Redeeming

But as the Books of Moses so clearly demonstrate, even the most inspired leader with the best frameworks will face lack of understanding, non-cooperation, and even outright rebellion. Individuals lose their way. Organizations choose the wrong path. Persistent pursuit of purpose is not always the quickest way to the Promised Land. Even good choices can result in failure.

Yet it is possible to move on. It is possible to recover. Devastating loss and enormous pain can be overcome. At the beginning of what would be a forty year trek through the wilderness, Moses sang a hymn with these words, “In your steadfast love you led the people who you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.” (Exodus 15: 13) Moses perceived that God was reclaiming the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had sold their inheritance to the Egyptians in exchange for temporary security. God came to reclaim ownership and to allow the nation of Israel to reclaim its true self.

The ability to recover from failure is an essential element of personal and professional effectiveness. In business circles, rather than redemption (too religious?) or recovery (too much emphasis on failure?), the favored term is resilience.

Diane Coutu, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, writes that among individuals and organizations that survive failure and go on to thrive, there is “a cool, almost pessimistic sense of reality.” She goes onto explain, “Perhaps you are 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.” (Coutou, Diane L.; How Resilience Works, Harvard Business Review, May 2002

In addition to a fundamental realism, Coutou found two other common characteristics of resilient organizations and individuals: the ability to make meaning and the ability to make do. She writes, “The most successful organizations and people possess strong value systems. Strong values infuse an environment with meaning because they offer ways to interpret and shape events.”

My undergraduate college is a bit more than 150 years old. At least once in every generation it has faced down being closed. The principal tools of survival have been a sense of unique mission and meaning. Many stakeholders in the college have seen it as a crucial source of meaning in their own lives. If the college closed a whole web of meaning and memory would close with it. As a result, in times of crisis the college has survived by redeeming tokens of value it transferred to its alumni and others over the years. The college is never more attentive to its heritage and inherited culture than when it is in most trouble. At this point, the noble and courageous ability to recover may be, if anything, too much a part of the institution’s self-definition. It would be better for the college to recognize reality sooner and thereby reduce its dependence on redeeming value.

Resilient people and organizations make do, they are inventive, and they are creative. They grapple with reality by creating something new in response to the threat. In its most recent struggle to survive my alma mater reconceived its entire approach to tuition and financial aid. It communicated its policy changes in terms of a differentiated value that went well beyond price. It created meaning. As a result, it substantially and effectively differentiated itself in the market. This creative response generated strongly positive media and helped recruit one of the largest freshmen classes in the institution’s history.

We can survive failure and go on to thrive by being realistic, making meaning of our failure, and being creative. We may lose our way, but we always retain the ability to redeem our true self.