How to think clearly under pressure

Strategy consulting projects can be very pressured environments. Often they are initiated because the firm is already under performing, facing a significant threat, or facing a time critical opportunity. Often the sponsoring executive may feel his/her career is at stake. Often the board and other senior stakeholders are paying critical attention.

And so it is important that a strategy consultant is able to function under pressure.

Being independent can a great asset in these circumstances. Not being personally invested in a situation can improve objectivity. Being an outsider can bring fresh insight.

However, even as an independent consultant, you are still committed to a successful outcome. Your ability to win future work depends on your past successes.

And so it is vital to be able to think clearly under pressure.

Pressure produces a physical response in the human body. Breathing changes, becoming shallower or stopping altogether (holding your breath). This triggers the brain to release the stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, which activate the fight, flight or freeze responses. The brain goes into reactive mode, leading you to become more critical and negative , and to take things more personally. We lose our ability to be imaginative, creative adaptive and open to others. Other people quickly perceive these changes in behaviour and respond accordingly. All of this is fatal for strategic thinking.

There are a number of things you can do to help yourself to perform better under pressure.

1. Prepare

Sir Clive Woodward, the Olympic Coach coined the acronym T-CUP, for Thinking Clearly Under Pressure. Sir Clive prepares by imagining everything that could happen, and then planning ahead what the response will be. While he says that athletes can be prepared with responses for each of these scenarios in a class-room environment, it is much better for them to learn through the actual experience of training and practice. This underscores the importance of experience for a strategy consultant. Book knowledge, whilst valuable, is not enough.

Next time you're preparing a pitch or presentation, take the time to imagine the kinds of responses you're hoping you won't get from your audience - then practice how you might respond to them in order to get your presentation back on track.

2. Learn to stay in the moment

However, no amount of scenario preparation will help, if, at the crucial moment you can't call it into practice. How many times have you heard someone say "I always think of the right response after it's too late"? In his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", Steven Covey talks about the gap between stimulus and response. In stressful situation that gap can seem incredibly short. Our animal brain takes over producing the defensive, aggressive or passive responses described above. But it is possible to learn to recognise that gap and to regain control of your response. Techniques for doing this vary from the simple "counting to ten" technique to much more sophisticated meditation practices.

3. Learn to de-stress

No matter how good you get at dealing with pressure and stress, you will still experience it on a regular basis. And so it is important to have some way of de-stressing. I find running really helps me. It does not require a lot of though, beyond avoid traffic and lampposts, and even a relatively short 30-minute run usually provides more than enough space to clear my head. And, of course, the physical exercise helps the body to get rid of those stress hormones. When going for a run is not an option, even a quick walk around the block at lunch-time can help. But it doesn't need to be something as intensive as running. A wide range of activities could serve just as well. I'd suggest you look for anything you enjoy enough for it to absorb your whole mind, something that involves at least a little physical activity, and preferably something that gets you into a different and relaxing environment.

Make sure you've built time into your schedule for getting better at thinking clearly under pressure.

References:

Thinking Clearly Under Pressure

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The devil is in the detail

Many years ago, at a performance review, my then boss noted that he was sometimes frustrated by my attention to detail. I asked him if it was always a problem for him, or just in some case, and he replied that it was just in some cases. I then asked him if he could give me an example of where he'd been frustrated by my attention to detail, which he duly did. I pointed out to him that in that particularly instance, my attention to detail had resulted in avoiding what might otherwise have been a costly problem, and he conceded that this had indeed been the case. I then asked him if he could think of another example of where my attention to detail had frustrated him but where it had not resulted in a good outcome. At that point, he changed the conversation.

I've never really worked out why my attention to detail had frustrated him even though he knew full well that it had delivered results. Perhaps, he was just grumpy about something else altogether.

Whatever the reason, it remains often true that the devil is in the detail.

Strategy is often painted as a subject which concerns big picture, visionary thinking, not detail. However, without sufficient attention to detail, strategies usually flounder. The trick with successful strategies is two-fold:

knowing when to focus on the big picture and vision, and when to focus on the details - striking the right balance between the two,

and, perhaps more importantly
knowing which details to pay attention to and which to ignore.

Almost by definition, in any strategic problem, there are way too many details to pay attention to all of them. If you try to pay attention to ever single detail you are almost guaranteed to be paralysed into inaction (often known as paralysis by analysis). Knowing which details to pay attention to and which to gloss over is an art as much as it is a science. I doubt anyone gets it right every time - I know I certainly don't - but you can get better at it. Experience is invariably a valuable guide, especially if applied systematically and reflectively. Strategy analysis tools and models also help to cut through the mass of detail to get to the heart of what is truly important.

Of course, models and tools in combination with experience produce the best outcomes. My Manufacturing and Operations lecturer on my MBA programme likened the available analysis tools and models to a mechanics toolbox: an experienced mechanics more quickly concludes when a faulty parts needs tapping rather than tightening and that a hammer will do that better than a spanner; an inexperienced mechanic will take that much longer to work out what the underlying problem is and what tool to use to solve it.

And yet, many people, like then boss seem intent on avoiding the details. Perhaps they lack the right kind of experience, or perhaps they don't know about or how to use the right tools. However, I suspect that it is the people who never obsess of the details that allow organisations to drift from one state of mediocrity to another.

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The consistently popular SWOT analysis

A recent Google Trends analysis (see below) highlights some interesting insights in the popularity of some of the most widely used Strategy Analysis tools:

The chart above shows the popularity, measured in terms of Google search frequency, of 5 popular strategy analysis tools. (Google Trend analysis allows only 5 search terms at a time.)

Looking at this analysis, I draw 3 interesting conclusions:

Despite being much maligned by many as being too simplistic to be of any real value, the humble SWOT analysis is the most popular of the three models by a wide margin. This is consistent with my own experience: the SWOT analysis is the cornerstone of any analysis, and whilst it is easy to abuse, it is a vital tool when in the hands of a skilled strategist.
The popularity of all of the search terms, especially "SWOT analysis" is noticeably seasonal, peaking each November and March. This suggests that interest is still tied to some annual planning process. It is disappointing to see that strategy is still seen as a periodic episode linked to some financial and business planning calendar and not a more fundamental way of thinking about how a business is run on an ongoing basis.
Finally, the popularity of all search terms appears to be gradually diminishing over time. It would be heartening to believe that this is simply because everyone is now familiar enough with these terms to no longer need to search them on Google, but my own experience suggests that it is more likely to be because people are more inclined to chase the latest fad rather than relying on fundamental strategic analysis, as suggested by the Strategic Learning framework..

Three different regulatory responses and their impact on industry

An item on the TV news a few mornings ago caught my attention and reminded me just how much regulatory action can affect an industry and the firms which compete within it. The regulatory environment, and the possibility of regulatory changes falls in the "P - Political" quadrant of a traditional PEST analysis, and it is vital to understand it in order to form a clear view of the competitive environment in which you operate.

The news item concerned the new laws being proposed for plain cigarette packaging. But what it got me thinking about is the widely differing regulatory response to the tobacco, automotive and pensions industries.

In each of these industries, government would like to influence, if not control our behaviour.

In the automotive industry, government would like us to drive safely, which often means more slowly. This is to reduce the burden on emergency and healthcare services, as well as to limit the potential dangers to other road users with whom you might collide.
In the tobacco industry, the government wants to reduce the number of people who smoke or start smoking. This is to reduce the long-term burden on the health services, as well as the risks to other people that come from passive smoking.
In the retirement savings industry, government wants to increase the amount of money that people save while they are working. This is to reduce the number of people who fall back on state benefits during retirement.

In all three cases, the government's reasons are similar:

the behaviours have social consequences if individuals get it wrong (think about passive smoking, innocent people being killed on the roads, etc.), and
it costs the government money to clean up behind us (whether in the form of higher NHS or social welfare bills).

But the regulatory responses to these three situations is significantly different, as is the impact on the industries that serve them:

In the case of speeding, it is simply against the law. Speed limits are entrenched in the highways code, and there are financial and other criminal penalties for exceeding them. However, with a few exceptions (think about rules about including seatbelts in cars, etc.) the automobile industry has managed to stay out of the fray. Certainly, if a driver exceeds the speed limit and is involved in an accident, nobody blames the car manufacturer for building a car capable of going too fast. And as far as I am aware, there are no laws governing how fast manufacturers are allowed to allow cars to go.
In the case of smoking, governments actively campaign against it, limit where you can do it, and control advertising of cigarettes. However, they seem reluctant to go as far as to ban it outright. Is it more of a civil liberty than speeding, or is it just backed by a powerful tobacco lobby? Could the tobacco lobby have avoided all of this had it taken a different approach? Clearly, the risk to the tobacco industry is huge: it could be excluded from the UK market entirely!
In the case of retirement savings, the government appears to be moving in the exact opposite direction by lifting the existing restrictions on what people can do with their accumulated retirement savings, despite warnings from numerous quarters of the potential dangers to individuals in doing so. Is it purely an electoral ploy and revenue raising activity? (Pensioners will get access to the cash before the next general election, but probably won't have to pay the tax on it until after the next general election.) It is not yet clear whether these changes are beneficial to the industry from a long-term financial perspective. However, what is clear is that costs of implementing these change is immense, and the probability of unplanned for and large scale customer withdrawals is significant.

These three examples demonstrate just how widely different regulatory responses can be, and therefore how important it is for a strategist to understand what they currently are, to anticipate how they might change, and to consider how the firm might influence them in its favour (or against its competitors).

The PEST analysis is one of the many tools supported by StratNavApp.com, the innovative and collaborative online environment especially built for strategists. Why not try it now?

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Career development as an exercise in strategy

I've mentioned before that I tend to look at most problems through the eyes of a strategist. A short while ago, someone asked me for some career advice. This is what I told them.

Start by imaging the strategic questions your firm typically asks - let's keep it as simple as is possible:

Who are our customers?
What do they want?
What's the best way we can deliver it to them (taking into account your strengths, weaknesses, and any opportunities and threats you can see)?
How do we know how satisfied they are with that?
What can we do to improve? (This cycles round to 2)
What else could we offer them?
To who else could we offer the same things?

Now imagine you're not an employee, but you're a one-person business. The answer to the first questions is: your boss (and also the firms management and your colleagues). Now answer the rest of the questions as they relate to you and your role.

Before you know it, you have a pretty robust career development plan. Of course, you could apply a much more complex strategic reasoning process, but that probably wouldn't be necessary.

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A perspective on internal communications

As your career progresses and you move up the corporate hierarchy, I think you naturally gain more exposure to decision making and strategy setting processes. It is likely that you become part of those processes yourself. As a result, you have a much greater understanding of the forces shaping your industry and business, and feel a greater sense of control over larger areas of your organisation.

It's easy to forget, when that happens, what it feels like to be lower down in the hierarchy, or earlier on in your career, before you were exposed to those decision making and strategy setting processes. If you cast your mind back, you will likely recall a feeling of not understanding how and why (or even when and if) those decisions were made, and consequently, feeling a certain arbitrariness about them.

It is important to reflect on this from time to time so that you can plan appropriate internal communications to alleviate these feelings and get your teams fully engaged in what it is that the organisation needs to do. Pitch your internal communications not at people who have your exposure to the decision making processes and the key data that support it, but to people who don't have the experience and benefit of such exposure.

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