Thriving in the Midst of Uncertainty
Section One of Thriving in the Midst of Uncertainty: A Strategic Conversation with Bill Watkins
Published August 2020
Time and again, we hear people advocating being “agents of change.” I don’t know what they are talking about. Their idea of change is just too vague and general for me. For too many, it is just talk without substantive action. Show me your change. What difference are you truly making? Don’t give me a marketing pitch. Tell me straight. Be specific, I am going to change what in the next 90 days? Then, and only then, will I believe that you understand what change is.
What is change? The passage of time? Change of seasons? Ending of one thing and the start of another? Is it a change in our perception? Or, is it putting everything on the table and saying, “I am willing to give up all of this, right here, in order to create the change, the impact that truly makes a difference that matters?” What you are willing to invest, to sacrifice for change, is really the only credibility that we bring to our lives and work when we talk about change.
I have been studying change through the lens of leadership most of my adult life. Most of what I read about change has not been helpful. It just feels like something that they have only experienced in some safe, protective way.
What has worked for me is conversation with people. I talk with people every day about the transitions that they are going through. They’ve taught me not to not see change, but transition. They show the many tiny little steps of change along a pathway from one place to another that brought them to this place in their lives. Listen to people and you can discern the meaning of their change as hard, sometimes traumatic, and amazingly liberating. Almost every one of these people needs help to learn how to function in the midst of change, and more importantly, how to function in it. This is what transition is like.
We are all in transition. The transition that we are in is accelerating and becoming more critical. Our world is fragile and dangerous in ways that almost none of us have ever experienced. We are moved out of a time where linear, binary thinking, meaning one-thing-follows another in a slow, predictable manner, and good versus bad no longer explains what is taking place. There is a disorientation developing that is making it difficult to choose what to do every day. For many people the gift of shelter-in-place was that they could hide from the realities that are before us now.
The Transition Chronicles series is about the changes we are experiencing. In this short book, I want to narrow our focus on change and transition to what it means to experience uncertainty. Change and transition feels like something in time. Uncertainty feels more personal, more about who I am and how I fit in the circumstances that are going on. Feeling uncertain impacts who we see ourselves and the decisions we make about our families and our businesses.
In this contribution to the series, I have a conversation with my friend and colleague, Bill Watkins of The Lions Pride. Bill is a coach, teacher, and a leader in the field of accelerating business growth and personal growth (at the same time!). His background is as world-class cyclist, West Point graduate, decorated veteran and successful business owner. He would also say supportive husband and proud dad. He has distilled his experience in life and business down to some very insightful disciplines which make a difference that matters. He is a person of immense wisdom and practicality. He is a model of a person of impact whom I am glad to call my friend.
I invited him to talk with me about what he is seeing as he coaches business leaders and Founder CEOs. He’s sharing some essentials of what I believe you will find helpful as you address the daily challenges of change.
Uncertainty, the other constant?
Our conversation began talking about how we were managing the life during the initial months of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Then we moved right into talking about why I invited him to talk with me.
Bill: … what you want me to talk about is …
Ed: Yes.
Bill: … the future ... Ed, you know this, you and I both know the future is always uncertain. I don’t know why during coronavirus we just started to talk about all this uncertainty. Yes, we're amidst this period of uncertainty, but Dude, when was it ever certain? It wasn't. It never was.
We just felt like it was certain because it seemed predictable. But chaos theory tells us that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil … Boom ... Something happens in our neighborhood.
What we had to pivot into was a mindset of a future that is always uncertain. What is predictable are the resources that you have at hand to manage change and uncertainty. The A player team that you have to execute the strategic plan that you can pivot in an agile way towards ... and the way that you execute that plan. In military terms, and I haven't been in the military in a long time, so I'm just an observer, but the battlefield used to be red coats marching forward, kneeling, firing, very predictable, okay? And the way to win in that war was pretty predictable. You know, have more bullets, have better discipline ...
Ed: And overwhelming force ...
Bill: Bingo. Then the battlefield became really fluid, that's what General (Stanley) McCrystal came into … this very fluid, digitally empowered battlefield. And it required an agile force.
So leadership can be delegated down to the lowest level. We communicated instantaneously to people … all of a sudden, we went from getting our ass kicked by these digital Taliban warriors to beating the sh*t out of them ... that concept is what we bring to this so-called uncertain future.
Bill is pointing to what many people do not want to accept. They want the good ole predictable days, where change came slowly. It reminds me of the mindset idea that Carol Dweck wrote about back in the mid-2000s. She showed us how there were two mindsets, a growth one and a fixed one. Many people operate with a fixed mindset because it feels comfortable and secure. Other people operate with a growth mindset because they like being aggressive, always pushing forward to the next win.
I was asked about this during a presentation to a group of university leadership educators in Nairobi, Kenya earlier this year. In that moment, I realized that we had transitioned out of Carol Dweck’s world into a new world. The days of choosing to have a fixed or growth mindset are over. Gone. Done. Growth doesn’t come from overwhelming force. Staying the same doesn’t preserve safety and security. We need a different mindset for a time of increasing uncertainty.
I asked Bill what he did to adapt to the uncertainty that the coronavirus pandemic brought to his business.
On March 9th, we had an emergency internal meeting. I said, “We have four priorities now, I decided this over the weekend. I'm taking command.”
Number one, we immediately have to become a “safe haven” for our employees. You will have a job. You will have full pay and we're going to work your butt off, so if your husband (we’re a company of 100% women) loses his job or you lose your second job or your clients quit you (because we have a lot of 1099s), we won't.
While I was talking to them, I was wire transferring in a bunch of new capital, which is still sitting there. We never needed it. I asked our CEO, “What's in our bank account right now?” She logged on. She went, “Oh my gosh!” Then I said, “Exactly. I don't know how we're going to get through this, got no clue how bad it's going to be, maybe we lose all our Members in the next month, I don't know, but we're going to continue.”
Number two, we're going to create a financial runway. I put in the new capital, so that now we've got emergency reserves.
Number three, we're going to become oxygen for our Members. We will be so helpful and valuable, they be able to imagine living without us. “I don't know what that looks like, but we're going to make it happen.”
Then I said, “Once we get these three things done, we're going out to find more members to help, because that's what we do. We're built for this period of time, and so within two weeks, we had our situation room up online, we've have now maybe 30 or 40 free resources there. We've been running free workshops every Thursday for the public, and giving tons of helpful stuff away.
Number four, we immediately hired two people to work with members. We created products that they wanted, and we went forward.
I think the methodical structure, the methodical plan and the structured approach to resolving and accelerating issues, Ed, and having proven resources that are just there for their using … our members realized, when they didn't quit they were hoping that that's what they were going to get from us.
Bill and his team’s response wasn’t either a fixed or growth mindset. It was instead an agile one. Uncertainty presents opportunities. It requires commitment and discipline. It demands change. The mindset is more than just what you want for your business. It goes well beyond it.
Here’s the result of Bill’s new four priorities.
We had at least one month of reduced revenue. This month (June) will be our highest month in history and next month should be even higher based on our current pipeline. It gives me confidence that I didn't always have because I perceived that potentially our services were discretionary … that when things got bad, you know, people would jettison us quickly, like their country club dues or whatever. It's not what happened. We had a few alumni come back. Yes, we had some Members temporarily go on scholarship. They felt unstable economically, but they didn't want to lose us, so they asked, “Could we give them free tuition or something for a while?” We did. They got themselves through what they thought was going to be a difficult time. Now, a lot of them are thriving, which in turn, all but one has come back on full investment. So one of the risks of my business, I think is not as risky as I had perceived. The answer to your question is, we go forward with greater acceleration in Q3 and Q4 then we had anticipated... We still think we can make and exceed our annual plan, which we set last year.
Bill’s story points to two important principles that are required in times of uncertainty. First is discipline and a method for functioning regardless of circumstances. That discipline requires focus and clarity about what is essential. Second is a commitment to people. Bill is not only committed to his Members, but to his teammates.