... Put Your Problems Through The 3 Ps Test
Being a leader is amazing – most of the time. It’s also hard sometimes. During the tough times, your inner dialogue becomes vital. If you’re like me, it’s all too easy to focus on the things that aren’t going well, that keep you awake at night as you go through them from every angle, rather than keeping those things in context.
My 18 year old daughter has just finished writing her Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) at school entitled “Is there any point to optimism?”! Don’t worry, she is actually an incredibly positive and optimistic person but as part of her research she asked me if I’d heard of Martin Seligman and his 3 P’s. I showed her the inside cover of my notebook which I take to all meetings, where the 3 Ps are written as a constant reminder. For a moment there was a flicker of “Maybe he’s not such an old fogey after all” in her eyes!
I came across Seligman’s 3 P’s in Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s book “Option B”, in which Sheryl talks about finding strength in adversity, following the sudden death of her husband. They stand for:
Permanence – the belief that the aftershocks of the event will last forever
Pervasiveness – the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life
Personalisation – the belief that we are at fault.
When something unsettling has happened at work, something that’s worrying me, keeping me awake at night, I put it through the 3 Ps and remind myself of the following:
1. This thing will pass. There have been others before it and there will be others after it, but in a few days/weeks/months this thing will have been resolved one way or another.
2. I refuse to let this thing follow me into my home. It is work-related and so it will stay at work. It won’t follow me upstairs and keep me awake. It won’t make me irritable or not present with my family.
3. This thing has happened. It wasn’t my fault (if that’s true!) but as the leader it has now landed at my door to deal with. The angry email is not directed at me personally, it is symptomatic of how the person writing it was feeling at the time. I will step back and deal with it objectively.
It doesn’t always work but most times it does help.
As a 3 Ps leader make sure you remember that circumstances are:
Temporary (this problem is only for some time);
Isolated (it only affects some aspects of my life) and so contain the issue within its boundaries and recognise the things in other areas that are going well;
Not personal (this is not a personal attack on me) and remind yourself that people make mistakes and systems fail, that’s just life. It’s how we respond that defines who we are.
