How to deal with a crisis | Walter Kohl | TEDxFS

[Music] he called me about a year ago about this TED talk and I said I've never done a TED and he said yeah but maybe you should show up and then I said what am I gonna say I'm a 55 year old guy I mean there's a lot of young people sitting here age of my kids and you know when you have kids in the early 20s they not always want to listen what the old guy has to say so it was kind of a situation how to deal with this and then we came up

with something I know about which is dealing with crisis because crisis come over time crises come as a course of life and I think we've heard really great talks today and all these talks look forward all these talks give you energy to do what you think you should be doing and I'm gonna talk about something very different right now I'm gonna talk about how to deal with the shadow with crisis and with crisis I mean real crisis I don't mean oh my god she looked at me in a bad way or something like that I'm

talking about real crisis and with real crisis I want to use or in my talk I want to use two examples from my life and I want to follow basically what I would call the dynamics of a crisis because when I was in my 20s I would have loved if somebody had told me many crises have the same DNA so once you know a little bit about the let's call it the script of a crisis life becomes easier and the two examples I will use is one is professional example one is an example out of

my private life the example out of my private life is the suicide of my mother in my children's room in my children's bed which obviously is a crisis the second example I'm going to use is my wife's here today she was our CEO so we're very gender driven on this we had a company until recently and a couple years ago we were very proud to work for a Rolls Royce it was an automotive supply company and the guys in the middle that is to say the suppliers to Rolls Royce went bankrupt and within a couple

of days our entire economic base was destroyed which I also considered to be a crisis all right let's get started how to deal with a crisis first of all what is a crisis I think we should distinguish between trouble and crisis crisis is what rocks the boat or to put it in American terms when the [ __ ] really hits the fan all right you can see that coming at you crisis the [ __ ] hits the fan and crisis means your life is no longer the way you thought it was gonna be your life

is no longer true to the believes - in German we say Cloudant Setzer - what you really fundamentally believe it rocks you it shakes you when that happens you have shocked your fear horror uncertainty confusion perilous I mean really tough stuff so the first idea I want to share with you is if a situation happens make sure you're dealing with a crisis and make sure it is not trouble 98% of things are trouble even failing an exam at this beautiful University is trouble trust me life continues why do I know this I failed exams it's

character-building that's the way I look at it today I like it that you get that one that's a good one so if we take out those 98 percent and we really focus on the big stuff suddenly the word crisis has a different meaning because the word crisis also becomes a matter of perspective and I'm going to show you different types of perspectives night now the first question and this sounds really strange is it a reality or is it an expectation reality means it's there it has happened like the moment I got the call from somebody

your mom is dead that's a reality but many times we look at situations and we perceive them as a crisis but it is not so much a crisis at this point it is an expectation and that is a critical point why I'm a great fan of the philosopher Seneca who was a Roman guy who actually was the bill gates of Rome imagine that he was the richest guy he was a very successful politician and then somebody said can you educate the new emperor and he was like sure I can do that what's his name Oh

his name is Nero remember the guy who burned the city that's him so at the end of the day he had a crisis because Nero said you have a choice I'll kill you or you commit suicide because he didn't like Seneca anymore and Seneca chose suicide over death why because it was his own decision in his own realm going back to the idea of reality and expectation Seneca says we have to plan for things twice first we created in our mind and then we do it and this is one important issue I think with respect

to dealing with crisis go through the crisis that is potentially there and think it through to the end I'll give you an example my wife and I started about 2005 an automotive supply company out of nothing we were true genuine startup and it turned out she was the better entrepreneur sir she became the CEO we started working our way through this Auto automotive food chain from very small projects to much larger projects and our first large project was for a company some of you may know common which at the time was one of the gold

standard suppliers to the large companies like Volkswagen BMW whatever and we supplied a bunch of stuff for them and they went bankrupt and they didn't pay now if you don't get your main customer to pay your bills what happens you bunch of finance guys what happens you're dead you [ __ ] your host alright everything breaks down your entire liquidity breaks down your reputation in the market breaks down you are the loser although you are not the cause you're not the reason why it happened think about that years of work simply get destroyed it's almost

like a bomb strikes all right so what did happen at the time at the time I was reading that Seneca quote again of thinking it through and we sat down and we discussed what happens if we lose everything expectation in Germany we have a welfare system called hot sphere and we said maybe we have to be hard sphere very rock bottom from coming out from a entrepreneurial situation so we worked with expectation and expectation helped us to gain courage courage in fighting the legal situation and there is a specific brand of German lawyers who deal

with bankruptcy trust me they are not Mother Teresa's friends okay these guys are real heinous and we got that fight won for several reasons and why did we get it won because we were able to deal with the expectation and to get back to the reality the reality they didn't pay but then they had to pay because some technical issues happened and we had a situation of power I come back to your point here power and we could solve the problem because we said if we don't do and you don't gonna pay us we're not

gonna do this in the whole project we'll go down so the idea of crisis really breaks down into reality and expectation and please almost use a piece of paper cut it in half and write down what's reality and what is your expectation what is your fear and when you do that you automatically get into basically the timeline of crisis now this is not a dolly payment picture I'm sorry this is the timeline so to speak the curve of crisis the way I have seen it and the curve starts with denial this cannot be true oh

my god this cannot happen to us it is so unfair it is so whatever unjust this cannot be true now when you start with that what's going to happen you run into the wall because it is a reality it happened I remember when I got the call my mom died the first reactions can't be true yes it is true an understanding that reality strikes and that the striking of reality is not bad or good it is just a fact just like this is red and this is white it is a simple fact gets you out

of denial but then something happens the bottom falls out shock shock means perilous shock means we are also in a physical state of immobility we're in a state of not being able to move not being able to think and now comes a very strange piece of advice accept shock do not fight shock it is absolutely human to have shock the question is not shock yes no the question is shock how how long how deep how paralyzing and then you chose of drop imagine you are jumping off a cliff that is to 300 meters high and

you're just falling falling falling falling falling and you don't know what's gonna be there is it gonna be rocks is it gonna be water or you're gonna have some kind of soft landing you don't know you are rock bottom you are in the valley of tears and tears are okay and I say this for all those guys males like me who are fact driven big guys who are quote unquote never emotional that's all [ __ ] be emotional allow your tears I call tears the water of the soul and if we allow tears we become

honest the valley of tears is a necessity it is also a cleansing it gets all these emotions visible and more importantly its gets these emotions out there you can communicate with your own feelings one of my experiences with the death of the suicide of my mother was I could not for a long time which was more than a year year and a half communicate with my feelings every time somebody brought the issue up it was if somebody was choking me I couldn't speak I had breathing problems literally I couldn't breathe I couldn't talk so the

valley of tears is yes rock-bottom yes painful call it a [ __ ] but is a very helpful one why because tears are honest don't squeeze your tears allow them to flow and then we have as humans a great ability and we should cherish that ability we have the ability of a new perspective I'm looking at you guys right now and I see you like this this is my perspective prior to the situation and then I move and I change and I have a new answer I have a new perspective you're still the same people

you're still the same situation however I am free to choose my view this is precisely what you also said in your last tour in the last talk so that freedom that freedom of decision of your own view becomes critical in the fourth step which is a give-and-take you have grief sure if it's not grief it's not a crisis simple as that but you're also and this is the big changing moment enabled to search and negotiate and who are you negotiating with what do you think who are unique negotiating with with yourself and there's a toughest

negotiation you have these are questions like I'm a failure I screwed up I had wrong judgment did I do something wrong example suicide of my mother was I a bad son should I have not done this should I not have had that argument I mean a million things just flash at you it's a nightmare okay go through the negotiation understand it is really not only relevant it is a survival issue the ability to negotiate with yourself creates the basis the platform to talk to other people about crisis we had that with the insolvency talk stepped

forward be open about what happened negotiate with yourself and then in the next step be able to negotiate with others and if that negotiation goes up and down and takes turns and goes into some sort of weird spin so what after all we're dealing with crisis we're not dealing with trouble right we can accept that because we know at the end of the road if we persistently negotiate and we allow grief but we don't allow grief to take over we allow grief to descend gradually asymptotically so to speak okay then eventually we'll find new answer

and at the end of the day life is only about answers and answers you only get when you ask the right questions if you ask the wrong questions you will get the wrong answers and the right question in a crisis means stepping back in the first step and I'm going to show you this by the way you can have the charts I'm sure John you can distribute them I'm more than happy to give you that you don't have to take pictures all right let's go please don't aah so in conclusion five thoughts how to deal

with the crisis why five thoughts because I have five fingers and it's easy to remember you're laughing but it has a meaning you know you're not gonna lose hopefully those five fingers you probably lose the charts and you can remember this guy said something about five fingers so I'm gonna do something about five issues now what are they get a grip big issue frame it okay frame it means what is part of the crisis what is not part of the crisis just like you frame a picture you say what happened why and how but don't

get stuck in the why and don't get stuck in this oh it's your fault it's his fault or she did this or the circumstances did this the Pope is guilty Trump is guilty whoever [ __ ] doesn't matter all right so what happened and how are we gonna talk about it and differentiate very important differentiate what affects and what are emotions when I speak about the suicide of my mother I'll tell you in a minute why I use this example there are certain facts but the emotions are much bigger much more dominant they are the

true weight in the backpack of life all right so we have to deal with these emotions and emotions can be both they can be rocks that just squeeze you to the ground or they can become strength everything that is strength at the end of the day is about emotion even physical strength because if you don't go to the gym which is an emotional decision you're not going to be strong right so inner strength means overcoming fear fear and shame I think are the two biggest rocks an hour biographical backpack and they're not good or bad

they're just the fact and there is good fear and there is good shame and there is bad fear and there is bad shame I think it is not a smart idea to take a walk at 3 a.m. in the morning with a black suit on on the left lane of the outer bond I wouldn't advise that that's good fear that fear is I'm stupid I can't do it because my mother said it my mother-in-law said it whoever said it all right that's [ __ ] no bad shame because somebody has a clue or a vision

of shame and superimpose it on you that's not your shame have your own shame understand your own shame and understand also what is not shameful be clear on that and when you build inner strength you should be strong enough and courageous enough which also means overcoming fear to look for others others who have had similar situations others who have answers you probably don't have to reinvent the answer because they have answers and now I get to the point where I use my mom's suicide because a couple of years after her suicide I got a call

by the health authorities of Frankfort we live just around the corner here and they asked me mister cool are you interested or are you willing to join a panel discussion on suicide that's kind of a weird request right and I don't like hmmm let me think about it I called him back and I said I want to meet you guys first I met them I liked them I said yes and then I said another thing I said I just don't want to do one panel do you have a job for me and they said sure

we'll make you an ambassador there is an initiative here in the Frankfort area about suicide prevention I've made suicide prevention that my cause because of my mom's experience of my personal experience and suddenly the pain the shame the fear has become something else because I turned pain shame and fear into meaning which is precisely what we heard before so suddenly the negotiation became a reality the new answer is I am going on public talks in mental institutions and I always call that meeting the market because the 300 people sitting there quote-unquote patients and of these

300 people 250 had sooner suicide attempts I mean it doesn't get better is really in the market and we talk about suicide we talked about suicide prevention and we've helped saving lives and at the end of this of such meetings I have a little ritual I stand up I asked everybody to stand up and I say tonight I've been here not by myself but I've been here with my mom who committed suicide on July 5th 2001 in my room in my bed and we together are now campaigning for life and that's why it feels good

to be here and I thank these people that I have the opportunity to do this and to turn all pain into new meaning and into a new strength and they support me before I even can support them and that gives me like a little battery a whole chunk of power develop a clear goal very important if you are in a crisis unit negotiation process unless you know where you're heading you're lost great example we have a map and this is the map of Munich but somehow we are downtown Hamburg and we have a map and

we cannot find a single street because we have the map of Munich and we are in Hamburg so getting the right frame which could be a map building strength all these things don't work unless we have a clear goal which is to have the right map for the right place which means to act decisive to act wise and to act enduring let's go through these three words decisive means you make a decision and you stick to it unless somebody has really good thoughts really good arguments to say listen water don't do it this is not

gonna be the right thing for you to do but little talk blah blah talk little headwind is not gonna stop you certainly not what's wisdom what's wise wise also means endurance and it means the ability to look beyond your realm of comfort your comfort zone wise people and I know some very wise people I'm blessed with that always have the opportunity to stand up and get out of the situation and also look at the situation from the outside and there's two questions I can give to you as an idea how to do that practically a

crisis happens and you're asking yourself what to do how do I act wisely and one question I want to give you is would you do the same thing ten years in the future so let's say the crisis is now November 2018 what do you do the same thing 2028 again and the second thing I like also I like to use in my seminars is what I call the movie theater trick imagine you're in a movie theater but you're not in the theater you're actually on the screen you're in the film you're in the crisis now

step out of the crisis okay and I'll call that get into row 8 seat number 15 really get some distance to the crisis look at it from the other perspective of a spectator even taking it one step further pretend your friend so one thing we do we sit next to each other across the table and I'd put a third chair a third chair and I say move to the third chair what's the name of your best friend Jack all right you Jack what are you advising to yourself okay get out of yourself that makes you

wise and endurance is something you cannot learn from a book endurance is something that you'd simply have to practice and that means taking pain and very typically also taking uncertainty we're all so bloody brain minded God we are so smart you know children of enlightenment ha ha but what's our biggest issue our biggest issue is to take uncertainty if you only really want to torture people keep them in uncertainty and the end of a crisis or the middle of the crisis that negotiation bit that is uncertainty so how do we deal with uncertainty depends on

the situation but if you take yourself out of the situation obviously life becomes easier finally in closing a crisis is also an opportunity tell you what when we had that crisis with the automotive supply company BMW which is the mother company of rolls-royce stepped in and their first reaction was oh my god they've got this stuff from Korea can't be any quality and then for the first time they were looking at our product we never had the opportunity to present this to BMW because we're just a small fish in a large pond okay and suddenly

they realized hey this is good stuff so hadn't it been for the insolvency of our customer the customer of the customer BMW would have never looked at our work and would have never decided oh you can become a direct supplier which is kind of the gold standard in the German automotive industry it only took half a year a lot of pain many sleepless nights and my first gray hair then I had hair okay so I'm one step further down the road and hey [ __ ] happens as far as gum says but that was the

opportunity in the crisis if you take the situation with the suicide of my mother two things happened number one I can do my work in suicide prevention and number two I can stand in front of people I don't even know talk about my mother talk about that big crisis one of the biggest crisis in my life and hopefully even deliver some value for you so my final closing thought is yes we have crisis there is such a thing as a DNA of a crisis more or less and if we prepare for it we are open

for the good stuff the many good things we can do in our lives which have been said in the TED Talks before and I want to close with that thought give you all the optimism you can have and the knowledge that a crisis is a crisis but usually life goes on thank you [Applause]