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Hal Weitzman: When things get challenging at work, how do you change your behavior? Does the stress show, or do you remain cool, focused, and productive? Welcome to the Chicago Booth Review Podcast, where we bring you groundbreaking insights in a clear and straightforward way. I'm Hal Weitzman, and today I'm talking with Chicago Booth's Lisa Stefanac about how to handle high-stakes situations. Lisa Stefanac, welcome back to the Chicago Booth Review Podcast.
Lisa Stefanac: It's so good to be back. Thank you.
Hal: We are delighted to have you back. We're here to talk about how people behave in high-stakes situations. What do we define as a high-stakes setting?
Lisa: It's any kind of setting in which there's significant consequences, to safety, to career, to reputation. The greater the potential impact, the more likely your stakes are going to be high.
Hal: What would you say to someone who thinks, "Everything I have is high-stakes. Everything affects my reputation and my career"? What would be an example of a real high-stakes situation?
Lisa: A real high-stakes situation, I would encourage it's something that is surrounded by urgency. Deadlines, that might be the reason why everyone says, "Everything is high-stakes for me." Deadlines. It could be during a time of risk or uncertainty, transition, having a new baby, or moving to a new job. This can be high-stakes. There's also emotional or psychological urgency or intensity that can cause high stakes, so interpersonal conflict, which we've talked about in the past.
I would say that's what would define it. If you want a specific example, in the workplace certainly is when something unexpected happens in the market. There's a big turn, and there has to be an instant response. I would say the Silicon Valley Bank crisis that happened. That was in 2023. That happened overnight. That created high stakes right there in the moment.
Hal: I'm just thinking because sometimes the advice that you get is to contextualize what feels like a crisis, will anyone care in five years time? The idea being to minimize.
Lisa: That doesn't help in a moment of crisis for any one person because high stakes can be perceived. I think that's the key, is that if you're or somebody you know, a coworker is in a feeling of high-stakes, the perception of that high-stakes or the reality, it feels the same. To say, "Oh, this will all be over in five years-"
Hal: Calm down.
Lisa: -that is never the thing to say. I'll say that later.
Hal: All right. I'll remember that. I want to hear more about that. We're in a high-stakes situation, how does that tend to change the way that we behave?
Lisa: Usually, what happens is the behavior intensifies or tightens. There's a level of narrowing of view. This probably comes from our age-old amygdala hijack that could happen of just narrow view, escape. It's a survival mode to some degree. Behaviorally, there's a number of things that can happen. We tend to move from a cognitive flexibility to something more rigid and more reactive. When it comes to the reactivity, there tend to be two different modes that we can be in. One that's a more heroic mode that can actually end up being really productive, where we fix the problem, go after the issue, and just right away be in fix mode.
It can be in a space of protecting people. There can also be that stable mode of endure and just lock in, everything's going to be fine, and really believe it, and others orient to that, like a lighthouse in the storm. Then there's more of the shadow modes. The shadow modes are where we're probably speaking today, is more in the space of attacking a person, whether it's verbally or we can get into more of the physical that can happen, but coming at someone. There can be a victim/accuser or blame that'll end up happening more in a resistance space, or there's total withdrawal. I might still be in the room, I might still be smiling with you, but I am not here. I have gone.
Hal: Mentally on the Caribbean beach.
Lisa: Maybe so-
Hal: Hoping to be.
Lisa: -but mainly just checked out, "I am done." Usually, the phrase, "I'm done."
Hal: It sounds like it's something not dissimilar to fight, flight, freeze, that-
Lisa: Correct.
Hal: -framework, right?
Lisa: Yes.
Hal: It's interesting you mentioned evolution because I wonder how deep these behaviors go. If we choose one of those, or we don't choose but we behave in one of those modes, how does that behavior change tend to affect the situation? Does it raise the stakes, or does it make them seem higher than they really are?
Lisa: Here's the thing about behaviors in high stakes: everyone has different stakes-raising themes. What might raise the stakes for you might not be an issue for me. I think about all the flying I do. I see visible discomfort when there's turbulence around me. Not a problem for me. In fact, I enjoy it. We have--
Hal: You enjoy turbulence?
Lisa: I do. It's fun. You're riding away.
Hal: Okay. Good for you.
Lisa: That is an example of differences among what raises somebody's stakes. What might raise the stakes for you is not going to raise for me or vice versa. It tends to be if my stakes are raised, it's really the behaviors I do out of having raised stakes that could then cause other people's stakes to be raised as well. That's the issue, is that usually, when our stakes go up and we have the more shadow mode behavior that is happening, that tends to trigger people into their own stake-raising themes and unpredictability in the beginning.
Hal: The boss who shouts and screams when things go wrong, when there's the equivalent of turbulence-
Lisa: Correct.
Hal: -then other people behave in this, or they accommodate that, what do they do?
Lisa: Again, it's about skill set. It's about acknowledging and understanding your own stake-raising themes. Raising awareness, we'll get to this, probably of what you can do differently or how you can prepare for this, is even just being aware of what raises your stakes. In a moment in which a boss shouts, and I think about instantly, an infamous moment, a famous story about Steve Ballmer when he was president and CEO of Microsoft, he was famous for this one moment where he literally threw a chair in the office. He was very upset.
That is violence. If you think about it, there is something physically being thrown. Think about anyone in the room that may have grown up or had been surrounded by physical violence growing up, that could be a stakes-raising theme. Where they might have been calm if he had just raised his voice, suddenly, with the violence or the throwing of a chair, now that person has moved into one of these shadow modes as well. Then usually that pops other people too. It usually can be a cascade, unfortunately, of creating more stakes in the room, higher stakes.
Hal: That makes sense. If your boss throws a chair in the conference room, you would think that the stakes are pretty high.
Lisa: I would know that I would be pretty concerned and probably freeze in that moment.
Hal: We'd all behave differently, like you say. I know that you have a personal tale about these different behaviors and how-
Lisa: I do.
Hal: -a situation can turn into a high stakes for one person and not for another.
Lisa: I do.
Hal: It has to do with a cat.
Lisa: Indeed, it does. A beloved cat named Brittany. I had a dear friend who got the fortune of being invited through her company to go and spend a year abroad in Singapore. She had an elderly cat named Brittany. Brittany was 13 years old. My friend was very concerned about bringing a 13-year-old through the whole process of traveling to Singapore, going through customs. She asked me if I, as a good friend, would be willing to have Brittany for a year. Here's the thing about Brittany: Brittany was declawed, 13 years old, and had never left the home. She was an indoor cat as a result of being declawed.
I said yes. However, I live in the woods in California, amidst a ton of trees and lots of animals. I was concerned, would she actually want to stay indoors? It's a very enticing outdoors through the window. My friend confirmed, no, there's no way that she would want to go out. Within three days of having this cat, somehow, Brittany escaped. She got through a door that was partly open, and she was gone.
Imagine, I'm in charge of this sweet slip of a cat, 4 pounds, by the way, and I've only been in charge for three days. I'm supposed to be there for a full year. My stakes go way up. What do I do? I go into the heroic mode of fix. I start calling around all the neighbors, "Hey, heads up about my cat." I'm shaking the treats. I am already calling the Humane Society. What do I do? I'm in full-on fix mode. It's all full of action.
Meanwhile, my husband sits down on the couch and says the cat will come back. That's it. That's all he says. He was more in that sturdy, endure place. The cat will come back. Unfortunately, usually when there's a clash of these heroic modes, there might then be a pop-up into that shadow mode behavior. Of course, yes, I got into an attack, "How dare you sit on the couch? You're doing nothing yet again." There was a lot of exchange that way. Needless to say, by the end of the day, the cat actually did just come back. He was absolutely right. There was definitely a clash between us in our modes of how to engage the crisis, and it amped up into more of a shadow behavior on my part.
Hal: If he had behaved differently, even if he thought that the cat would come back?
Lisa: If he just helped me in my fixed mode, I would have been absolutely happy.
Hal: If he behaved, it would have not raised the stakes further, perhaps.
Lisa: It raised the stakes further for me to have one less person soldier on the road to help with this.
Hal: We've all been in that kind of situation. What is the general lesson from that story?
Lisa: General lesson, first and foremost, is catching myself in the moment in which my stakes are up and recognizing my vision just got narrowed, and I'm on track towards what I think is the right way to behave, which is different from the way he saw as the right way to behave, and to recognize both as being valid. That is the first step. It is hard when things are hijacked to recognize that. At the same time, it helps to be in a place of presence on a more regular basis, such that I can tell when I've been hijacked in some way that I can calm my own system down and interpersonally be able to engage in a way that de-escalates.
That would have been the best way to handle the situation. There's a few other ways we can get into later.
Hal: I'm just wondering, in that case, the cat was fine, thankfully, but it might not have been the case.
Lisa: Indeed. I was doing all the things that was going to help.
Hal: This is a cat that hasn't been out before, so the story might have been that your husband said, "You're right, let's go out and look for it," you found it, and thank God everything went well. The lesson might have been that you had to act. It could have been a very different lesson.
Lisa: It's very true. Both actually existing at the same time. I do wish that he had helped me in my acting. At the same time, it turned out he was right, but I'm glad I had also acted. I don't think I could have ever sat on the couch and just wait.
Hal: I'm just wondering, next time, what would you do differently?
Lisa: Next time, I would, as I say, just acknowledge and see where my reaction is getting hijacked, be in a space of problem-solving, and naming, this is what I'm going to do, what are you going to do? Okay, you're waiting. You'll be by the door in case you can spot her. Okay, great. I'd take advantage of probably him sitting and having a clear eye to the door. I would absolutely have slowed it down. I think that's what often happens is we speed up. When we speed up, that's when it gets more narrow, more rigid, and absolutely potentially pops us into that shadow behavior.
Hal: Lisa Stefanac, in the first half, we talked about the story of a missing cat, and what it tells us about high-stakes situations, but very instructive, actually, in many ways. We've all been there, where we are charging ahead with something. We feel that somebody else isn't doing anything to help out, and it raises the stakes. Let's translate that to a corporate setting. We're thinking about corporate crises. I know you have a lot of experience working with energy companies.
Lisa: Correct.
Hal: Tell us about energy companies and how you've faced crises situations, how you dealt with them.
Lisa: In particular, the one that I want to highlight is the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that had an explosion in 2010. This was with BP. It's quite famous from a standpoint of level catastrophe. If you think about something like that happening, think of the leadership team. Right away, Tony Hayward, who was the CEO of BP at the time, and all the team, there's an alert, this is happening, and then comes what? I think that's the key, is that pause, as I mentioned earlier. Can you slow down enough? Yes, instantly be able to react, but react with choice and not be reactive.
Just to be clear about this catastrophe, 11 people passed away, were killed instantly, and then there was almost 3 months of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You can imagine the fallout in so many ways across all the ecosystems. While there was a rapid response and deployment of resources in order to work quickly in trying to contain at least the danger, and there was a quick engagement with government authorities, with Coast Guard, et cetera, what ended up happening, though, is that there was also a lack of transparency.
Maybe there was an element of not knowing enough as well, but there needed to be a lot of communication outward, particularly to the constituents and all the individuals that were going to be affected by this oil spill across governments. There was also deflection and blame. In fact, contractors were blamed in that moment. That's what I meant by, earlier, that when stakes get really raised, a lot of times there can be a tendency to get into this kind of victim/ accuser space, where, "Oh, no, it's not us. It's them," and finding this blaming without actually the ownership or the sense of transparency about what actually is happening.
Then the final thing that happened is there was a few Tony Hayward CEO missteps, particularly a very famous line in which he said, "I want my life back." It showed up as a sense of total detachment and lack of empathy with the situation. Again, to be very fair, this was probably one of the highest stakes in any business, particularly in oil and gas. Lives are on the line, and the most catastrophic thing happened. At the same time, there is that moment of noticing yourself in the raised stakes and being more choiceful. Also, can you presence yourself sooner? Can you, as a team, determine together what actually is needed right now instead of being in a reactivity space and starting to point fingers?
Hal: There are so many things going on there in that example that I would love to press on a little bit more. One is about communication with stakeholders, with government, with the media, and everything else. Internally, I'm guessing as well, with contractors and these other people. You talked about the blame game. The other one is energy companies; when things go wrong, they really go wrong. Hopefully, nothing goes wrong with an energy company, but when they go wrong, it's often a big deal. You think they would have a plan for that, and that plan would supersede any emotions or changes in character that you see. Why doesn't that happen?
Lisa: There are always plans in place. It's the scenario planning. It's any energy company or a mining company, anything where there's going to be heavy machinery of sorts. Planning and then acting are very different. You can go through simulation, and certainly there is that opportunity. Think about NASA and all the ways in which they do simulations for the moment in which there might very well be that crisis on board. There's planning, and then there's the moment of acting.
That comes down to the person, the person in readiness, both in their emotional capability to hold steady. When I say emotional, it's also just being able to maintain presence, be at one's best in the face of what's coming their way. This is where it comes down to leadership because you, as a leader, yes, you might have made a plan on paper of step-by-step of what happens-- In a way, that's helpful because actually, in crisis, you do need to get narrow in step-by-step safety, particularly when safety is on the line. It is important to go step-by-step as quickly as possible on what the things you need to shut down, talk to stakeholders, et cetera.
When it comes to the method of delivery, when it comes to the actual way you hold yourself, now we're in the territory of leadership. In that territory, that comes with years, moments now in moments of low stakes to medium stakes in which you're practicing, how do you hold steady? When you don't hold steady, what is it that knocks you off center? It goes back to being able to be aware of the stakes-raising themes in your own life. Also, more importantly, how do you manage the stakes-raising themes for others? How do you manage people when they are in high stakes? As a leader, I'm both managing myself and then helping to manage others.
Hal: I was going to ask, when there's these crises moments, I'm guessing it varies, but what kind of people tend to calm the team down and what kind of people tend to wind them up?
Lisa: What kind of people? I don't know about kind of people. It's personality to some extent. There are people that get into crisis management because they have always been good at holding steady in the storm. That's that lighthouse in the storm kind of analogy, or the rock in the storm.
Hal: Is that what makes you a leader? If you're the Ballmer type who tends to respond to situations by getting stressed and throwing chairs, does that automatically mean you're not going to be a good leader?
Lisa: What I would define as a leader is one who will be willing to own the consequences of one's actions and to engage toward creating a de-escalated situation in a crisis, if we're talking about crises or raised stakes. In that moment of Steve Ballmer, if he had gone into chair-throwing, okay, yes, that's going to cause a disruption among everyone else, it's what he does next. Is he there to own to say, "I just did that. Let me check in with each person. How was that for you? I want to apologize, or I want to engage. How did you feel? Let's contract differently."
If he were to have owned it, that's going to be, in my eyes, more of a leader than one who ignores and just thinks with power that they could just move on without addressing it.
Hal: In the example of Tony Hayward, the BP boss, when he said that famous line, "I want my life back," that was just emphasizing how he wasn't taking ownership of it at all.
Lisa: In that moment, and to be fair to him, as it progressed, he did then take ownership, apologize, and engaged in a number of high leadership ways. To that extent, I applaud how he ended up hearing and responding to the reaction. When there's an impact, whether it's crises and it's a life lost or whatnot, that's the moment also of how do you show up with empathy to even acknowledge the part that I've played. In high stakes, sometimes we can instantly get into behavior where it's the blame game and completely withdrawing from the crisis.
Hal: I want to turn to thinking about practical advice for people who are listening to this.
Lisa: Sure.
Hal: First of all, how do we recognize if we're in a high-stakes situation?
Lisa: It starts with what's going on in the body. Physiologically, you can recognize when your heart is starting to beat fast, sweating, sweaty palms, the dryness of mouth. Certainly, our bodies tell us first when there's something that has shifted from our physiological standpoint. The other thing, too, is, again, as I say, it might be a perceived threat, but the body knows no difference. The first thing is to notice one's body. That is data right there, and then you can make a choice in that moment.
When it gets to be such high stakes that the amygdala has now been hijacked, there's an opportunity at that moment to have already hopefully practiced skill set of how to bring yourself back into a steady state. Usually deep breaths, something that allows you to choicefully be able to return to center. Sometimes what helps for me certainly is going on a walk. A lot of times in that rigidity, if I stay stable, I get even more entrenched and heels dug in versus going on a walk, particularly with whatever person or persons that I am in this together with. That can help.
Other things that you can do is contract ahead of time with people that are surrounding you. This is what I offer to anybody listening to this, is that knowing when and how stakes could get raised and how I tend to behave, and more importantly, what I need from others when they see my stakes go up, that's the moment ahead of time to be contracting with your team members. What are their stake-raising themes? What do they need in that moment? Sometimes people just need to be left alone. Other times, people need to vent and be able to blame all they want, but in a safer space, not out into the public.
Hal: I see. Then you could actually just say to people, "Can I vent for a bit," or "Can you please leave me alone," or whatever?
Lisa: Ideally, contracting ahead of time because otherwise, you might not be the person I should be venting to. You might be, actually, that could raise your stakes even more when I suddenly talk about all the things that I think are wrong.
Hal: It comes down to knowing yourself. It sounds like mindfulness.
Lisa: Yes. It is an aspect of mindfulness, for sure, in leadership. The other piece around leadership, and what I long share, is what I think is the start of leadership, is the ability to assess yourself while you're in action. Ron Heifetz at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard will say this as being up on the balcony. Can you assess yourself while you're actually on the field in the game? Even more complex with leadership is can you assess yourself and others while on the field in the game, and then make changes and tweaks in the motion of that act?
Hal: We're often in a situation where other people, we're not the Ballmer, we're watching the Ballmer, we're in the room with that person.
Lisa: Managing others.
Hal: Not to pick on him too much. There's people who express their emotions very strongly or their behavioral changes. I feel like we've all probably worked for someone who's a bit like that. How would you advise people to treat those situations when somebody else has changed their behavior significantly?
Lisa: I'll go back to the three different shadow modes: attack, resist, and withdraw. Resist is the victim/accuser space, the blaming. In attack, if somebody is on the attack, I won't mention this person we keep picking on, the thing that you want to do in that moment, the stakes are up for them, that is not the moment ever to say calm down to somebody in attack. They will meet that and give even more attack. The other thing not to do is attack back because the attack has an energy suck, and it wants to just take what you've just given and blow it back to you even more. These are things not to do.
What to do? Almost like in aikido, allowing that energy to go by and just understand, "You know what? I'm going to be a boat in this situation and let that water just flow on by instead of have it stick to me." That's one of the first things to do. Also, it helps to keep asking what else. What else is bothering you? What else is going on? That way that waterfall just keeps flowing until it's been expended. That's what I would encourage to do with the attack.
When it comes to those in the resist pattern, that victim/accuser blaming, the thing to do is get them into walking. I mentioned that helps for me, is to get into a state of walking, ideally side by side. Also recognize that their initial resistance of no is going to happen. Allow the no and then just keep asking, what if? What if? That would allow for them to start to wonder the what-ifs with you, but allow that no to be the first thing that you hear.
Then the final one with withdraw, this is the person that's just like, "I'm done," is in their head. You absolutely have to give them space and time. The moment you come at them, they're going to withdraw even more. It's a tendency for us when we see withdraw, anyone who too sees withdraw is wanting to go toward. That's the moment to not go toward. Allow them space and time. Usually, what I'll do is I inquire into what matters most to them or even inquire, "What about the situation is turning you off or that you're feeling a need to pull back?"
Hal: Good advice. Lisa Stefanac, thank you so much for coming back on the Chicago Booth Review Podcast.
Lisa: Thank you for having me.
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