How to Keep Your Job in Today’s Turbulent Workplace
Gregory P. Shea, Ph.D. and Robert E. Gunther, authors of “Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change" use the principles of kayaking as a way to explain how to keep your edge and maybe even survive a lay-off at work.
Commitment: Throughout your book, you use kayaking techniques as a metaphor for what is needed to survive and thrive at one's job during this time of turbulence. Why did you use kayaking as a way to show what is needed for a person to survive and thrive in today's turbulent workplace?
Greg: The key to the metaphor is to understand that today’s environment is different, and we need new skills to succeed. We are in what Peter Vaill calls “permanent whitewater.” We often dismiss the changes in the environment as temporary. We also see them as just a change in intensity – more things coming at us more quickly.
But at a certain point these changes in degree add up to a different environment – permanent whitewater. Many of us grew up thinking about our work as if we were sailors on a large, stable ocean liner. The reality today is that many of us need to think of work and life like kayakers on a whitewater river. This requires a shift in mindset. The constant now, paradoxically, is change.
Rob: I was sitting in one of Greg’s classrooms years ago, when he was talking to a group of executives from a major telecommunications firm, in the throes of deregulation. When I heard the term “permanent whitewater,” I perked up. I had grown up paddling whitewater rivers, and I knew that paddlers see the world differently than most other people. When most people see a whitewater river, they focus on the risk from the turbulence. They believe that going down big water is crazy, that it means certain death.
When they see a rapid on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, for example, they feel the only response is to hang on and pray. But kayakers know that there is a set of skills that can get you down the river – and you can even have great fun doing it.
We see the same response to the current economic crisis and other turbulence. People are terrified. And without the right skills for managing change and living in change, perhaps they should be. There are risks in this world. But there is a different way to look at and address this turbulence.
You may not be able to reduce the chaos, but if you develop the right skills, you can thrive in this environment. This is the way kayakers look at turbulence.
Commitment: What are some of the lessons kayaking can teach that will help us survive in the workplace?
Greg: People who succeed and thrive in this permanent whitewater environment have a different mindset. They don’t wait for change to stop. Neither do they try to hold it back. They accept the reality of continuous change and they actively meet it.
You are not going to live and work in a calm environment. The genie is not going to go back into the bottle.
Between 1998 and 2000, some 35 to 50 percent of companies were laying off workers. If you remember, this was during the white-hot economy before the dot-com bubble burst. Many of these companies were hiring at the same time, but there is a churning that is taking place that is a fairly constant feature of today’s world, long before the global economic downturn.
You can either ignore it or you can find a way to meet this permanent whitewater. Kayaking shows us that with the right set of skills and equipment, an environment that looks like certain death can become manageable – in fact, a great adventure.
Robert: One of the lessons of kayaking is that tough is not enough. You have to know what you are doing. Many people think they can just tough out this environment. Run faster. Do a bit more. Multitask. Down a few more triple espressos from Starbucks. But in permanent whitewater, you can’t just swim faster. You can’t just tough it out. The environment will wear you down and burn you out. You will be in the current gasping for air. You need to understand where you are, in permanent whitewater, how it is different, and develop skills to meet it.
Commitment: During this difficult economy, what skills will enable a person to have an edge and maybe survive lay-offs at their place of employment?
Greg: Recognize where you can make a contribution. People are hired or retained for what they can do, not what positions and titles they have had in the past. What can you do that is useful to your company? How can you become more useful?
What capabilities do you have that might be valuable to another organization? Don’t lull yourself into a false sense of security because of the position you have now, or with the thought that your overall corporation is secure. Look at what you can contribute. As long as you have something of value to contribute, you will be in demand. Additionally, be proactive.
Find out what needs doing and get it done. Don’t hide under your desk (i.e., cling to a rock).
Robert: You also need to recognize that your real job is change. Most people were hired to do a certain job and they feel that if they just do that job, their position is secure. That is not longer true.
That was how it was on the ocean liner. The captain and the quartermaster and the engine stoker all had jobs to do and their security depended on each person doing his or her small part. But when the Titanic hit the iceberg, survival depended upon something more than just doing your job. It depended on a recognition that the environment had changed, and required addressing that environment.
Whatever you were hired for, your job is to understand and manage change. If you don’t do this, you won’t even get to do the job you were hired to do.
On a whitewater river, it doesn’t matter if you are a doctor, a firefighter, or an engineer in your professional life. What matters is what you can do to get down the next set of rapids safely and what you can contribute to the group of paddlers you are traveling with.
Commitment: What lesson does 'working the eddies' give us about pacing ourselves?
Greg: In a steady state environment, or even an environment with periodic changes, you can catch your breath. The environment gives you breaks in the action. You have all hands on deck to meet a challenge, and then go back to your cabin. In permanent whitewater, you have to learn to pace yourself.
You have to build breaks in the action, create a not-to-do list, and figure out, when your company has been downsized and you are asked to do the work of two people, what parts of those jobs need to drop off.
If not, you will burn yourself out, and you will not be good to anyone, much less yourself. Tend to yourself both for the sake of your job effectiveness and, more importantly, for your continued health.
Robert: When most people look at whitewater, it seems that there is no option but to be flushed downstream – hang on for dear life and just hope you make it to the bottom. Kayakers recognize that there are eddies throughout the rapids. Eddies are quiet waters behind rocks that often move upstream against the current.
Kayakers can just sit in eddies while the water rushes by them. By moving from one eddy to another, like rungs of a ladder, paddlers can control their pace downstream, looking at the water ahead and avoiding having the current force them in a certain direction. They are in the chaos, but not of the chaos. In work and life, you can find still points in the storm, if you look for them. They allow you to retain your center and control your progress while others around you are being pushed pell-mell downstream.
Commitment: What is an 'Eskimo roll' and how does this relate to our ability to recover from failure in the workplace?
Robert: An Eskimo roll is a set of movements that allows a kayaker to turn a boat upright after it has capsized. Once you learn to roll, you can make mistakes with much less serious consequences. If you flip over, you roll back up.
In the winter, kayakers practice rolling in the swimming pool. Kayakers actually practice making mistakes! Without a roll, you end up swimming every time you flip – and you will flip in whitewater. With a roll, flipping the boat is no big deal. In fact, kayakers don’t even consider the boat to “capsize,” unless the paddler swims. How does this relate to work?
We often believe we achieve success in our careers by avoiding making mistakes. On the ocean liner, if you capsize, this is the end of your career. But in permanent whitewater, you will be flipped over. You’ll be pushed around. It is chaotic. You will make mistakes. The key is to develop the skills to recover quickly from these mistakes.
Greg: In work and life, quick recovery requires resilience. If your job changes or you lose your job, you can’t sit around looking at the past. Find a way to get back upright. Experiment with new things, and practice failing in small ways ahead of time so you develop the resilience to meet the big things.
Build a network around you to help you. Perfect your roll. Failure is not personal. It probably isn’t your fault. It is an inevitable part of permanent whitewater. When we dwell on failure, we don’t think creatively about the options in front of us. We shut down. Then, we end up swimming, just trying to keep our heads above water. There is a better way. Rather than seeking perfection, be prepared to fail and recover quickly.
Commitment: What does it mean to "play a hole' and find optimism in the midst of the chaos?
Robert: The most surprising thing about kayakers is that they go down rivers that other people find terrifying, not just to survive but to find places to play. They surf waves that arise from the whitewater, pop their boats in the air and have all kinds of fun. The bigger the water, the more places to play. The force of the turbulence creates opportunity.
People look at the current economic conditions with a similar sense of foreboding. It is serious, but as Oscar Wilde once observed, “Life is too important to be taken seriously.” In big water, there are always opportunities, but we will not see them unless we have our eyes open to see new things, unless we can look at the world with the eyes of play.
It seems completely counterintuitive that you might play in such a difficult environment, but a sense of play and optimism often gives people an edge in survival in extreme conditions.
Commitment: Can you share with us the story of Ernest Shackleton and what can his leadership ability teach us?
Greg: Ernest Shackleton, particularly on his Endurance expedition in 1915, illustrates the power of optimism. His ship was trapped in the ice en route to Antarctica. The ship was crushed and sank, stranding his men on the ice with no contact with an outside world that was focused on WWI. And the ice was melting, which would leave them in the middle of a vast sea with only small boats. Devastated, most people would have given up.
Yet Shackleton never gave up. He led his men on perhaps the most remarkable journey to safety in this history of exploration. If you think times are hard now, think about what it must have been like to watch your ship disappear below the melting ice. If Shackleton could meet this situation with determination, why not you?
Robert: Another lesson is the importance of strong followers. Frank Wild was an extremely loyal second to Shackleton throughout his career. Wild helped Shackleton screen men for the expedition and supported Shackleton in many ways. But when the men arrived on Elephant Island and Shackleton left with a small party to seek help, Wild was put in charge. He went from second, to commander and had to have the ability to move flexibly between the two roles.
In permanent whitewater, roles shift rapidly as conditions change. You may be a follower one moment, a leader the next. You need to have the capacity to move between these roles.
Commitment: How can we create optimism for ourselves in the workplace, and avoid learned helplessness?
Greg: This is an important question. The work of Martin Seligman and others in the field of “positive psychology” demonstrates the importance of optimism in success and even good health. We all have a soundtrack in our heads and often it is reinforcing a negative view of the world. Being able to identify these messages and change them is one of the keys to changing how you react to the world.
Many people think that you are either born with optimism or not, but Seligman points out that you can learn optimism. It is worth doing, especially in an environment in which many people are “awfulizing.”
Commitment: On page 74, you wrote, "When all else fails, paddle like hell." Can you explain how this applies to the workplace?
Robert: When I was on the Grand Canyon, I paddled into a massive breaking wave in a rapid called Hermit. It was so big I just stopped on the edge of it with that “deer it the headlights” reaction that I’m sure you are familiar with. It chewed me up and spit me out. It was not pretty. If I had paddled like hell, I probably could have punched through it, but I hesitated – and was lost. We are often paralyzed by fear or indecision when we face a new and serious challenge. Kayaks are inherently unstable boats.
If you just sit there thinking, you will be flipped over. A boat moving forward is more stable, it has the stability of forward momentum, and it means you have a paddle in the water so you can brace more quickly. The same is true in work and life. You need to take a moment to assess where you are, but if you don’t know what to do, it is better to keep moving, to do something, than to be paralyzed by fear or indecision. You don’t want to be dead in the water.
Commitment: What does it mean to 'read the water' and how can this help us in the workplace?
Greg: In the old days, we used to look the CEO or other senior managers to tell us what was going to happen next. They would roll out their PowerPoints and present their plans. Think about Enron before its collapse, or Lehman Brothers. They knew where they were going, and employees thought they could trust this information from the bridge.
But in today’s environment, even the leaders may not actually know where the company is headed, let alone the world. You need to read the water, to understand the changes in the environment and how they affect your job and your set of skills.
If you see the subprime mortgage crisis emerging, don’t wait for your boss to tell you want it means. Figure out what the implications are for yourself.
Robert: Meaning in permanent whitewater also tends to be more local. You can paddle the same stretch of rapids as me, following right after me, but you might be a half a foot over and have a totally different experience. You can get guidance from books and from experienced paddlers, but you need to able to identify safe passages, recognize signs of hazards, and listen for waterfalls downstream. It is your responsibility to learn to read the water.
To Purchase Your Job Survival Guide click here.
Gregory Shea, Ph.D. consults, researches, writes and teaches in the areas of organizational and individual change, leadership, group effectiveness, and conflict resolution.
He is a principal in the Coxe Group international consultancy; Senior Consultant at the Center for Applied Research, and Adjunct Professor of Management at the Wharton School, where he has earned an Excellence in Teaching Award, and a Faculty Associate of the Wharton School’s Center for Leadership and Change. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard, Shea holds an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and an M.A., M. Phil and Ph.D. in Administrative Science from Yale. He is a member of the Academy of Management and the American Psychological Association.
Robert Gunther is co-author or collaborator on more than 20 business books, including The Truth About Making Decisions and The Wealthy 100. He has consulted on communications for Fortune 500 companies and major non-profits. He has appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and NPR’s “Morning Edition” and his projects have been featured in The New York Times Time USA Today and Fortune. His columns or articles also have been published in Harvard Business Review, American Heritage and Investor’s Business Daily. He is a graduate of Princeton University.
Visit their website at:
http://www.yourjobsurvivalguide.com/
