Motivational

Rule 29: Anticipate Threats

August 12, 2016

Afo-Hip-Hop Music Star, Abolore Agbolade Akande (9ice) with Blogger, GDA

Threats
come at us from every quarter, every day – redundancy, downsizing, takeovers,
vindictive colleagues, irascible bosses, new technology, new systems, and new
procedures. In fact entire books are
devoted to threats – mostly from change – such as Who Moved My Cheese and How
to Handle Tough Situations at work.
If we can think on our feet, stay out of ruts, be flexible and move
fast, roll with the punches and go the distance, we will not only survive
change but we shall also be contortionists and athletes of the highest
order.

Of course, we can’t do all that.
There will be times when the threat will overtake us and we get squashed. It happens to us all. There is no getting away from the fact that
life gets fired at us at point blank range and we rarely if ever get time to
duck.

“EACH
THREAT THAT BECOMES A REALITY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GROW AND CHANGE”.

But
a threat is always that. Once it becomes
a reality we can deal with it. While it
is still a threat it induces fear but can do no harm. Spotting which threat will turn into a
reality is the skill. The talent. There
are many threats and we can’t react to all of them. There are fewer realities and we have to
react to them.

It
helps if we don’t see threats as threats, but instead as opportunities. Each threat that becomes a reality is an
opportunity to grow and change, adapt and rework our methods and style of
management. If our attitude is positive
we tend to see threats less as a negative thing and more as a positive thing –
they bring us the chance to prove ourselves.
If we never get challenged we will never improve.

I
was once employed as a manager by a company which was taken over. The new bosses brought in their own managers
and three of us were ‘downgraded’ – demoted in other words. We had no choice –
apart from walking out of course. I was,
by this time, a committed Rules Player so I saw it as an
opportunity to prove to the new bosses that I was good enough to be one of
their managers and, three months later, I was back up there.

Of
the other two, one eventually walked and one stayed ‘downgraded’. They both bitched and moaned and felt the
move was derogatory and demeaning and an insult. It probably was, but I didn’t need to feel
depressed about it. I needed to get back
up there – upwards and onwards.

(Excerpts from THE
RULES OF WORK by Richard Templer Read “How to look for Opportunities” from The Rules tomorrow on Asabeafrika)

Rule-to-Work Series