fear of loss – The Leadership Professor

Days have been filled preparing for our Executive MBA international residency which begins in three days. We’re going to China. Part of my preparation involves enabling 40 experienced leaders, most with little international experience, to appreciate and respond to cultural differences without paralysis.

It’s key to their career advancement and professional development. It’s essential for all in a global world.

As we move closer to the departure date, students have begun acknowledging their fears of anticipating a vastly different world and of the unknown. Some report dreams of not knowing what to do or of being lost in the China-size crowds, others feelings of losing the control over their lives that they have at home.

These are powerful admissions – and they are right on. We all fear the unknown. Human nature loves predictability, and we all want to believe that everyone thinks and sees things just like us. They don’t and that’s OK – and we’ll be OK in a world where that is true. Accept that, and you’ve got the global citizen piece down cold.

How do we take in and use all the knowledge about cultural differences that we can gain through reading and studying without freezing our capacity to act? The quick answer: with patience, persistence, and humility. It’s like learning and integrating anything new into effective practice.

Preparation helps – the better you know something, the better able you are to call it into play when you need it. So does remembering the Joan Gallos 2 Rules of Thumb for Learning Any New Behavioral Skill:

1. go slow. Add anything new and you’ll need to be more deliberate – less automatic – in doing it. It will feel awkward, and you will feel clumsy and ineffective. It may be counter-intuitive – to slow down and to do something that’s awkward and uncomfortable in order to be more effective. But it’s the only way.

2. be patient with yourself. This is especially hard for successful people: you’ll make mistakes, feel lost, or be scared. It’s OK. Stay open. Figure out what works and doesn’t. Keep trying. And have a sense of humor. You are the only one taking yourself so seriously!

And remember: people are people are people. When we talk about an increasingly diverse and global world, we tend to focus on differences. Comparing and contrasting how other cultures are different from ours is a good way to recognize and break out of our narrow mindsets about life and the world. But bottom-line: people share a common humanity.

Approach any meeting with authenticity and an open heart, and you will connect well with others – even if you struggle with language or customs. Be curious – ask. Relationships are built on connection and conversation. Make a mistake? Step on a cultural toe? Stay alert and respond as you would to any friend. An honest and humble “Oh, my apologies, please” will go far.

You know more than you may realize about conquering the fear of differences.

In his first prison interview, Bernie Madoff dropped a bomb. He was sure a number of banks and hedge funds were “complicit” in his fraud – “willfully blind” to the discrepancies in the information available to them and living a version of I’m not going to ask and please don’t tell. Madoff’s admission to the author of an upcoming book[1] on his 16 year long Ponzi scheme – the fancy shell game that cost investors $20 billion in cash and another $65 billion in lost paper wealth – is different from his earlier claims that no one knew of his illegal shenanigans.

It’s easy to look at the “complicit” and wag a judgmental finger. We’d all like to believe that, if we had been in the shoes of the “willfully blind,” we’d have blown the whistle. The $64,000 question is, what would we have done? What would you have done?

How many times have you had real questions about someone or some situation and let it ride? Decided not to get involved? Worried about being wrong? Passed the buck – figured that someone else would notice the problem if it really exists and take corrective action?

It’s easy to conclude that the complicit bankers and hedge fund executives just wanted money. But stop there, and you’ll miss an important leadership lesson.

Those bankers and financial managers feared loss – loss to their clients, companies, loved ones, and selves.

Loss of the ability to provide good returns to their clients which could lead to loss of those clients. Loss of their seats at the bountiful Madoff table that others in their business would gladly take and use to bring good returns to clients – maybe the very clients they had just lost.

Loss of clients could mean loss of a job, reputation, career trajectory. A job loss brings income loss and inability to sustain a current lifestyle. That might mean loss of a home, community, good schools for the kids, maybe even loss of a marriage under the strain. And the list goes on.

And as their fears mounted, those bankers and hedge fund managers faced the ultimate loss: their ability to make sound executive judgments and to see life beyond the fear of loss.

How are you going to prepare yourself for the next time you need to stand up for what’s right? Will you be ready?

[1] Diana Henriques (2011). The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust. New York: Times Books.