Living Life: Be the Turnaround Artist

Who really is a Turnaround artist? Is it an artist who turns things around? Perhaps not, but more often than not, this April – May season will likely breed that word in various sporting, to be price, soccer circles, yet that sense alone does not wholly put to bed the full weight of the phrase. I say this in reference to man’s continuous search for heroes, for people who quintessentially specialize in lifting the spirits of those about them even in the darkest and deepest of desperate situations. It can happen once or twice, perhaps by a sheer act of luck or being in the right place at the right time. But then comes the kind of people who perfect the one act get away into a routine, a constant flirtation with trouble that most of the time becomes a perpetual love affair with success. The urban dictionary defines the turnaround artist as someone who takes an organization, event or something large that is broken and repairs it and makes it work again, and in many cases, profitable and beyond successful. He or she can be a sports manager, an army official, a CEO, a politician or any head of an organization, event etc who has within his stead the responsibility to lead others to success or failure at times of a crisis. One such character is Baron von Steuben, a military officer who in the American Revolutionary War is credited for literally changing the direction of things. When he took charge, weapons were in “horrible condition,” the men “literally naked” and discipline nonexistent and in every campaign, the army lost 5,000 to 8,000 men through desertion or discharges. With his likable but explosive personality, Steuben, no more than a captain, recommended to George Washington some changes and within a month, Washington asked Congress to commission Steuben as a major general. His turnaround tricks lay in the American army’s first set of regulations. He took charge, delegated, organized, simplified things. In soccer, Liverpool Football Club was sinking under the weight of underperformance, hopelessness, fear to grow out of a crisis, and a looming disaster, yet it was in the hands of an able and experienced manager in Roy Hodgson, but a few weeks later under the inspirational leadership of another explosive character who has belief in the club’s success and has been part of its brighter history in Kenny Daglish has lifted away the clouds of uncertainty. The same can be ably said of another management icon, whose strict disciplinary regulations, explosive temper and experienced guiding of the Manchester Club makes a set of rather average players’ turnaround ‘dead’ matches and ‘lost’ seasons. Such stories are abound especially in the world of business where companies’ fortunes are turned around by going back to the basics, in nations like Rwanda where a total shift in attitude first makes way for a new era that is so unlike the old. In our normal lives, when things seem not to be working in a specific sphere we need to think like turnaround artists. According to “Fix First, Then Grow,” by Carol Hymowitz, you needn’t lead in all things, but learn what’s required in each situation and then either lead or get out of the way. It is not necessarily magic and it is the simple art of observing things in their own right and dissecting them systematically to arrive at the core. Experience might help, but photocopying solutions to solve different problems seldom works. This Sunday, I hope that you decide to take a proactive leadership role to solve a crisis that seems to be dragging you or those around you down. kelviod@yahoo.com