EQ 4 U

MAYBE SHE'S NOT SUCH AN ANGEL AFTER ALL. DATING ON THE INTERNET HAS ITS HAZARDS. LET TheCloser FIND OUT FOR YOU.
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ARE YOU HIDING BEHIND A HAPPY-FACE MASK? One of the hardest things a business organization has to deal with (or a person, because a business is ultimately a person ... the people) is the unexpected.

Ask the governor of New Orleans.

What's your personal version of "We had no way of knowing the levees would break" or "We didn't realize so many people wouldn't be able to evacuate."

Your version might be:

Yes, I knew he didn't like it here, and I knew he was very popular, but I never thought he'd take half my sales force with him when he left.

The price of oil wasn't supposed to go down. I just lost half my retirement.

I thought he didn't like it here, but I had no idea he'd take half the sales force with him when he left.

I assumed the two department heads would coordinate the launch before they started.

Of course we didn't have key-man insurance. Who would anticipate harry would drop dead of a heart attack at the age of 41?

I thought everyone in the department knew how to run that software. How come they never told me Annette was the only one who did?

Getting your mind around risk is an essential part of leadership, just as an optimistic can-do attitude is, and the two must not be confused.

They are two different EQ skills, both necessary.

In fact it could be said, "Count on the best, but prepare for the worse."

There are contingencies you must antitipcate, and have Plan Bs in your head. What IF Rosemary got sick and couldn't come in for a week? Could you survive? What IF the price of that part sky-rockets? What IF you couldn't work for a month, what would happen to the company?

In the business world it's called "low-probability/high-impact events that require complex understanding." Here at EQ Central (where we try to avoid jargon), it's resilience, because, in fact, it's never the things you could anticipate that will throw you, it's that phone call at 3 p.m. on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon that changes your world forever.

Flex your EQ muscles ... learn resilience. You'll need it some day. Sooner or later.

Panic shuts the brain down and stops us from being able to think just when we need it the most. Like when those levees we counted on ... or that top salesperson who carried the company ... or the only housing market in the country that's risen steadily for 25 years ...

Don't hide behind the Happy Mask. Take it off and look around. And this includes making it possible, in fact rewwarding, for those who work for and with you to tell it like it is -- to you -- to your face (without the mask).

Take a tip from the US Army After-Action Reviews: Get the team together immediately to analyze the problem, not blame someone -- what should have happened, what did happen, how it happened, and what to do next time. You should be so lucky it's "someone's fault, Paula's". No, it's usually a systems failure.

Here's a good reasource for you, a book that begins "One of the greatest challenges any business organization faces is dealing with the unexpected..": Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity" by Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe.

This should peak your interest. Know about amazon dot com's Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs)? Here they are: (learn more) capability for mindfulness, preoccupation with failure, mindful culture, toward mindlessness, mindful management, capacity for mindfulness, interactively complex, high reliability organizations, mindful processes, your work unit, failure reluctance, mindful action, informed culture, mindful moments, safety culture, most other organizations, disagree responses, explosive range, less mindful, five processes, action repertoire, more mindful.

Does that whet your appetitite?

YOU'RE NOT ALONE. YOU HAVE A COACH. RIGHT HERE. I do not require a contract. You're smart, and I'm experienced. If we can solve it in one-session, so much the better.

To subscribe to the EQ at Work ezine, go HERE.