The Stockdale Paradox and our club!

[White Winmar]

In view of all the comments on this forum today, including ones that I'm negative about my club, I wanted to draw attention to the "Stockdale Principle". It was first articulated in the eponymous book, by the author Collins and his team, who were trying to find common traits of “great” companies who had outperformed “good” companies over at least a 15-year period. One of the common factors they found among great companies is they embraced a common theme, which is the Stockdale paradox.

The Stockdale paradox is named after Admiral James Stockdale who was held as a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. Stockdale was tortured and beaten during this ordeal and never had any reason to believe he would ever be able to leave, let alone see his wife again. But through it all, he never lost faith. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Here is the paradox: While Stockdale had unbelievable faith that things would work out, he said that it was always the most optimistic of his fellow POW’s who actually were the ones who failed to make it out alive. “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

What were the optimists missing? They failed to confront the reality of their situation. They preferred the ostrich approach, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping for the difficulties to just disappear.

Stockdale approached a beyond difficult situation with a very different mind-set. He accepted the reality of his situation, and rather than bury his head in the sand, he stepped up and did everything he could to lift the morale and prolong the lives of other prisoners. He created a tapping code the prisoners could use to communicate with each other. He developed a milestone system to help all of the prisoners deal with the torture they had to endure.

Collins and his team observed a similar mind-set in the good-to-great companies and thus named it the Stockdale paradox:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties AND AT THE SAME TIME you must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

The key to this is addressing BOTH parts. I think most of us are natural optimists, and we believe that all things will work themselves out, BUT we CANNOT afford to over look the problems of our club.

If we want to achieve a high level of success, we need to not only remain optimistic, but also remain brutally honest, with a willingness to take action when things are not working.

The Stockdale paradox can be a difficult principle to embrace, but remember, it is one of the few factors that can make our club go from the current state, to one of greatness. The question is, "what is it that I can do?"

[Goose is king]

Feel like I've read this before. Was it in "good to great"?

[Moods]

THat's a good post I reckon. I read plenty of here say 'look at Port Adelaide, we'll be right in a few years.' Not sure just because Port managed to drag themselves out of the mire that means that we must as well. Especially considering some of the horrific problems we face. Without Roo up fwd I'm just not sure who we will ever kick the ball to? Ppl say we need more mids. That's true. But by golly no point running around with no-one to to kick the ball to. We appear to have addressed our ruck problems, but we desperately need to get a power fwd developed in the next year or 2. Some of the kids look promising, but to honest, some look no different to any other fumbly nervous kid who make their debut. We've wasted a draft pick on LEE in my opinion. We are in a position where we can't afford to make a mistake, especially with our early picks.

[satchmo]

Very good!

Or you can slag off at everyone at the club while sitting on your clacker doing bugger all to help.

We have a choice!

[thejiggingsaint]

I choose to SUPPORT MY CLUB! (with enthusiasm and Optimism.......don't need no paradox to do THAT!)

[Bunk_Moreland]

I choose to SUPPORT MY CLUB! (with enthusiasm and Optimism.......don't need no paradox to do THAT!)

+1

Support the club or fade away if it is too hard when the going gets a bit rough.

[thejiggingsaint]

I LOVE the way that "Optimists" are cast as the weakest link in this hypothesis. I am (in my humble opinion) both a realist AND an optimist and quite frankly stockdale needs to look at his own paradox again.

[White Winmar]

I LOVE the way that "Optimists" are cast as the weakest link in this hypothesis. I am (in my humble opinion) both a realist AND an optimist and quite frankly stockdale needs to look at his own paradox again.

Yep, ignore his incredible experience, career and the fact the paradox has been scientifically validated in public and private sector organisations, prison populations etc. Yeah Saints, everything is great! We're going to win the flag soon and win everything in sight and we don't have to do anything but believe! Hooray!

I think rather than bag Stockdale, I'd suggest you re-evaluate your own views. I find it somewhat offensive that you blithely dismiss this man's incredibly difficult experiences and hard won insights, that have been examined, tested and reinforced by so many. I wonder if you've ever suffered in the way he did, or led thousands of people as he did. But let's play Pollyanna, because that's ever so much more comforting. I'd say it's delusion, rather than optimistic.

[Bunk_Moreland]

I LOVE the way that "Optimists" are cast as the weakest link in this hypothesis. I am (in my humble opinion) both a realist AND an optimist and quite frankly stockdale needs to look at his own paradox again.

Yep, ignore his incredible experience, career and the fact the paradox has been scientifically validated in public and private sector organisations, prison populations etc. Yeah Saints, everything is great! We're going to win the flag soon and win everything in sight and we don't have to do anything but believe! Hooray!

I think rather than bag Stockdale, I'd suggest you re-evaluate your own views. I find it somewhat offensive that you blithely dismiss this man's incredibly difficult experiences and hard won insights, that have been examined, tested and reinforced by so many. I wonder if you've ever suffered in the way he did, or led thousands of people as he did. But let's play Pollyanna, because that's ever so much more comforting. I'd say it's delusion, rather than optimistic.

I find it incredibly offensive this Stockdale person waged war against a country and killed over 1 million civilians. Sound like another revisionist yank when it comes to the crime they perpetuated known as the Vietnam War.

No respect for this Stockdale warmonger

[SainterK]

slag off at everyone at the club while sitting on your clacker doing bugger all to help.

I'm in...

[bergholt]

Didn't someone else post about this last week?

The Stockdale paradox can be a difficult principle to embrace, but remember, it is one of the few factors that can make our club go from the current state, to one of greatness. The question is, "what is it that I can do?"

The reason it's hard to support a footy club is that for most of us there's literally nothing we can do to change the situation. Ok, a tiny bit - we can pay our membership every year, and go along to games and shout our lungs out. Maybe go to the AGM and bitch and moan. Apart from that, there's less than zero effect we can actually have on the on-field situation.

That feeling of frustrated impotence we've all got right now is just the sports fan's lot in life. I suppose we just have to get used to it. Unless you've got another suggestion?

[Con Gorozidis]

Great post WW.

[SemperFidelis]

Crippsy.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=86244

And it lead to the same result, which may be why the so called optimists, pessimists and realists alike are fatigued talking about it.

I support our club and anyone who pulls on the boots. As someone else wiser than me said here earlier in the week, I'm not a lemming either. I don't care how you label it.

[thejiggingsaint]

WW, calm down mate, calm down.

[thejiggingsaint]

WW how would you know whether or not I've "suffered as he did" or not?

[thejiggingsaint]

White Winmar. Now that a wee bit of time has elapsed since today's game, and since my previous posts too, I would like to apologise to you for my two immediate past posts. I understand how you subscribe to this principle, and if my responses have been less than reasonable to you, then without hesitation I say: I'm sorry. We are all trying to come to terms with a very difficult time for our club, and we need to, above all other things, be United ( both the optimists and the realists ) I took the time to read up on Stockdale, and understand the reasons for your support of his theory. You have every right to your opinion, and to express it on here, perhaps we're not so far away from each other as we would think during the heat of a post- flogging discussion on an Internet forum, I hope we can catch up and discuss it together pre- game at some stage. Anyway, just wanted to clear that up with you mate.

[ShanghaiSaint]

In view of all the comments on this forum today, including ones that I'm negative about my club, I wanted to draw attention to the "Stockdale Principle". It was first articulated in the eponymous book, by the author Collins and his team, who were trying to find common traits of “great” companies who had outperformed “good” companies over at least a 15-year period. One of the common factors they found among great companies is they embraced a common theme, which is the Stockdale paradox.

The Stockdale paradox is named after Admiral James Stockdale who was held as a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. Stockdale was tortured and beaten during this ordeal and never had any reason to believe he would ever be able to leave, let alone see his wife again. But through it all, he never lost faith. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Here is the paradox: While Stockdale had unbelievable faith that things would work out, he said that it was always the most optimistic of his fellow POW’s who actually were the ones who failed to make it out alive. “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

What were the optimists missing? They failed to confront the reality of their situation. They preferred the ostrich approach, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping for the difficulties to just disappear.

Stockdale approached a beyond difficult situation with a very different mind-set. He accepted the reality of his situation, and rather than bury his head in the sand, he stepped up and did everything he could to lift the morale and prolong the lives of other prisoners. He created a tapping code the prisoners could use to communicate with each other. He developed a milestone system to help all of the prisoners deal with the torture they had to endure.

Collins and his team observed a similar mind-set in the good-to-great companies and thus named it the Stockdale paradox:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties AND AT THE SAME TIME you must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

The key to this is addressing BOTH parts. I think most of us are natural optimists, and we believe that all things will work themselves out, BUT we CANNOT afford to over look the problems of our club.

If we want to achieve a high level of success, we need to not only remain optimistic, but also remain brutally honest, with a willingness to take action when things are not working.

The Stockdale paradox can be a difficult principle to embrace, but remember, it is one of the few factors that can make our club go from the current state, to one of greatness. The question is, "what is it that I can do?"

like it WW but sometimes you just need to put a few boots in to help deal with the pain.

[fugazi]

great post WW...sounds like a good principle.

Similar findings to Primo Levi's findings in the death camps of WW2....prisoners who survived had to accept the reality of the situation and take effective action day to day.

Pretty grim comparison to a struggling football club...but the priciple is right IMO

[spert]

Stockdale had drive and desire to push forward against all odds in his personal quest, but in contrast I see the white flag being flown too early in far too many of our games, which indicates a unified ethic to win even the smallest contest is not present and has not been instilled amongst the playing group- the chemistry is not right. We as supporters should hold faith, but the club needs also to give something back..it's not a one-way street.

[fingers]

You can still be optimistic while accepting where the club is.

[White Winmar]

White Winmar. Now that a wee bit of time has elapsed since today's game, and since my previous posts too, I would like to apologise to you for my two immediate past posts. I understand how you subscribe to this principle, and if my responses have been less than reasonable to you, then without hesitation I say: I'm sorry. We are all trying to come to terms with a very difficult time for our club, and we need to, above all other things, be United ( both the optimists and the realists ) I took the time to read up on Stockdale, and understand the reasons for your support of his theory. You have every right to your opinion, and to express it on here, perhaps we're not so far away from each other as we would think during the heat of a post- flogging discussion on an Internet forum, I hope we can catch up and discuss it together pre- game at some stage. Anyway, just wanted to clear that up with you mate.

Thanks for the message, Jiggster. Firstly, I didn't take any offence at what you wrote. Yesterday was not a good day to be posting. That was probably the worst performance I've seen for as long as I can remember. I know the season is shot and AR is now just having a look at his options (we've played everyone but Pierce and White), but it's been the lack of effort that has been disturbing, especially against a mediocre side like Carlton. We just look so far off what is required, that I am genuinely concerned for the future. I just don't want our future taken out of our hands. I also didn't mean to cause offence, but I broke a rule of never posting when I'm frustrated. It might've been better if I waited for the cold, hard light of the following day!

Anyhow, I'll hang in there and hope all our members and supporters do. We desperately need people to jump on board, although given our current state, I can see why they don't. If I get back to Melbourne before the end of the season, I'll be sure to come around and say hello. You are, after all, a bit of a celebrity. All the best.

[MrCordz]

Please send to club admin and coaches