Accepting Reality – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

How to accept the complexity of a situation so you can find solutions

Photo: unsplash.com/@lysanderyuen

Last Sunday’s post was about strategy and what can trap us in tactics when we also need to think strategically. It assumed we’re fully aware of reality, our environment, the time horizons ahead, a vision and, above all, the capabilities to steer through turbulence. But what happens when we still believe everything will go back to normal? Here’s what to do.

This moment is so complex, and so far beyond anything we imagined, that it’s tempting to settle for the easiest option: the status quo. The mind naturally wants to simplify and solve things fast, and a team’s collective mind is no exception. Without noticing, and without accepting reality, we’ll most likely slip into a false optimism and believe the solutions we’ve found are the best ones.

Being blind to the moment can also hide a fear of facing the challenge and looking for solutions. The kind of challenge shapes the kind of solution, and the cost of failing to act in time. Acting at once without a plan has serious costs too. Either way, what’s needed is a moment of stillness: create a space of trust, listen (even if only to our inner voice) and plan.

Values play a key role in planning and problem-solving. When we respect them and use them in our favor, multiple points of view surface and start turning into pieces of solutions richer than we imagined. Whatever the context, values are the instrument panel we navigate by.

Fear paralyzes. In the hardest moments, the leader’s job is to create spaces of trust and calm that settle the mind and keep the focus on the solution, with less weight on the conflict. Constant anxiety comes from not knowing which way we’re headed, and without that, every decision leaves us just as uncertain and in the same place.

Our purpose gives us a heading. Once the context is clear, meaning we’ve accepted our reality, we can align our decisions to hold the course we’ve set. Values give us the confidence to know which decisions are right, and storm or no storm, there’s peace in knowing we’re doing the right thing.

How do you guide your decisions? How do you put your Purpose and your Values to work for you?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. This week’s VELA:

• What I’ve been Viewing: Looking to the future. From the great Mario Alonso Puig, a video worth watching, especially in uncertain times, on how our own potential holds the answers we’re looking for.
• What I’ve been Listening to: A bird’s-eye view: from Thales to Pythagoras. A wonderful philosophy podcast, and the episode in this post will get you following it and listening every day.
• What I’ve been Reading: El Patrón. A biography of Justo Rufino Barrios by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Zelaya (from Nicaragua).
• What I’ve been Learning: Ram pumps. I confess this invention has fascinated me since I was a kid. My father was an expert at installing them, and I’ve thrown myself into learning all the calculations needed to set one up.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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