- by Agnes Mura

Coaching in times of crisis has become all about resilience, for me.

As we know, true resilience comes not from looking away but from looking reality squarely in the face and avoiding denial. So, more than ever, as an executive coach, I help clients interrogate reality, questioning the assumptions of their businesses: what are they learning from the market today? Asking three to five levels deep, what is likely to come next? With what purpose and end in mind are they staffing down and what are they staffing UP for? What products/service, structures and bureaucracies should not survive this cycle?

Once we courageously look at all the implications of the current changes, we work on what story we are telling ourselves and others about it. Most leaders I work with “know” that they have to have a mind-set of seeing the opportunity underneath the crisis. Many will tell stories of how people “made it” during the worst of times. But what mind-set do their actions convey? Just the other day, a division VP showed such physical signs of dejection when being informed in a meeting that another account was lost, that the whole team’s spirit fell noticeably for days. Nobody expects unnatural poker faces in the work-place, but it’s important to coach intensely around the deep-seated conviction and optimism of the executives, because in times of immediate stress the truth of their attitudes will be visible. We can’t control Amygdala responses, we can only control the overall mood and philosophy with which we hold and meet set-backs.

The third component my coaching sessions seem to revolve around a lot these days is visioning. This is a learned skill, not natural to too many people (and those who have it a lot, seem fly like kites at times). re-invention, playful brain-storming, talking to the young, to the lowest rungs of the hierarchy, to other industry colleagues, to artist, reading great literature and history… these are ways to wash one’s brain of prevailing paradigms. VISA’s CEO is quoted to have said something to the effect that it’s much harder to get rid of the old than to introduce the new. (That’s why the new is introduced often on top of the old, which makes for fascinating archeological layers of processes and products in organizations.) Listening to different music, learning new physical skills, how fun it can be to refresh the whole being.

The challenge is that all this occurs against a mass-generated background of anxiety and fear. Acknowledging that in every moment when it shows up, looking fear in the face and smiling anyway – that’s where our sessions usually lead.

Agnes Mura, MA MCC
Santa Monica