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How Resilience Works 4

Facing Down Reality

A common belief about resilience is that it stems from an optimistic nature. That’s true but only as long as such optimism doesn’t distort your sense of reality. In extremely adverse situations, rose-colored thinking can actually spell disaster. This point was made poignantly to me by management researcher and writer Jim Collins, who happened upon this concept while researching Good to Great, his book on how companies transform themselves out of mediocrity. Collins had a hunch (an exactly wrong hunch) that resilient companies were filled with optimistic people. He tried out that idea on Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was held prisoner and tortured by the Vietcong for eight years.

Collins recalls: “I asked Stockdale: ‘Who didn’t make it out of the camps?’ And he said, ‘Oh, that’s easy. It was the optimists. They were the ones who said we were going to be out by Christmas. And then they said we’d be out by Easter and then out by Fourth of July and out by Thanksgiving, and then it was Christmas again.’ Then Stockdale turned to me and said, ‘You know, I think they all died of broken hearts.’”

In the business world, Collins found the same unblinking attitude shared by executives at all the most successful companies he studied. Like Stockdale, resilient people have very sober and down-to-earth views of those parts of reality that matter for survival. That’s not to say that optimism doesn’t have its place: In turning around a demoralized sales force, for instance, conjuring a sense of possibility can be a very powerful tool. But for bigger challenges, a cool, almost pessimistic, sense of reality is far more important.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself, “Do I truly understand—and accept—the reality of my situation? Does my organization?” Those are good questions, particularly because research suggests most people slip into denial as a coping mechanism. Facing reality, really facing it, is grueling work. Indeed, it can be unpleasant and often emotionally wrenching. Consider the following story of organizational resilience, and see what it means to confront reality.

Prior to September 11, 2001, Morgan Stanley, the famous investment bank, was the largest tenant in the World Trade Center. The company had some 2,700 employees working in the south tower on 22 floors between the 43rd and the 74th. On that horrible day, the first plane hit the north tower at 8:46 am, and Morgan Stanley started evacuating just one minute later, at 8:47 am. When the second plane crashed into the south tower 15 minutes after that, Morgan Stanley’s offices were largely empty. All told, the company lost only seven employees despite receiving an almost direct hit.

Of course, the organization was just plain lucky to be in the second tower. Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices were hit in the first attack, couldn’t have done anything to save its employees. Still, it was Morgan Stanley’s hard-nosed realism that enabled the company to benefit from its luck. Soon after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, senior management recognized that working in such a symbolic center of U.S. commercial power made the company vulnerable to attention from terrorists and possible attack.

With this grim realization, Morgan Stanley launched a program of preparedness at the micro level. Few companies take their fire drills seriously. Not so Morgan Stanley, whose VP of security for the Individual Investor Group, Rick Rescorla, brought a military discipline to the job. Rescorla, himself a highly resilient, decorated Vietnam vet, made sure that people were fully drilled about what to do in a catastrophe. When disaster struck on September 11, Rescorla was on a bullhorn telling Morgan Stanley employees to stay calm and follow their well-practiced drill, even though some building supervisors were telling occupants that all was well. Sadly, Rescorla himself, whose life story has been widely covered in recent months, was one of the seven who didn’t make it out.

“When you’re in financial services where so much depends on technology, contingency planning is a major part of your business,” says President and COO Robert G. Scott. But Morgan Stanley was prepared for the very toughest reality. It had not just one, but three, recovery sites where employees could congregate and business could take place if work locales were ever disrupted. “Multiple backup sites seemed like an incredible extravagance on September 10,” concedes Scott. “But on September 12, they seemed like genius.”

Maybe it was genius; it was undoubtedly resilience at work. The fact is, when we truly stare down reality, we prepare ourselves to act in ways that allow us to endure and survive extraordinary hardship. We train ourselves how to survive before the fact.

直面现实

人们普遍认为，复原力源于乐观的天性。但当这种乐观主义不会扭曲你的现实感时这才是真的。在极端不利的情况下，乐观的想法实际上会招致灾难。管理研究员兼作家吉姆•柯林斯对我提出了这一点，他在研究《从优秀到卓越》(Good to Great)时偶然发现了这个概念。柯林斯有一种预感/直觉(完全是一种错误的预感):富有复原力的公司里充满了乐观的人。他在阿德米拉尔•吉姆•斯托克代尔身上试验了这一想法。斯托克代尔曾被越共囚禁和折磨了八年。

柯林斯回忆道:“我问斯托克代尔:‘谁没能逃出集中营?’他说，‘哦，那很简单，就是那些乐观的人。他们说我们将会在在圣诞节前出去。然后他们接着说我们会在复活节，然后又推到在7月4日，然后是感恩节，然后又是圣诞节，结果都没能出去。’然后斯托克代尔转向我说，‘你知道，我想他们都是因为心碎而死的。’”

在商界，柯林斯发现，在他所研究的所有最成功的公司，高管们都有着同样坚定的态度。和斯托克代尔一样，复原力强的人对那些关乎生存的现实有非常清醒和脚踏实地的看法。这并不是说乐观主义没有它的地位。例如：在扭转士气低落的销售队伍时，唤起一种可能性感可能是一个非常强大的工具。但对于更大的挑战，那种冷静、近乎悲观的现实感要重要得多。

也许你会问自己:“我是否真正理解并接受了我的现实处境?我的组织呢?”这些问题问得很好，尤其是因为研究表明，大多数人会把否认当成一种应对机制。面对现实，真正的面对现实，是一件艰辛的事。可能会让人不愉快，而且往往情感上是极为痛苦的。看一下下面这个关于组织复原力的故事，看看面对现实意味着什么。

在2001年9月11日之前，著名的投资银行摩根士丹利是世贸中心最大的租户。该公司约有2700名员工在43楼至74楼之间南塔的22层工作。在那个可怕的日子里（911事件），第一架飞机于上午8点46分撞向北塔，一分钟后，也就是上午8点47分，摩根士丹利开始疏散人员。15分钟后，当第二架飞机撞向南塔时，摩根士丹利的办公室基本上空无一人。尽管遭受了几乎是直接的打击，但该公司总共只损失了7名员工。

当然，这个组织只是很幸运地位于北塔。康托•菲茨杰拉德的办公室在第一次袭击时就遭到了撞击，他不可能采取任何措施来拯救员工。不过，正是摩根士丹利精明的现实主义，才使该公司得以从自己的好运中获益。1993年世贸中心遇袭后不久，高层管理人员就意识到，在这样一个象征着美国商业实力的中心工作，会让公司容易受到恐怖分子的注意，并可能遭到袭击。

带着这种悲观的意识，摩根士丹利在微观层面启动了一项防范计划。很少有公司认真对待消防演练。但摩根士丹利并非如此，该公司负责个人投资者集团安全事务的副总裁瑞克•瑞斯科拉在这份工作中贯彻了军事纪律的水准。瑞斯科拉本人就是一位非常有复原力、被授予勋章的越战老兵，他确保人们被充分训练，知道在灾难中该怎么做。当9月11日灾难发生时，瑞斯科拉正在用扩音器告诉摩根斯坦利的员工保持冷静，按照他们熟练的训练来做，尽管一些建筑的管理员告诉住/租户一切都很好。不幸的是，虽然近几个月来，瑞斯科拉的人生故事被人们广泛报道，但他是那没有成功逃出灾难的七人之一。

公司总裁兼首席运营官罗伯特•G•斯科特表示:“在金融服务行业，很多事情都依赖于科技，因此应急计划是公司业务的重要组成部分。”但摩根士丹利已为最严峻的现实做好了准备。它有不止一个，而是三个恢复站点，就算是工作场所被破坏，员工也可以聚集在恢复站点，生意也还可以进行下去。斯科特承认:“在9月10日，多个备份站点似乎是一种难以置信的铺张浪费”，“但在9月12日，这些备份看起来像是天才的策略。”

也许这是一种天才的策略；这无疑是工作中的一种复原力。但它的本质是，当我们真正面对现实的时候，我们会准备好采取行动，让我们能够忍耐并度过非常艰难的时刻。在事情发生之前，我们就训练自己如何在事情发生之后生存。

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