Entrepreneurs should master ‘spontaneous management’
Spontaneous Management. This is the title of a course taught at Stanford by Professor Christian Wheeler. Look, I’m an expert at spontaneous combustion, but I decided to check in with Wheeler to get some new insights on the other.
The subtext of the class is “things don’t always go as planned.” Well, that is a duh, but the key to the puzzle is how to react when the stuff does hit the fan. Wheeler teaches his students how to “manage anxiety and develop a sense of calm and f lexibility.” That’s easier said than done. In the heat of the moment, it takes practice to operate that way. That ability echoes the famous “10,000-hour rule” made popular by Malcolm Gladwell. In the decisive moment, the response needs to be automatic, no time to call 911.
Wheeler wants us to be “comfortable with discomfort.” I teach a similar concept to my CEOs which is to learn “not only to tolerate ambiguity but to embrace it.” Of course, the devil is in the details. I am not a big fan of the Zen meditation teachings. I favor the twitch muscle of short-term memory. No dwelling on mistakes. The next pitch will be arriving in less than 12 seconds.
Resilience in these situations depends to a large extent on not being afraid of failure. Fear of failure can paralyze a young founder. You become frozen, trapped in inaction. Then the fire burns your building down even though a garden hose was nearby.
Wheeler says, “Just because you fail at a project does not