[00:00:23.940]
Welcome to Episode 219 of the Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. This past week, I attended a lecture series at the Center for Family Process outside of Washington, DC. The Center for Family Process was started by Edwin Friedmann back in the 1980s. This particular lecture this past week was actually a video of a lecture that Friedmann gave to a group of therapists in 1985. Some of this material can also be found in chapter two of Generation to Generation, where Friedmann writes about survival and families, the human response, and hostile environments. I was familiar with that material, but I found that this lecture went even deeper, and I felt like it was worth sharing because I think it has real implications for how to be a non anxious leader in difficult times, in hostile environments. Without further ado, here is Episode 219, How to Lead in a Hostile Environment. The first thing that we need to do is note that Friedmann designates two categories of hostile environments. Category 1 is an environment in which we have no capacity to adapt. An example of this would be when we as human beings, or probably any mammal, is completely submerged under water.

[00:02:05.230]
We have no capacity to adapt because we just don't have the physical tools to get oxygen into our bodies. Likewise, a fish out of water would be in a category 1 hostile environment. They would have no means to adapt to survive. Another example of this would be a person who stands at ground zero when a nuclear bomb is detonated. Nothing they could do could enable them to survive not only the blast and the heat, but the radiation that would come from such an explosion. The second category of hostile environments are those in which the response of the organism is a variable in its own survival. What Friedmann notes is that the vast majority of hostile environments, the vast majority of challenges, the vast majority of crises are category two hostile environments. An extreme example of a category 2 hostile environment that Friedmann uses in generation to generation is the Holocaust, because the Holocaust was an environment in which one had very little chance of surviving. However, some people did survive, and what they found was that those who had a sense of hope, those who had a vision for their own future, had a much better chance of surviving.

[00:03:30.280]
Hostile environments come in all forms, from illness to economic hardship to injustice and oppression to schism, to chronic violence to natural disasters. The list goes on and on. As we know, nobody gets the problem they can handle. If we could handle it, it wouldn't be a problem. In one way, hostile environments are challenges that we need to figure out how to face as non anxious leaders. To me, this topic came into perspective because it was noted during this lecture series in our discussion that we were actually marking the third anniversary of when the world shut down at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. If that wasn't a hostile environment, I don't know what was, and it was one that was faced by nearly every human being around the world in one form or another. I'll comment more on that later, but for now, I want to focus on the three things that Freeman says are important in leading in a hostile environment. According to the lecture that I viewed, Friedmann says there are three interdependent variables that determine whether a relationship system can survive and even thrive in a hostile environment. The first is the system's capacity to view the hostility of the environment in proportion to their own response.

[00:05:04.940]
The second is the richness and variability of the system's repertoire of response. And the third is the ability of the system to produce a leader who can define self while remaining a non anxious presence. The presence of any one of these variables will promote the other too. So for example, if you have a leader who can define self while remaining a non anxious presence, it will increase the repertoire of the system's response, and it will help the people in the system to view their own response as a potential way to handle the hostility of the environment. Likewise, the absence of any of these variables will inhibit the development of either of the other two variables. So let's break it down. The first variable is the system's capacity to view the hostility of the environment in proportion to its own response. The tendency that we have is to focus on the threat and not on our own capacity to respond. Playing the victim or blaming the threat will reduce our chances of surviving or even thriving. That's because rather than taking responsibility for self, we're focused on the outside forces which are typically beyond our control.

[00:06:28.830]
A similar response occurs when we are dealing with anxious people. If we focus on their reactivity, on their insults and aggressive behavior, we reduce our chances of thriving. Instead, we need to ask ourselves, what makes us vulnerable to this type of behavior? That is likely to come from our family of origin. When we focus on our own vulnerabilities and our response, we are taking responsibility for self, which gives us a better chance to thrive and to lead effectively. The second variable is the richness and variability of the system's repertoire of response. This means that we are able to try different approaches instead of responding to every crisis in the same way. One thing to note is that surrounding togetherness pressure inhibits this type of resiliency because it requires that everybody toe the line and respond in a similar way. It also tends to increase anxiety, which according to Friedmann, reduces flexibility and resiliency. Friedmann likens togetherness pressure to an autoimmune disease because it has a similar effect on the relationship system. It causes it to self destruct from its own forces, not from the outside threat. The third variable in whether or not a system can survive and thrive in a hostile environment is the ability of the system to produce a leader who can define self while remaining a non anxious presence.

[00:08:06.900]
According to Friedmann, any organization, any relationship system, functions better when the leader is self defined. This is especially true in a crisis. The reason we get indicators is because when anxiety is high, the system craves leadership. It craves self definition. A key element of self definition is the ability to see beyond the horizons of the current situation. According to Friedmann, in any crisis, those whose horizons are limited to only what they can see have a lower chance of survival. The leader's job is to not only imagine what is beyond those horizons, but to help others in the system imagine them as well. It's important to note that the leader doesn't have to be right about what they imagine. It's process, not content. Just getting others in the system to look beyond the current mess, reduces anxiety and increases resiliency. On March 16th of 2020, an order by Governor Larry Hogan made it impossible for us to operate our camp and retreat ministry in the state of Maryland. We were not allowed to serve food. It meant that we couldn't actually have guests, put summer camp in jeopardy, and we had no idea when we would be able to generate income again.

[00:09:29.900]
This was a highly hostile environment, not to mention the fact that we weren't even sure we wanted to go in and be in the office together because we were very unclear about how quickly COVID 19 could spread and we were trying to keep each other safe. Rather than blame the virus, rather than blame the governor, we tried to figure out how we could respond. Remember, that's the first variable. What is our response going to be? How are we going to take responsibility for self? And can we do it according to the second variable with a variety, a richness, a variability to our response so that we don't get locked in to one thing? And finally, could we remain a non anxious presence? And could we define what we wanted to be in a way that we could see beyond the horizons of the current conditions? What we did was we focused on how could we generate income? If we were not going to be able to get user fees from retreats and potentially from camp, how could we generate income? And we looked at two potential sources. One was government funding. We knew that Congress was in the midst of developing some response, which ended up being the PPP and PPP 2.0 programs.

[00:10:44.440]
And then also, we had an extensive donor base and we started developing a plan, a strategy to raise money from those donors to help us survive. And as I think many of you who work in the nonprofit industry know that donors really did step up during this time to help support the nonprofits that were important to them. The other thing that we did was we decided that we were going to do everything possible to keep our staff intact. And that meant even paying some of our staff members, like housekeepers and kitchen staff, even though we had nobody to serve. It also meant keeping our maintenance crew, even though our maintenance demands were not as great. At the time, we didn't know if those sources of funding would materialize, and we didn't know if we could keep our staff intact. But it enabled us to look beyond the current conditions and enabled us to focus on our response. That is what it means to lead as a non anxious leader through a crisis. Another hostile environment that we faced over the last several years is the potential Schism in the United Methodist Church over human sexuality.

[00:11:58.260]
Because we receive some of our support from the annual conference, the Judicatory in our United Methodist Church, that is at risk. We have no idea how it is all going to turn out, but during this time, we've decided to stay focused on our business, on our ministry, on what we do, which is Christian hospitality to people of all ages. We also decided that we would work to maintain healthy relationships with people on all sides of the issue, that we were not going to take sides, but we were going to stay connected to people in healthy ways, and that we would communicate that our goal is to continue to serve all no matter what happens, no matter where people end up individually or as churches, our goal is to continue to serve them through our Christian camp and retreat ministry. Just this past week, I heard from one of our donors who made a significant donation, who also told me that their church had voted to disaffiliate the previous weekend, but that they were also committed to continuing to support our camp and retreat ministry. Of course, this is one example, and we don't know what the future holds, but the basic principles of focusing on our own response, taking responsibility for self, having a variety of responses, being flexible and adaptable and resilient, and remaining a non anxious presence and being able to self define by seeing things that are beyond the current horizons are the critical elements of leading through a crisis, leading through a hostile environment.

[00:13:38.400]
This is what non anxious leaders do. That's it for Episode 219. You can find the show notes at thenonanxiousleader.com/219. You can also get a full transcript there of this episode. You can connect with me at thenonanxious leader.com using the contact form, or you can email me at jack@christian- leaders.com. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.