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Last week, I officially wrapped up my EQ coaching certification. My coach—a woman so serene she chose a Frank Lloyd Wright interior for her virtual background—gently dropped some personal truths.
“Mandy, your impulse control is … low. And your empathy? Mmm, room for growth.”
She said it with such oozy compassion I barely noticed the emotional drive-by. Naturally, I responded like any self-aware adult: I intellectualized it, justified it, and moved blissfully along.
Cut to this morning: A mysterious beep echoes from the basement around 5:30 a.m. I shuffle down to find a carbon monoxide detector blinking out a digital distress code I don’t understand. I tap my phone, no Wi-Fi. Move to reset the router—half the house is without power. Brain does the math:
◗ Husband’s traveling: I’m solo, but I got this!
◗ Make breakfast with no lights or appliances: a cozy camp tableau.
◗ Breaker not tripped: Raccoon? Racoon family reunion?
I scan the room for muggers. Or snakes. Or mugging snakes.
Now, in this ripe emotional moment, do I tap into my newly acquired Impulse Control? No. I squawk—SQUAWK—into my children’s bedrooms: “THE HOUSE IS BROKEN. GET UP FAST. NOT A DRILL.”
I find an electrician’s business card from 1992 perched atop my breaker box and call the number (Darrell, bless him). I pay $217 to have my laundry picked up because who knows when I’ll have power again and we can’t be naked! (James messages that he’ll pick it up by 11 a.m.I respond: “Hurry.”)
It’s 6:15 a.m.
My husband, ever calm, offers a suggestion by phone from 1,011 miles away:
“Maybe call the power company before buying a generator?”
He is obviously insane.
This, friends, is how one certified emotional intelligence coach loses all emotional intelligence before sunrise.
And this is exactly why, at Advisa, we pair calm, sunny, caffeine-soaked learning/development rooms with coaching. Because the real growth happens in-between. Between the clarity and the carbon monoxide detector. The “aha!” and the absolute chaos.
Because in a year that feels like a corporate obstacle course, our executive coaches are reporting wild levels of change. Teams are shuffling, M&A is buzzing, AI’s breathing down our necks, and the economy’s a squirrel.
Leaders are stuck playing two games at once:
◗ Exploit the current business model (aka, don’t mess up what’s working).
◗ Explore new ideas (aka, try stuff, break stuff, hope it works).
Here’s the twist: Exploring strategies is funded by exploiting success. So, when things get dicey, guess what loses resources and momentum first? (Spoiler: It’s not the espresso machine.) It’s innovation. Again.
Doing both well is called “dynamic capability.” But even the best orgs (and people) fall into dynamic conservatism—when success makes us risk-averse. (Looking at you, Blockbuster.)
Paradoxically, super-successful orgs contend with the same villain: inertia.
Comfy and quiet, inertia is the tendency to resist change even when external or internal factors suggest that it’s required. And it comes in three varieties:
◗ Structural inertia: Rigid systems and hierarchies that throw sand in the gears of progress.
◗ Social inertia: Cultural behaviors and norms that default to, “This is how we’ve always done it. It’s fine.”
◗ Senior team inertia: Leaders stuck in success mode, avoiding uncertainty. Ambivalence on the senior team will always undermine corporate explorers.
The irony? The more successful we’ve been, the harder it is to disrupt ourselves.
This begins on a very personal level. There’s no such thing as “organizational change,” after all. All change is individual. Even in the face of disruption, people are more likely to return to what they know will bring profit rather than shift to something that might bring it.
Change is always a social movement. If you’re disrupting your organization’s strategy, to truly explore and innovate you’ll need three things to resist inertia: strong stakeholder alignment, a critical mass of humans displaying the exploring behaviors you need to see for growth, and amplified stories of explorer success.
How is inertia holding you or your organization back? Where might you need a little support? A compass? A gentle shove wrapped in a muffin?
I’m writing this in the dark. No Wi-Fi. Scribbling “Thank-You-Sorry” notes to Darrell and James. Pondering an oil lamp and a quill.
And pondering, too, the little sea creatures who despite many setbacks evolved to glow in the dark—a reminder of our luminous capacity for change.•
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Haskett is a leadership consultant at Advisa, a Carmel-based leadership consultancy.
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