This current crisis has many leaders scrambling. Scrambling to keep up with changes, to protect and retain their employees, manage cash flow, to plan for the future and somehow get and maintain a grip on some kind of control.

I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. If you aren’t familiar, it is a martial art that focuses heavily on grappling and submissions. Like wrestling. Except we hug harder.

When I first started to learn, my tendency was to grab an opponent and hold on for dear life, doing whatever I could to keep him from advancing his position.

I can recall getting a tight headlock on an instructor and thinking maybe I was a little better then they expected. Only to have him slip away and casually submit me.

After the match he said something encouraging like, “That headlock probably felt good to you. But it didn’t help. It pulled all of my weight on you so you couldn’t breathe and had to support both of us. Also, it made your arms vulnerable to arm locks. Stop fighting so hard and let go of bad positions.”

The problem was, I couldn’t tell the difference between good and bad positions. I didn’t know what I could and couldn’t control.

Focus On What You Can Control:

In practice, it has taken time to discern the difference between what I can and can’t control with an opponent. I still have a lot to learn.

In life and leadership, that’s been true as well. But I have learned that the more I focus only on what I can control, the more influence and impact I have.

Not only that, I waste less energy fighting something I can’t do anything about. And I don’t take on unnecessary pressures.

In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey describes this as part of the First Habit: Be Proactive.

He defines proactive as: “Being responsible for our own lives…our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.”

By doing this, we actually begin to expand what we can control. We expand our influence.

When we don’t do this, we shrink our control.

In a crisis, there are limits on what we can do. Instead of fixating on and being frustrated about forces outside of our control – if we focus on what we can do, we actually begin to expand what we have control over.

Here is a simple example: In this current situation, some leaders have become very externally focused. When they read the news, there is so much that they can’t control, it seems so big, so overwhelming, so dependent on the decisions of others, it’s easy just to quit. And many are. They are just shutting down shop, hunkering down, and hoping this blows over.

However, others are telling me that they are intentionally limiting their exposure to the news. They are very focused on what they can control. They are working with their employees to find safe ways to stay working. They are engaging with their customers to explore options. They are renegotiating payments and terms with lenders and suppliers to keep their cash flow manageable.

Here’s what will happen. (This happens in every economic crisis): Most of the organizations that strictly focus on what they can control come out on the other side stronger and better positioned before they went into the crisis. Sometimes they need to rebuild a little – but it doesn’t take them long.

The companies that focused on what they couldn’t control and hoped external decisions or circumstances would either pass them by or save them either don’t emerge at all or come out hurting. It has everything to do with where they choose to focus.

Takeaways:

• Discern what you can and cannot control.
• Rigorously focus your energy and efforts on what you can control.

Let Go Of What You Can’t Control:

When facing a tough opponent, it can be easy to mistake effort for control. Head locking my instructor felt like I was doing something but he knew how to get out of the headlock. I was just making it harder for myself and wearing myself out. Not only that, by focusing on something I couldn’t control, I wasn’t putting attention and energy on what I could.

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the first attempt to throw or submit an opponent is not likely to be successful. In fact, the best practitioners are great at being able to quickly chain together their options. They are nimble in their thinking. They will fully commit to each choice they make while it seems like it will work but they also will quickly abandon that choice when it won’t work and shift to an alternative.

As leaders, we have to be able to recognize when situations have changed. Perhaps we used to be able to control something but we can’t any longer. Or we discover we never actually had as much control or influence on something as we thought. Whatever it is, we have to quickly recognize when our efforts and energies are no longer producing value. And when we do, we need to pivot and transition to something new.

Stay Nimble:

In difficult situations, it’s important to stay nimble and creative. Focus on what you can do and what will bring value. Let go of the rest.

In the original version of the serenity prayer, written by Reinhold Neibuhr, he placed the courage to act first. I think that is relevant now:

Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.  – Reinhold Neibuhr

Take good care,

Christian

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