In the Classroom I
Thriving in Change
Greg Shea recalls a participant who was ducking in and out of the classroom during a Wharton program. Finally, during a break, the man apologized and said he was in an intense discussion with his boss. The executive had been a very successful business leader whose high-profile deals had appeared on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal. But one day, he woke up and found that he just could not go to work. He negotiated a six-month sabbatical. Now, at the end of this period, he was running in and out of the class to discuss with his boss whether to return.
"He realized that he just could not go back to work," says Shea, academic director of Wharton’s Leading Organizational Change program. "He didn’t know what else to do, but he knew that he could not return. He had burned out and turned to ash within. He pounded through frothing rapids for too long. He toughed it out like a warrior, but he hadn’t protected and paced himself. Now, he was tired and drenched to the skin."
In permanent whitewater, there are no natural breaks in the action. So you have to become much better at pacing yourself.
–Greg Shea, Adjunct Professor of Management; Faculty Associate, Center for Leadership and Change Management; Academic Director, Leading Organizational Change
The current environment, which Shea calls "permanent whitewater" (a term first used by Peter Vaill), is extremely demanding, and growing more so every day. The old approaches to work and life, as this executive found, lead to burnout and disaster. Surviving — and even thriving — in an environment of relentless change and turbulence requires a new set of skills. In a new book, Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change, Shea and co-author Robert Gunther lay out a set of new skills that are needed.
"We contrast the set of skills needed by a sailor on an ocean liner with those of a whitewater kayaker," Shea says. "For example, on an ocean liner you might respond to a crisis with extra effort for a limited period of time — all hands on deck — and then take time off. In permanent whitewater, there are no natural breaks in the action. So you have to become much better at pacing yourself, or you can burn out like the executive in my classroom."
Pacing Through Whitewater
How can you pace yourself in an environment that never stops? Shea recalls a CIO he worked with who carefully managed the pace of work for his team. He kept a folder with internal contracts with units in the organization. He benchmarked performance against other organizations, which protected him from pressures to take on emergency work. But one day, the CEO told him to set aside his system and take on an important project. It was a must-do job, by order of the CEO, and they had just six weeks to finish. The CIO called his team together on Monday. He told them to spend the next three days clearing their desks of other work. Then he ordered them to take a vacation Thursday and Friday through the weekend so they would arrive rested and ready to start on Monday at 7 am. He said he wouldn’t even tell them what the assignment was until then because he knew they were so conscientious that they would start working on it.
"He had just six weeks for the project and he used up a week before he even started," Shea says. "But he knew in this environment that he couldn’t guarantee his team a vacation when they finished the project — there might be some new challenge — so he took the break first. He couldn’t stop the world, or even slow it down, but he deliberately managed the pace of his team moving through it. He carved out time for them to rest before moving downstream."
Shea notes that kayakers make their way down rushing rivers by moving from eddy to eddy, utilizing these quiet pools behind rocks to manage their pace and look ahead. "If you look at a racing whitewater river, it looks impossible to do anything but be swept downstream," he says. "Where many of us might see only danger and chaos, paddlers have the skill to manage their progress and have fun along the way. They are in the turbulence but not of the turbulence."
Think Like a Paddler
In addition to strategies for pacing, the book also examines other shifts in skills and thinking needed to thrive in permanent whitewater. Where sailors avoid failure at all costs (think Titanic), paddlers plan for failure and develop skills such as an Eskimo roll to recover quickly from the inevitable mistakes. While sailors treat work as deadly serious, paddlers look for the many opportunities for play that permanent whitewater presents. Sailors look to their ship for security, but paddlers realize that they are responsible for their own security. They need to build the skills and networks that keep them afloat, independent of a specific organization.
On an ocean liner, the captain sets the course, but in whitewater every paddler needs to be able to read the water and set his or her own course. Meaning is local and changes rapidly, so reading the water and knowing when you need to portage around a waterfall is critical to survival. Don’t expect the organization to tell you where to go. The roar of whitewater shreds meaning. While orders are clearly communicated down the chain of command on the ocean liner, whitewater requires the use of symbols, actions and myths in a world where people have heard so much talk of change that the words are meaningless. Organizational charts and leadership are clear on the ocean liner, but roles are much more "fluid" in whitewater. Individuals need to be able to create ad-hoc teams for the day’s run, and lead through trust and personal power rather than position. "This is a new environment, so people need a new set of skills to succeed in it," Shea says.
Don’t Just Accept Change. Plunge Into It
While the classic Who Moved My Cheese identified the importance of accepting change, people also need specific skills to meet an environment that never stops. As Shea points out, the cheese is no longer merely moved. It is floating down a Class IV river, churning over waves and rocks — and pity the person who goes after it without a kayak and a sprayskirt, as well as the skills to use them.
As it can be on a trip down the Grand Canyon, turbulent whitewater can be an intense and exhausting challenge. But it is also a great adventure. Shea once asked a group of managers from a major telecommunications firm — in the vortex of deregulation — if their jobs were harder than before. Almost every hand went up. They had experienced waves of acquisitions, reorganizations, and regulatory changes, year after year. The surprise came with the response to his next question: "Do you like your job more?" Almost all their hands went up again.
"They found their work more difficult and more enjoyable. They were excited because they had more discretion. They had more variety. They didn’t know what they would face on any given day. These managers would say: 'The job is a lot more fun. I just wish there were not so much of it.'"Your feedback is valuable to us. Please let us know if you consider this article: