It’s that time of the year when business leaders decide whether they are going to pull out all the stops to achieve their business plan goals or flush the year as a loser and start sandbagging for what they hope will be a better next year.  If one spends any time lately reading business journals or listening to business analysts, you are bound to be filled with anxiety about a very uncertain future. Will unemployment go down soon? When will consumer confidence rebound? Is there any hope for meaningful jobs creation programs to come out of Washington, D.C.? Are we headed back into a recession?

Business leaders can react to this uncertainty with fear and anxiety over the very real possibility of ending the year with disappointing results. With the economy teetering on the brink of recession again and the government’s continued inability to stimulate the economy, that’s an understandable path that many will choose. In a few months we will be reading many year-end news releases explaining away poor results due to the sputtering economy.

However, there are other business leaders who will turn that fear and anxiety into a force for driving creativity and enhancing engagement into the company’s mission and strategies. Unfortunately, this is a less-traveled path that is more difficult to navigate because it involves a deliberate choice of changing your attitude. But, the rewards of this path are much greater. The fact is that many investors, owners, shareholders and employees look forward to hearing about these hidden gems in a few months that have made this choice and finished the year strong.

According to a Clayton M. Christensen and Michael Overdorf’s “Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change”, Harvard Business Review, March-April 2000, good managers are skilled in not just assessing people but also in assessing the abilities and disabilities of their organization. Today’s rapidly changing world means that successful companies are those that can get their resources, processes, and values working together in the right direction --- whether for sustained growth or a disrupting change. It’s not so much any more about the size of a company’s physical assets as it is about the power of their ideas --- think about General Motors vs. Toyota and Microsoft vs. Apple. The companies with game-changing ideas, disruptive technologies, and bold tactics are succeeding, while those relying on successes of the past are not. The bottom line is that it’s all about the attitude that the company’s leaders have about the future.

Rein in the Fear
First things first: if fear about an uncertain future has taken hold of you, your management team, and / or your organization, acknowledge it and face it head-on. Nothing is going to change in your corporate value system until you know what it is that you are wrestling with.

But then instead of allowing that fear to live like a monster in the closet, take control of it and stand up to it.  Too many business leaders mistakenly think their job is to predict the future…rather than to manage for it. But they are wrong, and if they have this notion, stakeholders won’t allow them to occupy the corner office for very long.  Enlightened leaders talk openly about the anxiety of an uncertain future with their management team and employees and then turn those conversations into productive ideas about how they are going to overcome the monster in the closet. Properly harnessed, fear can be a very powerful motivator and a source of fuel for creativity and enhanced engagement into what your business is trying to accomplish.

Stay Focused
But left unchecked, fear can be paralyzing for an organization. Fear is distracting. And fear can also be the root cause of bad decisions. When business leaders allow fear to push an organization one direction and then another, it’s easy to lose focus from what’s important and what’s mission critical.  The club in your hand for hitting the monster over the head is your attitude and leadership.  Keep reminding everyone about the short list of goals that must be accomplished this quarter to end the year strong and provide the momentum necessary to move on into 2012. Ask your management team and groups of employees how best to achieve these goals and gain their commitment to doing so.  Don’t let fear become the extinguisher to put out the fire of creativity and engagement into the company’s mission and corporate goals; rather use it as the fuel.

Along with that short list of goals, make conscious decisions about the tasks and projects that you are not going to do. There will always be infinitely more ideas for products and services than a company has resources to capitalize on.  It’s critical not to get tangled up in the unnecessary and unproductive, but instead for you to stay focused and keep your management and employees focused on the end game.

Communicate More Effectively
Fear has many dangerous by-products including miscommunication, gossip, and false rumors. When a business leader does not seem to know where the company is headed, inevitably employees begin to speculate what is going to happen and some become the self-appointed experts on the company’s future.  I could write volumes about the untrue stories I’ve heard from employees working in troubled companies that they have heard in the lunchroom about what’s supposedly happening in the boardroom.

Even if your company’s financial results are acceptable, the overall economic situation is causing employees and managers to worry about their job security. It’s never been more important to communicate your company’s strategies and near-term outlook in the most effective way possible. That means describing in detail the realities of what’s happening with your customers and markets, how your strategies fit into that picture, and how their jobs fit into the company’s strategies.

Too many times CEO’s are not “real” in their communications --- rather they talk to their manufacturing like they just completed a Harvard MBA, for goodness sake! If you don’t already, develop the habit of communicating to and relating to employees at all levels in your organization. Also, build a team of employees at every level to be your “ambassadors” responsible for reinforcing your message. Remember that employees are much more likely to believe the message when they hear it again and again from their peers.

Lead by Example
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Do unexpected and surprising things that demonstrate that you are not allowing the monster of fear and anxiety to lead you personally, but that you are actively choosing to be creative, engaged, and committed to finishing the year strong. What you do will speak much louder than what you say. Allow your management team and employees to see the “real” leader that you are. And consider investing in your employees for achieving your year-end goals to show them how important they are to you and to your company’s success.

In short, you can hear and read all the bad news about the economy and react by allowing fear and uncertainty to take over. That is a certain path to poor results, as it essentially means you’ve given up and the monster in the closet is going to win. Or, you can turn fear into a catalyst for creating creative and engaged employees dedicated to finishing the year strong…and starting next year with strong momentum.  The decision is yours: will you let the monster win?