The universe of work is malleable. When one creates his or her particular part of it, rather than just being in it, a successful career begins.
Crises of the Spirit
Crises of the spirit strike deep into the self-image or the view of what the world should be like. A trusted one betrays; a cherished maxim turns out to be false; a mistake causes one's self-esteem to totter. Usually life begins with a reasonable store of self-confidence. If that supply is depleted by too many crises of the spirit, it may run short before the end of the journey.
Crises of Competition
Careers take place in arenas. Combat is a commonplace. Many crises grow out of the prevalence of competition. Competition is not the crisis. If one feels that it is, then most careers are out of the question. But the side effects of competition, and its aftereffects, can be extremely critical. Crises of competition may run like a thread throughout a career.
Crises of Failure/Success
The two most obvious aftermaths of competition are failure or success. They involve a special set of psychological phenomena that constitute a separate category of crisis.
Failure is something to pity or abhor in others, and fear for oneself. And yet it is so natural. If there is to be success, there must be failure. Throughout the working career, failure is omnipresent. Even those who seem never to fail go around in terror. They hear the eternal beating of wings and cringe at the thought of the talons.
Success brings just as many problems as failure. It wears disguises, and may not become critical right away. But it is a crisis just the same.
One subset of the success/failure category is the crisis of limitation, in which the individual is simply unable to meet the demands of the situation. Another is the crisis of risk. However, risk is not only inevitable, it is to be sought out and curried in a successful career. But when you risk, you may lose. When you put it all on the line, you can lose it all. Yet out of hopelessness can come new resolve, new directions, new triumphs.
Crises of Decision
A career is charted along a path of decisions. You cannot escape crisis by shunning decision. The decision is still made-by other people, or by time and fate. Should I take that job? Should I adopt that course of action? Should I go this way or that way?
Just about any critical career point calls for the individual to decide one way or the other. That act can be fraught with significant implications: personal ethics vs. professional expediency; family vs. job; today vs. tomorrow; contentment vs. power. As you climb higher, your decisions become more crucial, if only because you have farther to fall.
Crisis-Fearers and Crisis Junkies
Some people are crisiphobic. They avoid crisis at all costs. When confronted with major problems or decisions, their instinct is to flee. But satisfactory working life is impossible when the individual's paramount motivation is the avoidance of crisis. It used to be thought that one could evade climactic events by becoming a monk or a nun. Nowadays the world, with its crises, has invaded even these sanctuaries.
Other people are crisiphiliacs-crisis junkies. Strife is their métier. When there is no trouble, they create some. They are emergency-prone.
Being a crisis junkie can be as exhilarating as being a dope junkie. But there is a price: not addiction, but stress.
The stress response is a recently identified but age-old phenomenon. When the human being-like the lower mammals-is confronted with danger, a signal goes out from the hypothalamus in the brain. "Condition Red!" radiates along the network of nerves. Body elements go to action stations. The pituitary gland injects hormones into the blood to alert the adrenal and thyroid glands. These glands, in turn, shoot added energy to every part of the body.
Blood vessels constrict. The tiny capillaries just under the skin close off altogether. Your digestion stops in its tracks; all activities not relevant to defense are stopped. Muscles tense. Sight and hearing become more acute.
Some people like to feel this way. They may not realize it, but they have come to take pleasure in the altered state into which the body is plunged by the imminence of danger. And so some people climb mountains, shoot rapids, drive fast cars. Others make waves on the job.
Crisis is inevitable. To the prepared and the capable, it is red meat. To the ambitious, it is the way to win your spurs. But beware of addiction.
Greek Gods in the Executive Suite
The mind has a survival mechanism that helps it weather crises, the turns and twists of the future. It anticipates. In primitive cultures, tribal wise men traditionally looked for omens and portents. The joking observance of Groundhog Day is a bit of antiquity that persists: If the groundhog emerges from his burrow on February 2, Candlemas Day, and sees his shadow, then supposedly six more weeks of winter are due.
On the job, the reading of portents is a popular occupation. The Big Boss has just bought a new car and it's not a Caddy but a Buick. What is he trying to say?
It certainly makes sense to develop expectations based on a reading of the "signs." Knowing of a crisis soon to flower, you are in a better position to deal with it.
But the reading of the signs-spotting causes and looking for logical effects-is hampered by a misleading assumption. Being aware of it strengthens our crisis-coping capability.
It is generally assumed that, in business, logic prevails and superior ability is rewarded. The curricula of most of the graduate schools, featuring computer models and "decision trees" and all the rest of it, are still based on this optimistic assumption. The top management of an enterprise is seen as the God of Judeo-Christian tradition: all-knowing, all-seeing, and, above all, just. The organization, in this view, may be strict, but it is compassionate and fair.
Actually, most top managements resemble the Greek gods. In Mythology, the classic scholar Edith Hamilton observes that, until the Greeks, gods were nonhuman, towering colossi or strange beasts. "The Greeks," she says, "made their gods in their own image." The Greeks felt at home with their gods: "They knew just what the gods did ... what they ate and drank and where they banqueted and how they amused themselves. Of course they were to be feared; they were very powerful and very dangerous when angry."
The fact is, Hamilton wrote, the gods "often acted in a way that no decent man or woman would." They were incalculable: "One could never tell where Zeus's thunderbolt would strike."
There isn't much justice or logic in the Greek pantheon. The gods were petty, mean, and nasty. They would interfere with, disrupt, or utterly destroy human beings for poor reasons, ignoble reasons, or no reason at all. You could be promoted by a god to kingship or queenship or even godship. Or you could be turned into a goat. Zeus was asked by one of the godesses, Aurora, to do something nice for her husband Tithonus, so he made Tithonus immortal. Zeus forgot, however, to arrange for Tithonus to remain young; so the poor fellow just got older and more senile but never died. His wife finally turned him into a grasshopper. This reminds us that on Mount Olympus, as in many an office, even the publicly expressed favor of the big boss is no guarantee of success or happiness. He or she can do you a favor that does you no good.
But whether the echelon gods smile or scowl, crises go on forever. They are inescapable in part because the goals of work are often at odds with the generally accepted ethics of human behavior. Fights are supposed to be fought fair and clean. But an executive intent on pushing his ideas is not going to be reasonable in battling the opposition. One predictable result: crisis. He will acquire a few gray hairs wondering, How far can I go in destroying the opposition- who are also friends and longtime colleagues?
Familiarizing yourself with the catalog of crises, particularly in their order of appearance, prepares you for their occurrence and improves your ability to deal with them.
