The Leadership in Action Series: On Leading in Times of Change

The Luxury of Tough Times: Five Terrific Questions

Keir Carroll

Few people would claim that tough times—times of great upheaval, economic or otherwise—are better (or better for us) than good times. Who, after all, would disagree with British author Kingsley Amis’s classic understatement: “There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Or with the great singer and comedian Sophie Tucker’s emphatic assertion: “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better.”

But I would make the claim that tough times—times when great change and anxiety often freeze us in suspended animation—can provide a certain luxury: the luxury of reflection and insight.

In good times it is easy to whirl around in the blender ...