#020 - Leading in Crisis Series: Forgive

Robert Greiner 0:05

Okay, we are in our minimally viable crisis leadership model framework series, we need a shorter name for something that I think prioritizes action and speed and effectiveness. It's quite the quite the name. I don't know what's called the I don't know what else we could call it.

Tiffany Lenz 0:23

I don't know either.

Robert Greiner 0:24

I think we are gonna stick with it, I think, move on.

Tiffany Lenz 0:26

Okay.

Robert Greiner 0:26

Yes. Part of our decision. Okay. So today is forgive one of my favorite ones and a little bit unexpected. That's not something that would be top of mind, at least for me, really, ever, in any circumstance, but especially a professional circumstance. And then especially when there's a crisis, and we're collectively trying to figure out what's going on and taking action, and it's a chaotic mess. Nobody knows what the future holds. And then here we are saying, take some time to take a step back and forgive yourself and others. So let's double click on that a little bit. If you don't mind.

Tiffany Lenz 1:03

Yeah, no.

Robert Greiner 1:05

So what was your

Tiffany Lenz 1:05

I like this one a lot. I like this one a lot. Because it is I think, goodness, I think it's one of probably it's probably the hardest concept. In for in your framework, this concept of forgive, like, acknowledge, discuss, move on, intentionally move on. And in my, my framework, which we've talked about before, this idea of judging positive intent, this is one of the hardest concepts, but one of the most fulfilling, I think, and not just fulfilling as a human, if you can learn to do it. But I think as a force multiplier, because you're essentially like, refusing to take this baggage with you, I've got all this baggage about all the things flooding my head and congesting my mind about someone else's mistake, and I make all these assumptions, then, in your framework in this high pressure situation, those are the things I tend to focus on or like the negatives about this person, or the surrounding experience, when what I really need is their brain power as well. I think there's something as we, as we double click in this, I think, I think there's something we can really think about in terms of is this the element with the greatest force multiplier.

Robert Greiner 2:26

That's a really good way to think of it. Humans do such a terrible job at cognition, when they're under stress and time constraints and pressure and, you know, feeling threatened and, and those kinds of things. So in a way, this helps make it like it increases the, what's it called, like the group intelligence, you're helping people be their best by giving them space to not be so worried about messing up that kind of thing. So I think there's a sort of hidden, hidden effectiveness gem in here that you even if you don't feel like forgiving someone, or you don't think you need to, or that's not your thing, and you're completely selfish, you can still, you should do this, because it gets you the best results, as well as, in our opinion being the right thing to do.

Tiffany Lenz 3:11

Right. Yeah, there, you're only going to get so far with somebody ances on the concept of doing this, because it's right or altruistic, altruistic thinking, but when you can tie it to this idea of laying down baggage that is fragmenting your concentration, especially in a time of crisis. Now, we're talking about an ability to lock arms and move forward when we desperately need one another. And you've made the point before about our people are people, you know, inherently nefarious or they malicious there, then I think by and large, they're not they have there's some other some other force or some other belief system or misunderstanding that is leading to an output that to us is perceived as it may even be leading to bad behavior. Right. So there, there has to be a step in this process where we are acknowledging, confronting, resolving,

and moving on.

Robert Greiner 4:19

Yeah, and then there's also the study at MIT where it says your ability to essentially make good decisions like if you have any kind of neurological issues, addiction, depression, PTSD, impulsiveness, even, I would say, I'm fairly impulsive, and difficulty making rational decisions, like those things are all exacerbated under stress. And so again, that you felt that I know in your life too, I can, I'm just trying to picture times are really messed up and then someone's like, hey, that's alright. You know, I get it. And there's like this level of relief. And it's hard like, I've been on the other side of that equation to where it's In relation wise, relationship wise isn't going well. And then it's like really hard to get stuff done. You know, that's just compounded in a crisis. So all the more reason to forgive others, right, the fact that we're in a crisis is going to make people make mistakes more frequently. And on the flip side of that, you're going to make more mistakes. And so you should forgive yourself as well. Because this is hard. And it's one of those things like you got to just accept take ownership of what you You messed up on, do your best to resolve it and move on. There's no other way to to operate, I think,

Tiffany Lenz 5:34

Right. I want to unpack something else you said there around making mistakes. So the first thought I had was, yes, absolutely. Throughout one's career, you make lots of mistakes, that's part of learning. In fact, Bruce, our CEO, would talk about anything experimental, anything experiential, and even closely related to the scientific method would say, you need to make 50% of what you do needs to be wrong in order to get real data, right? So if you're, if you're doing something wrong, you're therefore making some sort of mistake. And the tie can think of most of the times in my past when I've made a mistake, and the person in authority over me has just chosen mercy. Just chosen this is like it's a learning experience. You know, we'll manage consequences. Maybe there aren't that many. But and then there have been instances where there's, you know, someone who really holds a grudge, she's like, Nope, that's an unforgivable thing. As far as I'm concerned, you know, you'll never, you know, you're not welcome here or not, not, I deem you not capable of this sort of career path or whatever, because of a mistake. And that's pretty unreasonable. I mean, we're not, we're not talking about agregous things, those are mistakes that are a bit altering right over someone's career. That's not what we're talking about, I think. So that's like, the first set of things I think about is this constant, growing and learning, single, double, triple loop learning that requires making mistakes to grow. But then the second scenario is even more kind of a double click on on this, because in a crisis, in a space where you've probably never experienced all of these compounding issues, guaranteed, you're going to make mistakes. So how do we other than having a mantra inside your framework, and then a different one in mind where like, we we choose to forgive, we choose to judge the best? How does one set the stage for an expectation that mistakes will be made across the board on a continual basis? And we will choose forgiveness? How do you do that?

Robert Greiner 7:48

Yeah. So let me go back to the beginning, because I think you hit an important part, which I just sort of connected two dots here. And I don't know, I don't know if this makes sense. I'm going to talk it through and, and if it's dumb, we can cut it out. So we're talking about under pressure making decisions. So I've been teaching my daughter How To Play Chess, I've been looking at some training materials online and things like that. And so you can, you know, if you're, if you're playing this game, you can't take back moves. And there's a time constraint and Your time's draining down. And, you know, you can this is sort of a micro, almost nascent or infant level example of operating in a crisis. But I think there's an analogue there. And the funny thing is, and I never realized this before, there are gradations of decision quality on a chess move in chess is like a fixed game. It's bounded, same number of squares, same thing every time. So here, I'm going to read these off to you. It's pretty funny. So a move a single move a decision can be classified in nine different ways. So brilliant, best move, I don't know what brilliant means versus best move. Excellent. Good Book. So like, you know, just a standard, you know, the first two or three are always the same. inaccuracy mistake, blunder missed win? And so there's, if you take that idea of, you know, something as simple as like, Is it good or bad? That's not, that's not even good enough for a fixed game. When we're talking about decision making in a crisis. Like there there are these gradations. And I think the point is, you're you're making a move. You have to, if you're in one of those inaccuracy, mistake kind of zones like that you didn't know any better. You made an intentional decision, you have to move forward and hope that the aggregate of your decisions and actions like are on the positive side, if that makes sense.

Tiffany Lenz 9:43

That's very interesting. So nine levels between right and wrong. Yeah. In a game and wow. In something that would be considered complicated, right? Not complex, right? Because it has a right outcome. As defined varibles.

Robert Greiner: 10:04

Yeah, yeah,

Tiffany Lenz: 10:05

Yes. Huh. That's really thought provoking.

Robert Greiner: 10:08

And so how can?

As a human, how can they hope to

like to do better than, or to be more simplistic than, you know, at least nine different ways to categorize quality of decisions?

Tiffany Lenz: 10:19

I mean, I feel a little overwhelmed by that I'm not gonna lie. Like, it makes me want to, it makes me want to, like, create a report card for myself and say, was this excellent? Was it best move? book?

Robert Greiner: 10:33

Yeah, when there's the same

Tiffany Lenz: 10:36

rules on there. But

Robert Greiner: 10:38

yeah, they always say, it's never too late to throw the game, right. Like you could be the crazy thing is, and this applies to life too. You can, you can be ahead, you can be make 59 out of 60. Right moves. And that's that one that kind of sinks, you and I think taking perspective of like, hey, maybe he made 59. Right moves, like is important when the stakes are real?

Tiffany Lenz: 10:58

Yeah. Wow. So it's the, it's the trajectory. It's the the overall of the of all the peaks and valleys inside reasonable boundaries. It's is your trajectory, moving upward is your trajectory, a positive one, but it still requires continual forgiveness. And that's where I think when we, when we talk about will fold in this idea of having a perspective, having an elevated perspective, as a leader, as an executive, you have to be able to see the forest, right. And as cliche as that is, if you're focused on like, Oh, this tree was planted in the wrong place like these, this grouping over here is awkward, and you're not looking at the broader picture. That's a mistake, too. And so I think this idea helps you consider, I think, in order to forgive, you have to maybe have like a more nuanced understanding of a situation and minimum have to put yourself in almost take an opposing viewpoint. I think that helps you become more context rich, and gives you more context into what's going on. So I don't know if that answered your question from before. But I think that's what helps you ultimately navigate. It helps you make better decisions later, but helps you navigate because you get more of an elevated perspective as well. I could be completely off. I don't know.

No, no, I think you just unpacked a different a whole other depth to this, which I guess it kind of, I think gives me a little bit more strength to my, my original supposition that this may be the the one piece of your framework that has the strongest likelihood of being a force multiplier, by itself.

Robert Greiner: 12:39

Yeah, you know, and it, that's such a good point to now that we're looping back to it. Because if you go back to decide, you're just sort of individually opting in and making decisions that affect other people, but it's not, I wouldn't necessarily say that's a multiplier, you could maybe argue that you're eliminating a bottleneck. But multiplier, I don't, I don't see it the same way. Communicate, you know, at least if everyone's on the same page, but still, that's those are individual behaviors. And we talked about some ideas to you know, do a synchronous communication, but still not like multiplicative, multiplying effect, and then learn that's very introspective. And you're distilling core ideas for your future self. But again, it's it's kind of internally focused, but this forgive piece while it affects it helps, like we said earlier, helps other people be performed their best

Tiffany Lenz: 13:33

Very, very interesting. My goodness, I haven't played chess in a long time. So now I really feel like I need to dust that

off.

Robert Greiner: 13:40

I'm terrible. Yeah.

Tiffany Lenz: 13:41

I don't know

what that says about us as leaders just as there are

Robert Greiner: 13:45

it is nice to you know, when you can start to think about different analogies and things like that. But so I do I like this I forgive to be a force multiplier,

Tiffany Lenz: 13:55

cool. And wonder about now there's a there'd be a different way of handling people who make make repeat mistakes. We're still not talking about nefariousness. I think that's a different angle, but people who make repeat mistakes and then kind of double down on those. Where does that fit in a crisis leadership model? People that you're managing, say,

Robert Greiner: 14:18

hold on one sec. Sorry, kiddos, where do you leave off? What was the question?

Tiffany Lenz: 14:23

Um, and I don't want to rabbit trail on this. If so, if it is just like,

Robert Greiner: 14:27

we got time

Tiffany Lenz: 14:29

feel free to bring it back.

I was what I think there are nuances inside forgive, that are helpful for us to, to unpack a little bit with our listeners. There's this this broad swath of forgiveness like what we are what we give to others and what we ask for in return. There are outliers. Every so often of someone who has truly like nefarious thinking, motivation, one thing or another, and then there is this other kind of subset I think of people who tend to double down. And they might not be doing it even for nefarious reasons. But there's either it's an arrogance or an ignorance or something that says, You're making a mistake, you've made a mistake. We've talked about this. But yet you continue to double down on your approach. And we if we think back to the particular crisis, we've been discussing to COVID, that certainly happened. We can look at last year's election and say, that certainly happened there any seems like there, there are times where, for one reason or another, leaders double down, even when making obvious mistakes, just wanted to discuss that a little bit like how does one handle that in inside crisis leadership?

Robert Greiner: 15:52

Oh, that's a really good point. So going back to what got you here won't get you there by Marshall Goldsmith, which we keep referencing back to such a great book. So bad behavior number 20. So the last on the list is an excessive need to be me, me in quotes, exalting our faults as virtues simply because they are who we are. So we see this in people all the time, right. And worse yet, those behaviors might have at some point in this person that you're making up, but it's not so made up. Because we're all over the place, a lot of times those behaviors helped to get them to where they are today. So that makes it even harder. And I think that there that this goes back to feedback, just because you forgive, that's not a that's not a passive behavior. Right. As a leader, you're still accountable to give feedback to your team, to set expectations on what behaviors are appropriate or not, and to address them accordingly. And so I would say, definitely, I would not, when you go to attribute malicious intent, or say, hey, this person doesn't care, or they're not bought in, or they're so selfish, or they have a bad attitude, those are attributions to a behavior that are not helpful. And that would be a sort of a violation of the, the framework we're talking about in the forgive boundary. But you know, if you go back to what you said, assuming positive intent, and then really going through and providing feedback, I think is the remedy there.

Tiffany Lenz: 17:23

How does one, so from the perspective of a leader, yes, let's say that we are still leaders, but we're under a leader who displays these negative attributes of doubling down or the excessive need to be me, that's really good. Reminds me of a lot of what I I've been hearing lately around this idea of like, speak your truth, speak your truth, I can understand that in many different spheres, I do not understand it in in others. There actually are absolutes in life. Like, if I speak my truth about about how fast I want to drive on the road, and the speed limit is 45. And my truth is 65, I will probably get a ticket.

Robert Greiner: 18:05

Yeah, gravity, you know, gravity will win when you try to find it? Yeah, those kind of things. Yes.

Tiffany Lenz: 18:11

So I but I, I sometimes it puzzles me, when I hear a lot of discussion about this concept of the excessive need to be me. And there, there has to be a balance between individualism and collectivism, always for a society to survive. That's a little bit of a of a number.

Robert Greiner: 18:31

So so you're taking there's black and white and gray. And what you just talked about makes all sorts of sense in the gray space. What ends up happening when you try to operate like that in black and white is it's just sort of an unsophisticated or unnuanced way to, to behave like you're sort of ignoring

reality

Tiffany Lenz: 18:52

to mutiny. Yeah, right.

Robert Greiner: 18:53

But now you said what do you what do you do if your leader is doing that? I don't have a good answer. Leave, maybe.

Tiffany Lenz: 19:02

That is, that's interesting. It's not It's not even an example I have to draw from in my past or here. Nothing like that. It's like, but it's given me some thought, I guess, more societal issues recently. I mean, we've been in we are still in a crisis. And and as you have aptly described a number of times like this isn't a one and done it's just a point on a wave of constant crises. It makes me wonder how even sophisticated leaders at some point what is the appropriate way to just to respond when one is looking up at one's leader saying wait a second, you're doubling down again This doesn't make any sense. Is it is it is it actually mutiny is it but with my feet is it like what I mean, just a little bit of food for thought there on the on the relativism of most leaders are also being led in one way or another.

Robert Greiner: 19:59

I would definitely look at consider leaving if you can't really fight this leaders bad behavior head on, that doesn't work. You might also say, as I'm thinking about this, you know, leaving there just, if you have a team that you're responsible for, you're just going to put them in the hands of someone who will behave more than likely behave like the leader that you disagree with. There is this scene, I think it's in Band of Brothers. Have you seen that series? So maybe you can tell me if I if I have the right war movie. But so there, there's this military unit wars practically over the like commander said, tells this platoon leader Hey, go across the river and do this patrol. And every time they go across the river, someone dies. And they're like, hey, the war is over. Like what? Why, but instead of fighting head on, the platoon leader, just they go and chill out in a bunker somewhere and play cards all night. They're like, yeah, it was fine. And now you could look at that. And you could say, hey, that's treason. You know, you disobeyed a direct order. And I think there's a level of, again, we just talked about black, white, gray, when you're a leader, your sphere of control your sphere of influences your team, and down. And there's a lot of, I think flexibility in your, in your behaviors that you really focus on what you can control, make the situation as good as possible for your team, mitigate it to the degree you can, which may require you to play the game a little bit. And if you don't like what that's asking you to do, then you should definitely leave. But I do think there's some turning your focus down on your team and into the things that you can control. If you're in a, that's almost like a mini crisis within a crisis. I think that's the best, the best approach because nobody ever succeeded, I think in the history of humans fighting head on, right? are usually ends in like suffering pretty severe consequences. And you might look and say, was that worth it? Right? So maybe, as I'm thinking out loud, that's kind of what's coming to mind. But I don't know, because there is, I think, merit in quote, unquote, playing the game so that you can eventually work yourself into a position where you're, you have that role power, you are that leader, and then you can do things, right. And if you opt out, you never have that chance.

Tiffany Lenz: 22:14

No. And in a crisis, I think it's even less of like, let's go back and talk about like, what if this happened? I'm sure it did. I mean, it would be, thank goodness, it didn't happen to either one of us. But let's say that this happened to someone in COVID. Inside, like, at the at the, you know, the highest point, say last spring, summer, and someone's company is is intentionally putting them at risk. It's saying, you know, we're just going to, you know, we're going to disobey, you know, whatever, we're being told by the government, and we're gonna, you know, best recommendations, blah, blah. But unemployment is also high. What do you do? That's, I don't I don't even know that we have answers. I was just it. For some reason. It occurred to me that there's something interesting about pivoting this one around, I hear you on the if I stick it out, I can impact change. Another argument would be, I can go somewhere else and impact change.

Robert Greiner: 23:08

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's a that's a mental calculus that, I think is situation by situation. So yeah, I think one of the things I look back on in my career, an easy sort of discreet thing that I wish I had done differently was, so when my daughter was my oldest was an infant, I was commuting quite a ways to a client. And I started working from home a couple days a week, and I was actually getting more done, because it was, I mean, 120 miles a day round trip, I think. So you know how to had a good system going, they kind of complained, the client kind of complained about it. And I said, Oh, I need to just go back. Because they don't like this. And they didn't realize at the time, I actually had a lot of autonomy control over where I worked. And when, even if other people didn't like it. And so what I would do today, if I was in the same situation is just sort of said, Yeah, okay, that, like, I got it. I'm good, showed up every day for a couple of weeks, and then went back to doing what I was doing when people weren't as worked up about it. And so you can, I think there's a again, there's there's gray areas in these situations, and there's not one thing that we could say to that would apply to all situations but I think hopefully these thoughts and ideas are, are helpful for weighing your own decisions.

Tiffany Lenz: 24:26

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting because what you there was something you said without saying it that was you actually, in that situation, you what you illustrated was keeping a level head and just like, just like riding low for a little bit, and the issue itself blew over. Which is another way kind of going back to our original point. It's another way of forgiving right? Not holding on to something just kind of letting it go. Being the bigger person and then watching the situation like resolve itself.

Robert Greiner: 24:59

Yeah. Very rarely when when people make, you know, bold claims, even in your example, like the, with the pandemic, there was a period of time where there was a material group of people that were saying this is no different than the flu. It's not as bad as it seems it's not really in the country at all. There's only 14 cases in this county, like, Who cares? And you know what, again, this is a once in 100 year thing. So I think it's not an unreasonable position to have thought at the time for some period, at least, hey, you know, this probably isn't going to blow into this 18 month like global thing that will change, like everything forever. And we certainly work with some people who, who caught on very early, I think even then, those decisions that are callous, they don't, they're not forever decisions, even though they're put forth as such. And so I would say that that's, there's a time component two, and you said, I connected this when you said cooler heads, but you know, in a week or two, they'll either forget, there'll be on to the next thing. You know, hotheads like that, like we've been talking about is typically the as soon as the the next thing works them up, then you're fine. And so if you're in a position where you you choose to or have to stick it out, you know, time may solve your problem for you a little bit. Yeah.

Tiffany Lenz: 26:16

Yeah. I love this one, Robert, I think even even if we we set aside every exception, we've talked about, you know, the doubling down, and people who are nefarious, and people who make repeat mistakes, I think, I think in this one thing, if even 75% of people chose forgiveness, and just let it go, chose to judge positive intent in their work interactions and their home interactions. I think there would be a massive increase in productivity, effectiveness, relationship, building, all sorts of things. I think there's there's so much strength to just refusing offense, you know,

Robert Greiner: 27:01

yeah, yeah. And just sort of to come back around. So forgive yourself, forgive others, you're gonna make more mistakes in a crisis, it's going to happen, accept it, take ownership move on. That makes sense. The new ones we got into though, I kind of want to recap, make sure I didn't miss anything. People are smarter when they feel good. People are dumber, when they're under stress and pressure. There's low mountains have data to back this up studies and studies and studies, humans don't behave well under pressure. If you're scared and you're in fight or flight, you may be able to run faster, that's not going to help you in a business situation. So forgiveness is a way to be a false to act as a force multiplier, and to help other people be their best. You can do that by judging positive intent. And even if you're angry on the inside, you know, your behaviors around not attributing maliciousness, stupidity, you know, not caring, bad attitude, all those things. But that doesn't mean as a leader, you don't give feedback when your team messes up. That's still important in good times, and bad. And then I want to end on one thing, which is actually advice that you gave me a while ago, when we haven't talked about it yet. But I think it's important here. Sometimes you are in a position where like, you should fix the situation, because you have the tools to fix it. And the people around you don't. And for that reason alone, it may make sense for you just to fix it. You know, where I call if I have a leak in my house or something I call someone with the tools to fix that problem. I can't do it myself. And I think in in professional relational situations, if you have the emotional, the EQ type tools to fix a problem, you might you should just do it. And that way dysfunction and bitterness don't sort of fester. And so that's something that's kind of stuck with me, you'd mentioned it, I think off the hand off the cuff the other day. And I think that's a key point to fold into the forgive aspect of our framework here.

Tiffany Lenz: 28:57

Mm hmm. That makes sense.

Robert Greiner: 28:59

Cool.

We meandered a little bit. If you're still listening, thank you.

Tiffany Lenz: 29:04

Yeah, this is a really good yeah. I hope it I hope it sinks in actually.

Robert Greiner: 29:08

Yeah, it was good to talk to you about it today. I'm glad you're back relaxed and refreshed.

Tiffany Lenz: 29:12

Oh yes.

Feeling really good.

Robert Greiner: 29:20

Great.