The third lesson from Good to Great by Jim Collins  is Confront the Brutal Facts yet Never Lose Faith.  Wow that is a great lesson, not just for companies but also for life.

I think this is what is wrong with a lot of the positive thinking movement.  If you always think positive and never confront things that are not so positive then you are in for trouble.  You have to face and accept the harsh reality of a situation but still remain upbeat.  There is a famous quote from Winston Churchill “Success Is Going from Failure to Failure Without Losing Your Enthusiasm”.  He didn’t say that you ignore failure and pretend everything is great.  Yes you recognise failure and accept it but you don’t let failure get you down.  Failure is just information – you learn from it, you adjust your future plans in the light of what you have learned and you keep going.

In other words if you live in a Pollyanna world reality will eventually rise up and bite you in the rear!  You cannot impose your vision of how the world should be on reality.  You have to accept reality brutal as it is.  The same happens in companies and organisations.  The brutal facts must be confronted.  If a situation develops where everyone is in awe of the leader and nobody dare bring bad news to him/her then you have a recipe for disaster.

Jim Stockdale was the highest ranking US military officer imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam war.  According to Stockdale the people who didn’t make it out of the terrible conditions they endured in the prison were the optimists!  Why? because they didn’t face the brutal facts of their imprisonment.  They wanted to believe they would be home by Christmas or some other date and they weren’t.  They were crushed by reality.

So in summary we must keep motivated and moving forward towards our vision for the future but at the same time accept the brutal reality of what happens to us and deal with it. There is no hiding from reality.

Best Wishes,

Tom

PS More lessons from the book next week.  In the meantime have a look at Jim Collins’s website for further information and resources.

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