The Stockdale Paradox

Have you ever heard the cosmos knock? Today I think I did. Bang! Bang! Bang! On the back end of a day in which I was reminded by no fewer than three colleagues of this thing, each speaking independently of the others, I answer the knock and write tonight on the Stockdale Paradox.  

Do you remember the Stockdale Paradox? It is best recounted in Jim Collins 2001 classic, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't. Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest ranking officer to ever book a room at the "Hanoi Hilton" prisoner-of-war camp during the Vietnam War.

Repeatedly tortured, starved, and compelled even to disfigure himself to escape enemy attempts to videotape him as a model for a "well-treated prisoner," Stockdale affirmed the hellish conditions he and his men found themselves in even as he strategized to transmit intelligence to the outside, institute rules for what his men may reveal at what point during their inevitable torture sessions, and create systems to communicate with his fellow prisoners. Years later, Collins interviewed the admiral for his book.

After an hour or so of conversation came this: "Who didn't make it?" asked Collins. "Easy," answered Stockdale, "the optimists. They said we'd be out by Christmas and when that didn't happen, they said we'd be out by Easter. And then that didn't happen. They died of a broken heart."

Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. That is the Stockdale Paradox. Now seems like a pretty good time to remind ourselves of it. But for readers of this blog, here's my real point: What are our strategies to make it out on the other side of this economic recession?