Chapter 17

Don’t Force Machinery

When you feel the anxiety that comes with uncertainty, it can be tempting to grab at anything certain to escape the discomfort of the unknown. We instinctively want to figure things out as quickly as possible, but sometimes patience is precisely what is needed for an opportunity to emerge, an answer to surface, the path to become clear. An old idea from medicine, iatrogenics, teaches that sometimes the best treatment is doing nothing at all. Time can resolve injury, and uncertainty, sometimes better than action can, and research confirms that taking a little time can increase our willingness to take risks.1 The maxim “don’t force the machinery” comes from a friend’s grandfather, a master mechanic, who constantly reminded everyone around him that if a piece of equipment isn’t working as expected, forcing it will only damage it. Instead, patience and time are required to resolve the issue. Likewise, when it comes to uncertainty, we run the danger of forcing the machinery by grasping at premature certainty—those suboptimal certainties we latch on to when we can no longer handle waiting—thereby forgoing better possibilities further down the line. We aren’t saying that you should always wait. Indeed, we believe that action is the primary way to resolve uncertainty. We are simply saying that there are times when it is important to be patient for the insight or possibility to emerge rather than forcing the machinery.

How do you know whether you should take action or be patient? It is a decision where the head and the heart need to come together, rather than letting the anxiety make the decision for you. For example, after Timberland acquired the company Howies, changing the founding vision to something they could no longer support, David and Clare Hieatt began looking for something new to throw their hearts into. Despite their experience building one of the UK’s top clothing brands and the impulse to do something new, David recalls that they just didn’t have the why—the “wind in your sails.”2 For two years they waited. David recalls taking long runs with his dog through the lonely hills surrounding Cardigan, feeling depressed and wondering what to do next. Only later did they learn that Cardigan, the very town where they had been living for the last two years, had once been the jeans manufacturing capital of Britain. However, twenty years earlier the factory had closed as jobs moved overseas to cheaper locations, leaving behind economic collapse and skilled workers with no way to ply their trade. At that moment, the head and heart came together. The Hieatts asked themselves: what if they hired these still-skilled workers, honored their craft by calling them grand masters, and made “jeans for life” in a sustainable manner, rather than just making cheap jeans? For David and Clare, patience revealed the “why” for starting Hiut Denim, the wind in their sails that has helped them become the internationally recognized brand and force for good in the clothing industry that they are today.

When the head and heart come together, it is time to act. Before that, it may be wise to avoid forcing the machinery. But you can gently nudge things forward. How? Ask trusted friends or mentors for advice, as they often observe things about you and the situation that you may not. Also ask if removing or stopping something could be as beneficial as taking action. For example, often leaders wonder “What should we do to innovate more?” but rarely ask “What should we stop doing that is blocking innovation?” Sometimes we need to nudge a possibility forward with a small step—a conversation, a book, a course—to start the process of possibility.

And sometimes we just need to get curious. Earlier we mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert’s experience of letting herself garden when her book turned out poorly. She says that when we don’t feel drawn to anything in particular, good old curiosity is a good first step: “Curiosity is accessible to everyone. Passion can seem intimidatingly out of reach sometimes, a distant tower of flame accessible only to geniuses and to those who are specially touched by God. But curiosity is a milder, quieter, more welcoming, and more democratic entity.”3

We have learned about the dangers of forcing machinery—and the benefits of patience—firsthand. After graduate school, we stumbled onto the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to spend three months in Paris on a visiting professorship. What we didn’t expect is how those magical three months would affect us. The richness of daily life, the ancient cathedrals covered in lichen, the white facades of the Belle Époque apartments, all of it struck a chord deep inside. When finally we returned home to the January gray of our small town, we felt homesick for France. It was hard to explain, perhaps not entirely rational, but we both wanted to get back to Europe. Nathan started making inquiries and, by great fortune, that fall was invited to give a job talk at University College London.

A few months later, when we checked into our hotel near King’s Cross, we took a walk to see how it might feel to live there, peeking into the university buildings, an eclectic mix of modern facades and gargoyle-capped turrets. The next day, Nathan’s presentation went well, and after a full day of meetings with the faculty, the professor scheduled for Nathan’s final interview suggested they talk at the café across the street. They had barely sat down to their exorbitantly priced millionaire’s shortbread cookies when the professor blurted out, “Are you f@$^ing crazy to move here?”

“What?” Nathan asked, confused.

“There’s no way you can afford to live here with four kids on the salary we would give you. You would have to live in some tiny flat hours outside of London, and you’d spend all your time doing extra teaching to make ends meet, which means you wouldn’t do enough research to get tenure here, but then when we kicked you out, you wouldn’t have enough research to get a job anywhere else. You would be totally screwed.”

All Nathan could do was take a bite of cookie while his excitement deflated.

The professor continued. “You should just stay where you are, work hard, and publish. Then, only then, should you maybe consider moving somewhere like this.” There are times when we face opposition, or quest destroyers, and we should ignore the advice we are being given. But what made this colleague’s harsh words harsher was that somewhere inside, Nathan knew he was right.

We flew home somber but with a new resolution. It was time we made the best of what we had. Rather than haphazard family get-togethers, we started inviting Susannah’s parents over for regular Monday night dinners. Nathan started taking time at the end of workdays to hike up the canyon. Despite money being tight, we bought the locals-only discounted lift pass and started skiing on Saturdays as a family and hiking those same trails in the summer. We soaked up all the perks of living in a small town, near family, and had fun doing it—knowing that if and when we did leave, we would have fewer regrets.

Years passed, but while we waited for a European life that made sense, we kept tiptoeing toward the dream, taking French classes and lining up more visiting professorships. On our third visit to France, INSEAD’s department chair asked Nathan if he would be willing to move to France. We were stunned, wondering if this was the offer we had been waiting for. Nathan replied enthusiastically, and we started to scheme about how it might work to move back just a few months later. But then we didn’t hear anything for three months as the department chairs changed, and the new chair informed Nathan that he still didn’t have enough publications. We sat tight and continued to live our suburban lives with as much gusto as we could. The next spring, on our fourth visit to France, INSEAD asked if Nathan would make a visit. Two months later they offered Nathan a job, and when they did, the head and the heart came together. It was time!

Sometimes forcing machinery shows up as writing something off too soon. Value judgments can kill ideas when they still have a pulse. Marketing guru Duke Stump has helped companies like Nike and Lime define their image, but he’s still susceptible to misjudging a brand. When a recruiter called about a potential job at Lululemon, he adamantly refused. When the recruiter pushed a bit, Stump explained, “Hell no! … I have no connection to that brand. There is a proxy battle with the founder, which sounds like a shit show. It’s listed as a brand that won’t exist in 2015, so why would I go up?” But after continued pleas that he “go up” for the job, Stump conceded. He admits he had expected to walk in and find a “morgue,” but instead “I walked in and it was shiny, happy people. I was like, ‘Don’t you know that Rome is burning? And you are a brand that won’t exist?’” But to his surprise, the company had a feeling completely different from that depicted in the external media. After that first day, even though it made no sense on the surface, “it felt right,” so he joined the company and commuted from California to Vancouver every week.

In a twist of irony, Stump’s close call with his premature certainty about Lululemon enabled him to lead the company through a defining moment. When he joined, many on the board were hoping to expand beyond yoga as a revitalizing effort. There was an urgency, Stump recalls. “A lot of people were like, ‘Yoga is so finite. It’s limiting. We need to sign big athletes and do running.’” But he encouraged the team to “sit still” and focus on their purpose. By sitting with it a bit and not forcing the machinery, they ultimately concluded that they created the most value by focusing on doing yoga really well. With this insight, they launched a series of campaigns based on their core value, which helped save the company and position it as the world leader in yoga, almost tripling its revenues over the next few years.

Patience, even when it’s the right choice, has never been easy. While the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment showed the benefits of delayed gratification, it’s not rocket science why individuals capable of waiting can sometimes experience better outcomes. A creative leadership course offered at Kaospilot includes a final module based on the principle that extraordinary results always require patience, courage, disruption, and the ability to lead others on that harrowing journey. Jakob Wolman, a former student, paraphrased the main takeaway: “Something we quickly identified was the need to stay a little longer with the tension, suffer a little more to get the extraordinary outcome.”4

André Leon Talley, former creative director and editor-at-large of Vogue, recounts a miserable Christmas break of waiting through uncertainty. Just at the start of his career and virtually unknown, he had just finished up his one big break, an unpaid internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute with legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland. No jobs or opportunities had materialized, and he had no money and nowhere to stay. Vreeland warned him that if he went home, he’d take a teaching job and never come back: “Stick it out! You belong in New York.”5 Talley had to sleep on the floor of a friend’s apartment, and with no money, hungry, he walked the bleak streets, stopping in churches to offer prayers but “grateful to be in New York, even if my future was uncertain.”6 When she returned from the holidays, Vreeland helped Talley find work, writing letters “on my behalf to every important figure in fashion journalism. Like a trumpet, with her booming voice, she built me up to everyone…. She never let up speaking on my behalf.”7 Talley landed his first real job as assistant for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, which became a critical platform for his entire career. Had he given up too soon, he would have missed out on that opportunity, just days away, and the slew of other opportunities that followed.

Even when we intuit that our decision is right, waiting till the right moment takes leadership and practice. Kate O’Keeffe, the creator of Cisco’s Hyperinnovation Living Lab and an executive in Boston Consulting Group’s Digital Ventures initiative to help corporations create internal startups, describes this patience as an important part of her work creating new startups. Whether her team is interviewing customers, prototyping a solution, or exploring a new business model, waiting for insights and possibilities to emerge, as opposed to jumping to premature conclusions, is a continual challenge. “I often feel like I’m Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart, when he plays William Wallace leading the Scots in the war for independence, and he’s holding them back until the right moment to attack. I just keep saying, ‘HOLD … HOLD … HOLD’ to keep them from charging ahead too early.”8

The old adage that patience is a virtue can apply in times of uncertainty. Alert and proactive patience, not simply biding your time, is the key. Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet is famous because the book includes generous wisdom about living well, and not surprisingly, patience is a main theme. Rilke writes, “I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live alone some distant day into the answer.”9 Rilke’s advice is clear: take action on the question, don’t force the machinery on the answer.