Scoring 67 out of 70 — The Assurance of Failure

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” — Anne Harrison

As I type this column, there are news of factories, airlines, hotels and financial institutions being shut due to mismanagement, suspected misdoings or their products simply being made redundant. This column is dedicated to the millions of workers out there. You must be angry at your management, resentful of being at the receiving end of some bad luck, fearing the uncertain future, frustrated that all your loyalty has come to naught. This column is for those girls out there, who are on the verge of giving up on their boyfriends, because, they did not show up on Valentines day. This column is for the student out there, facing failure, because they cannot understand mathematics or the scientist in her laboratory, about to give up. Mathematics resonates me because I used to fail in the subject in school. 

The question is what now, and how? 

A lot has been said about the recently held elections in Delhi. Let me first state, that I am not an AAP supporter, and this piece is not about political and electoral strategy. It is about an aspect of human endeavour called hope. 

Before I go ahead, this column is not a political commentary. It is about people who face a crisis and failure and bounce back from it. People who failed in the examinations or lost hard earned money in a failed business. This column is about those people who face rejections; because of long held biases. Students who fell ill just before an important exam and still made it to the examination hall. 

It is the same with election results and corporate results. When there is huge success, a lot of focus and media space is devoted to the top leaders. What often goes unnoticed and certainly uncredited is the common frontline workers. The young folks, who walk the dusty streets, for hours and days together, going about their daily tasks. They forsake their meals, romantic dates, family events, weekends and holidays and knock door-to-door converting cynical customers to vote for them. 

So lets rewind to May 2014: 

Cut back to the Parliamentary elections in May 2014 and the national election results would have just come in. Their “calculated seats” would show a depressing reduction from 28 seats to 12 seats. The hard crushing reality of rejection would have hit the workers of the Aam Aadmi Party. Their friends and family would have been laughing at their naivete. They would have perhaps been questioning their own decisions of not joining the other wave, and perhaps even being overwhelmed by the wave. 

How does a team so demoralised, with dwindled resources, in the face of a huge competitor with unlimited resources and influence, go from a demoralised force to securing 67 out 70 seats. 

How do students who fail an exam, or fall short of your sales targets, or do not win the coveted sales competition bounce back. 

They would have undergone the entire gamut of negative emotions. It is not that they are super human. 

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? — Shylock, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice 

Authors, Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener, in their book, The Upside to your Dark Side, explain how negative emotions are essential and how they work. 

The AAP volunteers, would have been miserable, just like all of us. Anger, at their ideals and values being transgressed. Disappointment, after their hard work going to naught. Fear that they would never be a force in the political arena. Embarrassment; exacerbated by actions and statements by various leaders, inside and outside. Perhaps, confusion; after a inexplicable decline and a lack of clarity on the way forward. Maybe even low self worth, a sense that they are not good enough, bought on by the acrimony of the 49 Day Government and the embarrassment that was the dharna. Maybe it was regret, that they wanted to create a legacy and now stared at failure. It certainly would be frustration, when after so much effort, their faltering at the final mile, was the final blow. 

I do not know what happened, but I am keen to find out, perhaps for a later column. What I do know is, and I take a little literary license as the same Shylock, who said, “The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.” They must have so badly wanted to reverse the agony. Anger would have been top of mind. 

“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way— this is not easy.” — Aristotle

Negativity is good:  

Great inventions came about in negativity and misery. Scientists faced years of frustration in inventing airplanes or combustion engines or automotive engines. History marks civil rights and freedom movements, across the world to have taken shape from negativity. Positivity does not mean, that you will never be negative. It is natural to feel negative. 

We need negative emotions to flourish: 

When we face dissatisfaction, human beings face two scenarios. It could be a downward spiral of emotions. It could range from doubting their capabilities and being overly critical or not being able to critique their own actions. Or they resort to attributing the accumulation of events to the actions of others that contributed to the negative event. The most popular, leaving it at the doorstep of fate, the economy, weather, disease, destiny and God. 

From a negative situation leaders generate a desire to achieve more from the current situation. Positivity gives them the space. 

Perhaps, the answer is in a very small word, called, hope. It is very simply a belief that you can create a new possibility and that you can change your reality. It is a belief which implores you to look at a range of possibilities. It helps you explore what you thought was impossible. It nudges you towards finding a creative solution. Barbara Fredrickson calls them tiny engines of positive emotions.  

In his memoir Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Mandela writes:

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”

In the deepest throes of despair, all you need is a small sliver hope. Hope is not a denial of the facts, but an acknowledgement that you want to change the reality. Hope gives that little launch pad for positive change. It helps you connect with the people around you. 

So what is hope? 

Ever since history has been written, stories of hope have been well documented. It is interesting that hope was discovered as a construct, when scientist Richard Snyder was studying how people distance themselves from mistakes and failures by making excuses. 

He found that hope was on the other side of the spectrum of making excuses. Richard Snyder developed the Hope Theory and then a very interesting Hope Scale, where you could actually measure two elements of hope, first your perception that you will act towards your goal and the belief that you can find a way around the obstacles in your path, or find “pathways”. 

So what are the ways to build hope? 

1. Take a time-out

Scientists have proven, when you stop thinking of a problem, and stop obsessing over it, it increases your chances of finding a solution. Sometimes we become so obsessed with the problem at hand, that all we need to do is break the pattern. So do something small but different. Take a fifteen minute break. Go out for a small stroll. If you can get time for exercise, that will be even better. It will leave you with more energy. If you have an hobby, now is the time to indulge in it. 

Even though you are in a crisis, it does not stop you from committing a few acts of kindness yourself. It will take the focus of yourself and direct it to doing good for someone else. It gives you the confidence that in midst of your crisis, you can make someone else happy. Positive Psychology researcher, Robert Biswas-Diener, says that “trying new things and taking risks come not just with the possibility of failure, but the assurance of failure. While failure always leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it can provide new insights about strategies that work and those that do not”.  So how can you build hope in yourself? What do you do when you feel like a failure? 

2. Ask a few questions and learning from the past

Carol Dweck suggests,  Think of a lesson you have learned from your mistakes. 

Think of a few things in which you have really improved. Have your experiences prepared you well for life? 

Think of a time, when you met your goals. What did you do? 

Think of a time, when you physically yearned for something better to happen? 

Think of a time when you had to be at your best. 

Think of how you have overcome obstacles.

Think of a time, in the past, when you were faced with an almost certain failure, but simply believed that you could turn things around, and perhaps actually did. How did that feel? What were the strengths that you used? 

Do you usually find solutions to your problems? 

Think of a time, when you were creative. What was the solution? 

3. Reach out to people who were in your situation  

Think of someone who can help you out. Someone you can talk to or you can take guidance from? 

If you are facing a crisis of a dreaded health issue like cancer, seek help from cancer survivors. If your Sales Supervisor has given you the final warning, talk to people who have been longer in the system on some tips. They will be more than willing to help. 

4. Connect back to your purpose 

Is your purpose still alive and relevant? I think this is where the senior leaders of AAP would have resonated with their purpose. 

5. Realise that every human being has a deep reservoir of strengths

Use the strengths and take and find a way of taking the first step… I think this is where the workers would have excelled.  They must have realised that they still have the same strengths. Young and energetic volunteers who were willing to put in the hard work and were driven by their purpose and personal integrity. They must have found out that the electorate still harboured negative perceptions of abandonment which was a barrier they needed overcome. 

So they made their first move to show they had learned from their mistakes. I think the public apology was a genuine sign of growing up.  A positive toned message showed that they had graduated from rebellion to statesmanship, worthy of forgiveness and capable of another opportunity. 

The electorate of Delhi forgave them. I am not a political observer or a social scientist, but the statistics background in me, urges me to consider that it was just not the “huge promises” that drove the forgiveness. As it happens, so many times, the ripples of positivity took over. The rest is history. 

On yet another Monday, if you are on top of the world after a great Valentine’s weekend, help someone out. It could be a colleague at work who just can't seem to convert a client. A small two-minute coaching might help her. If you find yourself in the deepest of despair, make a plan to bounce back. 

Hope exists at both the spectrum of human survival and flourishing human. Human survival depends on hope. Flourishing human starts with hope.