The Stockdale Paradox

Currently I am going through a highly recommended book “ Good to Great” (Jim Collins) on why some organisations make a leap while others don’t. While still early into the book, I came across an interesting concept, which I feel so compelled to share.

The concept (some of you might already be aware of) is called “Stockdale Paradox”. Named after one of the highly ranked officer in the history of United States navy –Jim Stockdale.

The Paradox is:
•Regardless of difficulties, you must maintain unwavering faith that you can (and will) prevail in the end.
•At the same time you should have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

My google searched revealed gem of a piece from Niall Doherty on the subject. Here it goes (reproduced here in italics):

Stockdale was held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War. He was tortured more than twenty times by his captors, and never had much reason to believe he would survive the prison camp and someday get to see his wife again. And yet, as Stockdale told author Jim Collins, he never lost faith during his ordeal: “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Then comes the paradox:
While Stockdale had remarkable faith in the unknowable, he noted that it was always the most optimistic of his prison-mates who failed to make it out of there 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 the optimists failed to do was confront the reality of their situation.
They preferred the ostrich approach, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping for the difficulties to go away. That self-delusion might have made it easier on them in the short-term, but when they were eventually forced to face reality, it had become too much and they couldn’t handle it.

Stockdale approached adversity with a very different mindset. He accepted the reality of his situation. He knew he was in hell, but, 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 his fellow prisoners. He created a tapping code so they could communicate with each other. He developed a milestone system that helped them deal with torture. And he sent intelligence information to his wife, hidden in the seemingly innocent letters he wrote.

The Stockdale Paradox carries an important lesson in personal development, a lesson in faith and honesty: Never doubt that you can achieve your goals, no matter how lofty they may be and no matter how many critics and naysayers you may have. But at the same time, always take honest stock of your current situation. Don’t lie to yourself for fear of short-term embarrassment or discomfort, because such deception will only come back to defeat you in the end.

Living the first half of this paradox is relatively easy, since optimism really isn’t that hard. You just choose to believe that it will all turn out for the best, and everything that happens to you is a means to that end.

But optimism on its own can be a dangerous thing:
There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. – Yvon Chouinard

So you need to embrace the second half of the Stockdale Paradox to really make strides. You must combine that optimism with brutal honesty and a willingness to take action.
Now of course, nobody likes admitting that they’re fat, that they’re broke, that they’ve chosen the wrong career or that their marriage is falling apart. But admitting such truths is an absolute necessity if you want to grow and improve. It might feel like you’re taking a few steps backward by doing so, but you can view that retreat as the pull-back on a sling shot: you’re just setting yourself up to make significant progress down the road.

I hope you enjoyed reading this!
Early in my career, once I happen to watch a video on “Power of Vision”, it talked about Auschwitz concentration camp, which was a network of concentration and extermination camps. It talked about how some people survived through the most testing conditions any human being can face. Their tactics were not very different from Stockdale Paradox!