The Castaway Strategy: How To Overcome Fear When You Face the Unknown

Learn to find and use the five most essential assets you have

I don’t know if I felt shipwrecked exactly, but I felt incredibly lonely as soon as I closed the door.

I had just taken a political position in a local government and arrived at my office, absolutely clean and stripped of anything but the computer.

I closed the door to thinking for a moment.

All my confidence to work in this position collapsed instantly.

Suddenly I realized I was in a field (politics) where I had zero experience.

It was like hearing the referee’s whistle starting the game, and I asked myself the same old question: why did I get into this?

I brought a small team of people I trusted, but I didn´t know the staff.

I had arrived amid high expectations, and I helped raise the bar considerably by explaining what I thought should be done in every media outlet I could get my hands on.

The castaway strategy

All that weight fell on my shoulders in one fell swoop when I was left alone in the office for the first time.

I don’t know if it was panic, but it was close.

I think this was when I decided to use the castaway strategy.

Of course, I didn’t call it that at the time, nor did I think it was a particular type of strategy.

I acted in the best way I knew to achieve the objectives we had set for ourselves.

But the fact is that it worked very well.

Four months later, among other things, we had managed to:

1- get a company that practically started an industry in the city to move into the town and create 1500 jobs overnight, without offering them any benefits or subsidies

2- arranged with an IT multinational the most extensive supplier development program up to that moment and the first in the country

3- launched the first comprehensive training program for all the staff

How to overcome a challenge

What is, then, the castaway strategy?

Something that for many is a truism, but for others is a discovery: when it comes down to it, no matter how much training you have, no matter how many books you have read or seminars you have attended, all you have are challenges and resources.

Nothing else.

No concepts or theories.

No fancy methods or buzz words to show off, either.

There are only two things: problems and tools to solve them.

Like Tom Hanks in the classic movie, a castaway has a few needs, the most basic of which are the usual ones: food, shelter, safety.

All he has is what he has at hand to survive: wreckage, plants, fruits, stones, whatever.

For me, the situation in a new job is similar.

The challenges start on the first day, and you have to give answers.

Nothing you have studied prepares you for those moments.

Many things might work, but nothing is the complete solution.

Get ready. Here comes trouble

In our case, the storms on the “island” were numerous and from the first day: from boycotts by employees (who in some cases were not in the habit of showing up for work and took badly the suggestion that it was an excellent time to start), to attempts at lobbying the press to publish libels.

Some of the anecdotes are even funny, seen in perspective, although they were not funny then.

One day I received the vice-president of IBM in the country, who was coming to discuss a work plan.

I went downstairs to greet him personally, and I had to jump over a dog dozing peacefully at the foot of the stairs.

I later learned that the street dog (or “community dog”) was a sort of mascot of the agency and that the employees allowed him to sleep inside and even roam the building during the day.

Nothing to worry about, they told me.

In my office, on the second floor, we were greeted by a flock of big black flies through the open window that refused to leave and forced me to close it and turn on the air conditioning until they froze.

The reason? A group of 50 cats (yes, fifty), living in what must have been the building’s parking lot, which was unusable.

Upon entering the building in summer, it smelled like a small animal’s feedlot.

I was told again not to worry about it since it was impossible to evict the cats.

The wife of a high-rank official was the one who fed them and threatened with public action whoever dared to remove them from there.

The theory is helpful but not enough

More for Macondo than for an actual city, these little anecdotes were a daily occurrence.

We also received threats from businessmen who feared losing commercial privileges, got our funds blocked due to “mistakes” by angry employees, and witnessed family gatherings in my office when I wasn´t supposed to be there.

The point is: what use were management theories or “local development” models to me in those situations?

The truth is that they were of little use.

Don’t get me wrong; it is essential to know what you want to do and how you will do it.

It´s vital to have a strategy. And we had one.

But the battle is fought in tactics, day by day, and practical experience is usually more valuable than theories.

And if you don’t have practical experience, while you get it, you have to go the castaway´s path: creativity and determination.

What were our resources in that situation?

Relationships and contacts. People with resources, companies, and goodwill wanted to help us do a good job.

We also had some money and the credibility to talk with the president of a big company or an ambassador.

Identify and use your more valuable resources

I learned that when starting a new job or project, you have to figure out fast what are your resources:

1- What financial resources do you manage (the most obvious)

2- What financial resources from other areas can help you if you ask for services or tasks

3- What people can you count on (the most important). Who are the most valuable? Who is the most reliable? What profile each one has and in which positions they shine the most

Remember: not everyone plays the same position.

Often, a player is undervalued just because they have to play a role that doesn´t allow them to shine. Know your players.

4- Relationships. People you trust and who trust you(or you can get them to trust you over time). Inside and outside the company.

5- Information. Records or people that contain valuable information. For example, opportunities to create value, not yet used for some reason.

Although it is difficult to make an exhaustive list, these are the most relevant.

In any case, in my opinion, people are the most crucial resource, by far.

When in trouble, become a castaway

Later in my life and at other jobs, I replayed the story.

The same feeling when entering a new office, the loneliness, the pressure, the expectations, the limited experience (I tend to get into places where I had never been before).

And finally, the decision to throw away a good part of the theories overboard (and keep what worked for me) to solve the challenges with all the resources I had at hand.

All in all, I didn´t do it so bad. I made thousands of mistakes, but the balance is positive.

It may seem strange for someone like me, who has worked most of his life as a teacher or trainer, to advocate experience over theory.

But I am not arguing against management ideas; I´m highlighting the value of using the available resources creatively.

This is not to criticize theory; it´s just having faith in each person’s ability to meet the challenges they face with what they have at hand.

When life pushes us a little, when it puts us in a tight spot, when it demands more than we are used to, that is when the best of us comes out.

We all can deal with those situations if we face them with the mentality of a castaway.

I have to eat; I don’t have to impress anyone. I have to make a shelter for myself, not waste time on excuses.

I have to get off this island, not develop a theoretical model.

That is achieved with determination and thinking freely and flexibly about the best solution to each challenge.

A castaway only does two things: they start solving problems immediately after asking themselves: how did I get into this?