Corporate Training Magazine

Confronting Workplace Adversity
Strengthening Employees and Organizations in the Face of Challenging Times
Vol 1 Issue 1 - Sept 2005

By Kevin S. Liskowich

Running late, you zoom in to pick up a quick breakfast on your commute to work and the drive-thru attendant spills your coffee in your lap. Frantic, you pull back out onto the road, and traffic is backed up for blocks because of unscheduled road construction. You finally make it into the office mere minutes before your big presentation, and as you're setting up, your laptop crashes.

Adversity is everywhere. There's no escaping it. The question is whether you will give in to it or rise above it.

Success is about doing what it takes to get things done in highly demanding times. And today's business world is increasingly filled with challenges. This, according to a recent poll of 100,000 business professionals, which concluded that the number of adversities faced by an individual in a given day has more than tripled over the last ten years. The result is an unprecedented number of demands upon the human operating system. Improving how you respond to these challenges of the new economy is of paramount importance to achieving that success.

"Many people possess the knowledge and skills required to perform dramatically beyond their current level, but are increasingly unable to fully access them in moments of truth‹when adversity strikes or challenges arise," professed Dr. Paul Stoltz, workplace adversity consultant and CEO of Peak Learning. "Requiring that people add yet more knowledge and skills can be like piling software onto an already overtaxed hard drive."

Stoltz has been working with author and leadership consultant Stephen Covey, focusing on those exceptional individuals and enterprises who act as alchemists, converting adversity into genuine advantage, as a fuel to take us places we could not otherwise achieve.

"After researching adversity for 22 years, I've come to the conclusion that it is more than a response pattern that can be measured and changed. It is the lens through which one sees and navigates life. And as we strengthen our response to adversity, we expand our capacity to take it on," stated Stoltz.

And while many people look at dealing with adversity on a case-by-case basis, Stoltz believes that adversity is most effectively dealt with when people and companies take a systemic approach by changing how individuals view and react to adversity. "The human relationship and struggle with adversity is the epicenter of human effectiveness, as well as the core element of the human drama. If the foundation is weak, nothing we build upon it can stand. If it is strong, everything else is fortified."

And the need to fortify is becoming more important with the increasing levels of adversity that individuals face each day. Stoltz's research over the past 18 years of tracking this statistic involved asking individuals to list and describe each adversity ("when something negatively impacts something or someone you care about") they faced. The results of this research revealed that the average number faced in 1987 was seven per day. "Today that average is 27 and rising with no end in sight," he reported.

The Adversity Continuum
Responses to adversity can be placed on a continuum‹from avoiding and minimizing up through surviving, coping and managing. At the top is 'harnessing' adversity. Stoltz explained, "The vast majority of people operate in the lower to mid ranges of the continuum. Roughly ten percent truly harness adversity, converting it into fuel for everyday greatness, taking them places and achieving goals they could not reach without the adversity.

"The problem is that the lower reaches consume energy. So, given the 27 adversities we now face on average each day, the majority of energy is expended just dealing with the hassles and setbacks of everyday life. Only when we master the alchemy of converting adversity into fuel does adversity actually become a fuel cell, generating more energy than it consumes," he furthered.

Identifying how your people‹and in particular, your top leaders‹react is crucial. Similar to IQ and EQ, which measure intelligence and emotional responses, respectively, Adversity Quotient measures an individual's propensity to react and deal effectively in the face of challenging times, and has become the most widely adopted method in the world for measuring and strengthening how one responds to adversity.

The benefits for organizations that are able to identify and measure their employees' reactions to adversity are numerous. Stated Stoltz, "Our research heading up the Global Resilience Project continues to reveal the foundational nature of AQ and how it impacts everything else in human endeavor. It allows companies to predict responses and work with employees to strengthen performance, resilience, agility, innovation, health, energy and overall effectiveness."

Competitive Immunity
While many aspects of corporate strategy are focused on competitive advantage, Stoltz sees an organization and its people's ability to deal effectively with adversity provides a 'competitive immunity'. "Most companies are facing essentially the same challenges as their competitors. So, it makes basic sense that those who respond to their challenges better and faster will win."

Recruitment and Retention
Knowledge of an individual's AQ can save organizations the enormous costs of making hiring mistakes. "Talent is vital, but not enough. It tells us nothing about how effective a person might be at delivering their best talents in the throes of demanding circumstances and the real-life stresses of their daily duties. AQ does; it tells us who is likely to thrive, even flourish in adversity-rich climates. There is a reason why the average AQ rating of top management is much higher than the folks found in the lower ranks. It fuels their ascent."

Culture Building
Stoltz believes that AQ's greatest impact is realized when integrated into and contextualized within a company's culture and strategic imperatives. "While AQ is enormously powerful at an individual level and can be employed even in spite of the culture, the grander impact and vision is to have it fortify the existing culture, to help an organization preserve the best and change the rest. It's used as a way to fuel the ascent, equipping people with the fortitude to see things through, using the strategic imperatives as the trail map.

"A high AQ culture is one of positive dissatisfaction‹where 'good enough' is rarely uttered, and 'what if?' is often asked. It is a culture where people are self-driven, and they step up. It is a high-energy culture driven by possibilities, finding ways to get things done, rather than reasons they cannot. It is a place where people come to work, and wish to engage."

Research supports Stoltz's claims, with over 1,500 studies conducted by more than 100 universities and organizations globally, including a global partnership with Stanford University.

Understanding AQ
The underlying assumption of AQ is that to expand human capacity as well as our ability to assimilate and implement new knowledge, we must first strengthen the human operating system so that all 'software' (knowledge, skills, talents, experiences) are accessed and optimized more effectively. Only in this way can we fully leverage our human capital. To accomplish this, we need to permanently rewire ourselves.

Measuring AQ looks at four "CORE" dimensions ‹ Control, Ownership, Reach, and Endurance ‹ that relate to a person's perception of adversity.

Control measures the degree of control that a person perceives they have over adverse events. It is a strong gauge of resilience and health.
Ownership measures the extent to which a person holds himself or herself accountable for improving a situation. It is a strong gauge of accountability and likelihood to take action.
Reach is the perception of how large or far-reaching events will be. It is a strong gauge of perspective, burden and stress level.
Endurance is the perception of time over which good or bad events and their consequences will last or endure. It is a strong gauge of hope or optimism.

AQ In Action
The year was 2003, and the technology sector was facing unprecedented degrees of adversity in the wake of the DotCom crash. Competitive pressures and a sagging economy had led to plummeting stock prices and negative portrayals in the media. Researchers at San Jose University approached one Fortune 500 tech giant headquartered in Silicon Valley to explore the relationship between response to adversity and sales performance.

"120 account executives and sales managers participated in a study examining the role of adversity on individual and organizational performance," reported study investigator Monica Johnson. "The objective was to identify and measure their responses to adversity and compare this data with sales performance to determine what, if any, correlation existed."

The findings of the study provided significant evidence of a link between an individual's ability to deal effectively with adversity and their sales performance, notably:

Participants scoring in the upper half of AQ outperformed those in the bottom half by 25%.
Participants who scored in the upper decile (10 percent) on AQ outperformed those in the bottom decile by 59%.
The Control and Reach dimensions of AQ also predicted performance, indicating that the more the salesperson perceived they had control and believed the negative event was limited, the better their performance. In addition, those scoring in the top half for Control outperformed those in the bottom half by 22%.

The company's next step was to drive organizational performance by working with study participants to develop better and more effective responses to the adversity they faced in the workplace. After a three-month period in which study participants undertook AQ training, data was again collected and measured against their original scores. The result: the mean AQ score for the group rose from 150.57 to 182.93.

Recent world events also remind us of the extent of the impact of adversity on our lives, and at the same time demonstrate the strength of the human spirit to face and overcome these devastating events. Said Stoltz, "As I witness adversities like hurricane Katrina, I see AQ displayed in living colour as different 'victims' respond. And the basic tenet of AQ becomes piercingly clear‹how you respond determines how you live. Dealing effectively with adversity can not only strengthen one's life or drive business success, I truly believe it can transform a society. We were never equipped for the adversity we face today. But with our response mechanisms properly implemented, we can elevate ourselves and everyone around us."