What comes to your mind when you hear the word "crisis"? When you look around for an answer, there might be different answers - visibility, opportunity, reinvention, experience, etc. Of course, a crisis sheds the limelight on you. As all eyes are on you, it is an excellent opportunity. You have to exploit your abilities to the fullest, sometimes stretching your boundaries, which might lead you to reinvent yourself. All of these leads to the experience you can use in the future. As the learned says, a crisis brings out the best in you. But what if the best in you is the worst? "Best" and "Worst" are qualitative terms, and hence their interpretation is subjective. All these stems out of a recent interaction.
The recent times have been very turbulent. There is a constant disruption to the way in which we execute a piece of work and how we conduct business. As a result, the robots are sounding like one of the problems and not the only issue. With dwindling profits, some of the organizations were encouraging their employees to train themselves in the emerging technologies. Along with the retraining initiatives, the organizations are also eradicating the misfits. One of my acquaintance happened to be in the list of misfits. It was a life-changing moment for my friend. He did not know what to do. After spending years in the comforts of a job, he was suddenly afraid to be sitting idle at home. It is strange that we think a job makes our lives worthwhile. The crisis was not bringing the best of him. So he reached out to friends to understand how to get the best out of him.
His friends belonged to three different categories - sympathetic, resourceful and both. One of the first people he approached belonged to the third group. He listened to my friend patiently. After listening to the situation, he explained calmly. "Listen, it is a number game." My friend was baffled by this response. So my friend's friend elaborated. "They need a certain number of people who are misfits. If it is not you, then it is another. Find another misfit and reason with the authorities. You can provide the references or evidence to substantiate the other person is a greater misfit than you." I will give you a moment to digest this. The action suggested is not an easy one, and I am not referring to the moral tug of war. If your face is twisted now as if it was stung by a bee, then you were like my friend.
Finally, my friend decided to appeal against the higher authorities listing his achievements and his aspirations. He didn't think he was a misfit. Luckily for him, the decision was reversed. Instead of looking for a fall guy, he decided to stand up and fight for his merits. If nobody was advocating for his merits, he will. That is a happy ending. But here is a surprise for you. Where did my friend get the idea to stand up and fight? From the same person who advised him to find a fall guy. When my friend heard the repelling advice to find a fall guy, he was shocked and went silent. His advisor took the silence as a lack of conviction and explored other ways to solve the problem. This exploration of new methods gave my friend a new lease of life where he could keep his job and do not have to compromise morally.
It is good and bad in all of us. We hear this quite often. What comes out of you first while confronted with a crisis? Is it the good side of you or the bad? Is this reason why the wise tells us to avoid knee-jerk reactions? Sleep on it, think through it.. etc. The knee-jerk reactions always make you look like a jerk.
Photo Courtesy: Dave Stone
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