissez-faire attitude, and exude calm for my family to draw from.
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I have my past life as a factory worker and team leader to thank for this ability. While working for my old employer I underwent a lot of leadership training. This training consisted of workshops, seminars, lots of reading, and a fair share of coaching and on-the-floor experience. In a nutshell, leadership is communication, expectation management, and conflict management. These skills are very transferable to so many parts of life, including managing stress from things in and out of one’s control.
I’ve already written about my love for Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (Getting Lost on the Path to your Dreams), particularly the chapter about managing one’s circles of influence vs concern. It’s so easy to see all the balls in the air and start to panic about it. Bills coming due, pending sales, unknown dates, uncertain outcomes, shifting timelines… it can be really overwhelming. But by identifying what you can and can’t control, you can liberate your worry.
Other resources
Another leadership resource I’ve found myself leaning heavily on is “Leadership and Self Deception” by The Arbinger Institute. The overarching theme of that text is that often in conflict we tend to mentally “pump up” our own grievances by vilifying and assigning motivations to the other party that they very probably don’t even have.
The lesson is to question our own virtue in these situations. Making sure that it’s not “us” making monsters out of “them”. Take for example booking a hotel room. You show up only to find out there was a computer glitch and the hotel overbooked! The desk clerk is struggling to find some way to accommodate you, but it’s taking a while. How do you react? Do you scoff at their incompetence, and berate them for failing at their job? Do you grind your teeth as they deliberately take their time, watching you slowly lose your mind and enjoy their power trip? Or do you realize that all those thoughts are just you trying to make yourself feel better? Maybe by booking as late as you did you contributed to the problem and the clerk is doing their best to accommodate you, even if it’s taking a while? Or maybe it was just the system at fault, and everyone is doing the best they can.
Questioning one’s virtue, and de-vilifying the other party can be extremely empowering; it allows us to assume the best in people and trust that all parties are working together for a mutually beneficial outcome.
Trust in good intentions!
There is the key. Trust in the good intentions, flow with the punches, control what you can and liberate your worry.