Using “Worry” to Your Advantage

What keeps you up at night? Agonizing over some thorny decision? Overthinking possible outcomes? Tormenting over the possibility of failure? You are not alone. The hyper-competitive work environment in which we live feeds our imaginations overtime, and, hence, our worries.

The great Samuel Johnson, a chronic worrier, labeled worry a “disease of the imagination.” We are capable of imagining the worst, allowing a stream of dark thoughts to crowd our mind. Is it worth it? Is worry its own reward? If we fret about an upcoming presentation in front of a large, forbidding audience and it turns out well, do we attribute it to all that effort we invested in imagining the worst?

GUEST BLOGGER:
Dr. J. Gerald Suarez

Great leaders and strategists use worry to imagine potential implications and consequences of their decisions. By doing so, they are able to anticipate what can go wrong and design better plans. Successful entrepreneurs masterfully use worry to sense, respond, anticipate and effectively deal with uncertainty and risk. Other executives see worry as a catalyst to prevent obsolescence or stagnation.

However, when worry escalates and becomes omnipresent, it can lead to postponement, paralysis, fear, distress, all forms of dysfunction, and even medical problems.

How can we manage our worries? Recoding our apprehensions each day is a good way to start. Keep an inventory of worries and become mindful of the things that we can influence and the ones beyond our control. Revisiting our journal will help us assess the actual danger from the imagined peril. We may find that it was never as bad as we imagined it to be. Get the facts and look for evidence since worry is often rooted in misinformation. Avoid the paralysis of perfectionism and learn from failure. Stay socially engaged and share your worries with your executive coach or a trusted colleague. Doing so, can help us see our worries within a new context and help us calm down.

Can we worry less but worry better? Yes, but first we must acknowledge that worry is a type of thinking that is self-imposed. Since worry results from our own mental creations, we must shift our thinking in a serious way, even turn it upside down, and instead imagine positive outcomes, and believe in them. It is our choice: We can be immobilized by fear of failure or motivated by a vision of success, even if success doesn’t actually pan out as we wished. At least we can sleep at night.

 J. Gerald Suarez is professor of practice in systems thinking and design and a fellow of the Center for Leadership Innovation and Change at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. He is an executive coach and author of “Leader Of One: Shaping Your Future through Imagination and Design.” See also a longer version on this topic in The Washington Post.

SWOT Your Goals!

SWOT Analysis (evaluating your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is the most widely used tool in strategic planning.  But that is not the only time you can use it!

It is also very helpful to SWOT any goal – individual or organizational – that you have.  But make sure you put the SWOT in context.  Ask these questions:

*Given my/our commitment to accomplishing this goal, what strengths do I/we have that I/we can leverage to meet it?

*Given my/our commitment to accomplishing this goal, what weaknesses do I/we have that I/we need to fortify to meet it?

*Given my/our commitment to accomplishing this goal, what opportunities do I/we see in the external environment have that I/we can seize to meet it?

*Given my/our commitment to accomplishing this goal, what threats do I/we see in the external environment have that I/we need to block to meet it?

Once you have done a SWOT on your goal then look at your answers to inform your strategy for the way forward.  Pay attention to the sequencing of your actions.  Hopefully your weaknesses and threats are not of great concern.  But if they are, address them up front.  Maybe, for example, you need to fortify some weaknesses before you can seize your opportunities.  And definitely try to use creative ways to leverage your strengths that allow you to seize opportunities.   

Set BIG goals that inspire you!  (Read more here about effective goal setting.)  Then SWOT your goals to develop a winning strategy to accomplish them.  This is how to make a breakthrough Mission Impact.

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site.  You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.

Is That Goal Really Impossible?

As regular readers of this blog know, I advocate setting Almost Impossible Goals as a way to drive innovation and creativity for individuals, teams, and organizations (read here for further info).

A question I am often asked is, “We have been working on this goal without much progress, how much longer should we try before declaring it Fully Impossible (versus Almost Impossible)?”

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First, once you think and feel that the goal is Fully Impossible, then it is time to restate the goal – either with a longer timeline or a smaller magnitude.  This is because once you think and feel that it is Fully Impossible, you will not try as hard – which is part of the point.

However, I encourage you not to give up too soon!  If you are not making the progress you want, that simply means that you have not yet invented the way to make it happen!  Even four years into a five year goal, you may invent something new and amazing that will help you accomplish the goal – or at least get really close.

The point is, none of us can predict the future.  We have no idea of what we are truly capable of.  So let’s keep our minds open as long as we can.  If we get to the end of the time we set for accomplishing the goal and we don’t make it, then let’s see what we have learned, be proud that we tried hard, and set a new goal for the future.

In 1970, Congress set a goal to cure cancer by 1976 as a fitting way to celebrate the bicentennial.  And they put a lot of funding behind it.  While we have not fully accomplished the goal, we have made great progress in cancer treatments.  Many people are alive today due to those new treatments.  And, there are thousands of people across the country who have not given up and are still working tirelessly to cure cancer.  I greatly appreciate their relentless effort toward the goal.

Be careful not to declare your goal Fully Impossible too soon.  And if you don’t make it, get recharged to continue the pursuit.  Lives might not depend on it. But then again, maybe they do.

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site.  You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.

Lean Innovation

Once I was teaching a group of executives about generating innovation through the power of setting almost impossible goals (read more here if you are interested).  One executive responded:

“So, you want me to risk bankrupting my organization by placing a big bet on a new idea?”

“Uhhh, no," I responded.

Some people think that innovation is an all or nothing deal and they catastrophize possible failure.  When you set an Almost Impossible Goal here are three SMART things you can do.  These ideas are inspired by Eric Ries’s book, The Lean Startup:

1.  Spend lots of time brainstorming over multiple sessions.  You want to generate lots of new ideas.  From my last blog and Adam Grant’s book, Originals: “In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”  “Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.”

2.  Experiment.  Select what you think is the best idea and run very small experiments.  Create what is known as a Minimal Viable Product (or Program/Service) that you can test out in the real world.  Important – collect DATA from REAL possible users of the product/program/service.  Make the product/program/service as “minimal” as possible.  Test various options.

3.  Be agile and nimble.  Be prepared to “pivot” – to make changes, small or large, to your original idea.  If the data shows that you have an idea that does not work, try something else!

Innovative ideas do not require tens of thousands or even thousands of dollars to test in the real world and give you an idea if an idea might work.  Use the Lean Innovation approach to create even more effective ways to make a Mission Impact.

*Check out these articles from Stanford Social Innovation Review to learn more:  “Is Your Nonprofit Really Ready to Use the Lean Startup” (March 5, 2014), “The Promise of Lean Experimentation” (Summer 2015).

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site.  You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.

How to Become a True "Original"

If you are interested in spurring creativity in your team, leading change, and/or being even more entrepreneurial, then I recommend Adam Grant’s newest book, Originals (2016), to you.

Grant was inspired to research creativity and originality after he chose not to invest in the idea for a new company developed by some of his graduate students because they did not fit his profile of what successful entrepreneurs act like.  The company is Warby Parker.  You have probably heard of them – they were named Fast Company’s Most Innovative Company in 2015 and have been wildly successful.  Grant is not happy that he did not invest.  But why was his entrepreneur profile wrong? What do successful originals really look like?  That is what the book is about.

Here are some insights:

*The importance of creativity: “Ultimately, the people who choose to champion originality are the ones who propel us forward.”  “They know in their hearts that failing would yield less regret than failing to try.”

*Being a “risk taker” not so important: “I want to debunk the myth that originality requires extreme risk taking and persuade you that originals are actually far more ordinary than we realize.”

*Creative Quantity Better than Quality: “In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”  “Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.”

*Achievement Orientation Limits Creativity: “When achievement motivation goes sky-high, it can crowd out originality: The more you value achievement, the more you come to dread failure.”

*Procrastination: It can be a good thing!  If you procrastinate “strategically” – “take a break in the middle of brainstorming” and come back to it later. This encourages divergent thinking.

These are not just Grant’s opinions.  He is a Professor at the Wharton School of Business and all of these ideas are very well researched.

This is just a taste of some of the great ideas in the book.  To learn more, you can check out Grant’s TED Talk here and even take his assessment on how “original” you are.  How original are you???

Creativity and innovation are key to making even more of a Mission Impact.  Check out Adam Grant’s ideas and become even more of an Original.

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site.  You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.