A bungled restaurant order

Welcome to the mid-week edition of The Resilience Brief - I hope the week has been productive and successful for you all. On Wednesdays we explore ideas to help us stay on track and finish the week strong. If this was forwarded to you by a friend or colleague, you can subscribe here. This is a good one this week, so let’s go!

There’s a great story about a CEO (I believe it was Peter Schutz from Porsche) who would take a potential job candidate out to a restaurant for lunch. It was a chance for the CEO to get to know the person in detail before officially offering them the job.

However, the lunch came with one final test.

You see, the CEO would arrange with the restaurant ahead of time to purposely mess up the candidates lunch order. When the incorrect food arrived for the candidate, he wanted to observe how the candidate would react to the sudden inconvenience. When we think about all the ways the situation could go, there are many:

• The candidate could kick up a fuss with the waiter

• The stress of the interview might reveal itself in their response

• They might even completely neglect to notice

• Perhaps they would politely manage the challenge

• Or they could even acknowledge it and laugh it off

The moment was a brilliant litmus test to see how the candidate responded to something out of left field. Schutz was using the moment to scan the candidate to measure their resilience, adaptability, and emotional intelligence - all of the great qualities essential for leadership and high-performance roles.

Leaders want to know that their teams can handle setbacks with poise and grace. They want to trust that their team members will adapt, focus on the path forward and look for solutions, regardless of obstacles in the way.

So, how do we ensure we have resilient team members?

When things go wrong (which they often do in both life and business) how we respond says more about us than what’s on our resume. The real question is whether we can roll with the punches and keep moving forward.

And this concept isn’t just for hiring managers - it really is for all of us. Schutz has a great quote which is “hire character, train skill” and I believe that is a brilliant mindset for all of us. Whether we’re leading a team, running a business, or just navigating daily life, our attitude always comes first and, with the right attitude, any skill can be learnt.

So, how do we respond when our own ‘order’ gets messy?

Here are a few simple ways to build resilience to be ready for those moments that come out of left field:

1. Pause. When things come out of left field, our first reaction is often emotional. So the key is to find that space, that moment between stimulus and response, to take a breath. If we can find the space, we shift from reactive mode to response mode (or better yet, ‘resilience mode’).

2. Assess. Is it a minor inconvenience or a real problem? Most mistakes are fixable, and perhaps not as big of a deal that we originally thought.

3. Communicate. If we need to make a correction, clear (and calm) communication is incredibly kind. The ability to make a reasonable request without escalating the situation is a brilliant leadership skill. But we’ll struggle to communicate effectively if we haven’t paused and assessed properly first.

4. Move on. This is the big one. Not every mistake requires a fix.. Sometimes, we might just need to roll with it. Can we eat what’s in front of us and let it go? Perhaps we can even reframe it as an opportunity rather than a setback. I mean, maybe this is a time to try a new dish that we wouldn’t usually eat - time to get out of our comfort zone. I see this so often in leadership too - micro managers get so consumed with perfection that they inadvertently over correct and no one learns anything. Sometimes moving on to allow a 3 out of 10 to happen is a great long-term investment because it allows a great teachable moment afterwards.

5. Observe. This one comes a bit after the fact. A bit of self-assessment is a great barometer for our resilience and EQ. How did we respond? Would we do anything different next time? Because at the end of the day, the only one who is usually suffering is us.

Resilience is a core skill for both life and work. It’s not that complicated - it’s about training our minds to adapt and stay composed when life doesn’t go as planned. There are many tools available to us at any moment, and it’s our ability to know those tools, and be ready to tap into them, that sets us up for success.

Small irritations in life are always going to exist - traffic jams, delayed flights, team mates who are in a bad mood, the wrong lunch orders…. it’s how we handle them that really matters.

And if all else fails, we can just ask ourselves “will this even matter in a week?”

Until next time friends, stay resilient.

Carre @ Resilient Minds