Leadership Scoop! Persistence vs. Resistance
by Kate Nasser | 13 Comments »
Persistence is frequently touted as a critical success quality. Babe Ruth’s famous quote, “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up” is only one of many proclamations that has exalted persistence.
Yet deifying anything risks distorting it and that can thwart success.
When we lead teams through change, lead ourselves to business and career goals, or lead our own personal lives, persistence is a tremendous attribute unless it’s actually — distorted change resistance.
There are considerable benefits to seeing the difference. As leaders we are more likely to engage employees in innovation when we persist to a goal not resist new ideas. As business professionals, we need agility as well as focus to reach our vision. In our personal lives, embracing change can lead to a joy filled life; resisting it can be disastrous.
Persistence or Change Resistance? Image by:stevefaeembra
The exalted status of persistence can distort our thinking to believe there are only two options — persistence or surrender. Surrender screams defeat to the psyche. It brings many people to mistakenly persist just to avoid feeling like a quitter or a failure. This is truly an unfortunate choice for there are more than two options.
Instead of thinking, “know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em”,
We can persist toward a goal by changing the course of arrival. Why fly into a storm when we can go around it and still arrive?
Ironically, persistence to success requires change ability. Let’s not persist in methods and moments; let’s persist in reaching success. We don’t have to walk away; walk another way.
Innovate the approach when the current path,
- Is directly into harms way
- Is truly slowing progress
- Is eroding self-esteem and confidence
- Is against core values
- Is illegal
- Is crushing with negativity
AND
when other paths,
- Can achieve the goal more easily or with unique benefits
- Engage talents more effectively
- Connect with positive resources and helpful people
- Inspire creativity, spirit, and productivity
Question/change the goal when it,
- Blocks a positive future
- Tries to hold onto the past or rewrite history
- Denies or sidesteps the truth
- Points to a far better goal
It is much easier to change a goal or a pathway when we see it as growth instead of failure. Successful people embrace this truth. They lead teams to embrace and develop agility.
They have more than just persistence and diligence. They:
See futility sooner
Quickly learn and correct course
Balance vision between their intuition and what is actually happening
Change course courageously without fear of the short term detour
Have greater desire for success than the comfort of habit
Believe that the opposite of persistence is not laziness
Changing course is not cowardly, lazy, or weak; it is not defeat.
Sometimes it is THE method for reaching success — in business and in life. Meanwhile, inaction can turn change resistors into comfortable sitting ducks for those who are truly persistent in finding success.
Please share: The ONE thought moves you past change resistance to reach success.
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™
(My gratitude to Debbie Adams, a Twitter colleague, who inspired this post with a simple question about persistence vs. control.)
Related Post:
Want Success or Happiness? Don’t Let Fear Be the Gum on Your Shoe
©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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Every time I read one of your posts, I cannot help but thinker deeper and go wider.
I love the way you think and I appreciate your approach to Persistence vs Resistance.
A great post–that should be shared with everyone we know.
Always grateful for your wisdom
Lolly Daskal
Lead From Within
I am heartened by your words Lolly. They are more insightful that you may think. The hardest part of writing this post was being concise. My mind kept going deeper and broader — as you say — and I spun my wheels a bit.
Then I realized it’s best not to cover a book in one post. So stay tuned for more posts on this topic!!
Thanks, my colleague, for your time and feedback.
Kate
Kate, you are so great at spotting these points where a leader’s judgment of the situation is critical. There are so many places where it is essential not to get locked up in any formula, no matter how heroic or expert it may appear. We must look carefully to see if what at first seemed the correct road is merely one paved with good intentions (we all know where that road leads).
I think your insights apply in a wide range of contexts. I think of someone who decides to follow a certain course of study only to discover after years of work that the passion’s gone. I think of leaders focused on a product/service line that was once a profitable favorite but no longer works. I think of business partnerships that began great but now need to fold so that the individual partners can go on separately to their own greater fulfillment. And I think of change agents in organizations who must see their own impact on the organizations they serve lest they get sick with the “change agent flu” — depression and anger. Better to step back, see things as they are and choose another direction or another dream.
When it’s time to move on, I’m in favor of celebrating — and being thankful. Like certain Japanese poems written on the paper used to wrap fish, everything is transient, meant to be thrown away, even the greatest art. We are all eligible for loss when the time is ripe. We may still feel an inner gyroscope wanting to keep us to the old way. But it, too, winds down.
I remember a client some years ago. She drew a picture of a hat she’d enjoyed in previous times. It had a certain symbolism for her. It stood for her creativity and optimism. It was such a powerful image she had somebody make a pin for her that she could wear on her clothes that looked like that hat. But then she lost the pin, and was sad. I said to her, “Maybe it’s a sign that you really don’t need it anymore.”
The point is that persistence has its place — but not to excess. There’s really no place to stop on this journey in order to be comfortably absolute or unthinkingly certain.
Thank you so much Dan for the examples that you provide:
——-
Product/service line that was once a profitable favorite but no longer works, business partnerships that began great but now need to fold so that the individual partners can go on to their own greater fulfillment, and change agents in orgs who must see their own impact on the organizations they serve lest they get sick with the “change agent flu” — depression and anger.
The decision of when to change is made more difficult by the inner voice saying “don’t be a quitter”. Your examples give practical oomph to realizing that change is natural and very often beneficial.
I am grateful for your “adds” on this post.
Warmest regards,
Kate
Amazing posts Kate,
I slept on thinking about this post! I’ve been working on my existing job for the past 10 years and I’m recently have got a chance to move forward to take my boss position but that is still not bound to a period.
I was offered a job as a tutor in our national university and they offered me a free PHD study!
Your posts made me think deeper into persistence or resistance!
Still not sure whether I accept or reject but you enlightened me on a path that I was about to ignore!
THANK YOU
Regards,
Khalid
Khalid,
Your journey will take you to your destiny once you take time to assess the opportunities you might initially dismiss. I wish you exciting travels, great exploration, and a very happy arrival!!
Kate
These lines jumped out at me:
“Ironically, persistence to success requires change ability. Let’s not persist in methods and moments; let’s persist in reaching success. We don’t have to walk away; walk another way. ”
As leaders, we should be more fixed in purpose, yet flexible in method. However, it is much easier said than done.
Great post, Kate. Thanks for your wisdom!
So nice to have you as a new commenter here at Smart SenseAbilities. It easier to be fixed than flexible — as you say — yet fixed is false comfort.
Habitual practice, taken too far, becomes an evil addiction. Small explorations into other possibilities preserve the positive and prevent the negative.
Thanks for your contribution.
Best regards,
Kate
Thanks for the post Kate, as well as your insights Dan. I’m currently on a journey where big decisions need to be made to move me to a place of success and life has thrown some curveballs into the mix as it usually does. Curveballs that leave you thinking “perhaps I’m better off where I am” but I’ve come to realise that the paths we travel are full of distractions and we have to remain focused in a sense, and listen attentively to that inner voice because once the distractions have passed we are still left with the reasons why the journey began in the first place. Your post has enlightened me to the questions I need to be asking myself. Thanks.
Hi Anthea,
So glad to know of your journey, to add a bit of guidance to it, and to encourage your persistence to the better life you seek. Please consider me a resource along the way.
Warmest wishes and great success to you!
Kate