When you hit a brick wall: 6 tips to pivot in the moment

How many of us have been working on a problem or project only to come to a place without knowing where to go or what to do? Sometimes, things are outside of our control. A project may get cancelled in the middle of working on it or we reach an impasse with a stakeholder that is tough to resolve. 

I had a colleague once who put her entire heart and soul into a project only to have it cancelled due to lack of funding. I also had a huge project that I spent money on, engaged a consultant, worked on it for 6 months only to have the company sold. New leadership came in and said they didn’t want my sales training program. Crushed. Defeated. Six months of work gone. I still have the samples in my closet from all those years ago because I believed in it so much.

These things happen. You hope you plan well enough and enroll people into your solution but, sometimes, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you.

My colleague mentioned above was devastated. She really had a hard time coming through the project cancellation and didn’t know what to do to move forward. She was nervous about her job; she questioned her value to the organization. While “this is just life” may be appropriate thing to tell ourselves, there are some things we can do when we don’t think we can overcome an obstacle or move past a bad situation.

We all have had to “pivot” a lot this past year — meaning make changes on the fly, in the moment. We have had to change our working environments, change our attitudes, change our focuses and priorities and change the way we may even approach a situation. Even in more “normal” years, we have to pivot based on external factors, like an acquisition, funding falling through, corporate priorities changing, a team member leaves, a stakeholder puts an end to a project. So, what do you do when you hit a brick wall? How can you think about things differently to find another way through, around or over the wall?

I highly recommend taking a problem solving course. Many courses can walk you through frameworks on how to critically think about problems and solve them. While I love frameworks, many of you know that I try to focus on practical tips for many issues we face as managers and professionals. Below are my tips for pivoting and climbing walls that get put in my way.

1. Change your mindset. 

I know this may be trite to some of you but how we think and react to a situation matters more than we know. My colleague read into her project being cancelled so much that she thought her job was in jeopardy. No one told her that, and she did not get fired over it. Our minds are amazing and are especially good at conjuring all sorts of thoughts and scenarios that are just not true. The trick is to catch yourself spinning these scenarios and stop. Focus on what is in front of you. For some of us, we take things personally. More than likely, having your way blocked by someone or something else is not personal. We need to focus our minds on the fact that the wall is here and we can’t change that. We should not dwell on this either. Instead, we need to channel any of these emotions or energy into something more productive.

2. Do a little root cause analysis.

Ok. This is the extent of my fancy framework talk. While “life just happens”, there is no reason you can’t do a little digging into why something has happened. Why has the project been cancelled; why is there an obstacle in my way; why is my major stakeholder not on board? While you should accept something not in your control to make mental peace with it (and not have it haunt you while you try and fall asleep that evening), you should spend time to play a little Sherlock Holmes and investigate. Some of us are afraid to ask questions. We shouldn’t be. There is a technique called the 5 Whys and it is simply to ask “why” five times to get to the real cause. Simple and effective. I know some of you were that child who always asked why and drove your parents nuts. Now is the time to put that persistent behavior into practice!

3. Get clear on the why.

Sometimes when an obstacle presents itself, we may feel the need to just give up. I see this a lot, unfortunately, in some people newer to the workforce. They tried but they couldn’t figure something out or they couldn’t get their leader to listen to their idea. It may be easier to just walk away but that may not be the best solution. If you do a little root cause, your options should very plainly reveal themselves. If the why is no funding, then figure out what you can do for free, which usually equates to your time and effort. If the why is the sponsor is not on board, then you must find out why by having a conversation. If the why is we’ve tried this before and it didn’t work, then find out why it didn’t work. I personally love this challenge! It is my favorite obstacle to overcome. It is then up to me to determine if the environment, leadership and other factors are identical to the time when it was tried. If not, then ask to try it again. If the why is it doesn’t support corporate priorities, then maybe you do need to shelve the project and focus on something else.

4. Identify what you can do.

Knowing the why should help you find out what you can do. In the case of my sales training program being completely shelved (actually, scrapped), I could have just walked away and turned my attention to something else. Instead, I sought to understand why. New leadership told me of the new sales philosophy they were wanting to adopt and that my solution did not support that philosophy. Ok. So, let’s build a program that would align. The problem was that I had no funding. Ok...no problem. What can I do for free? Plenty. While I could not commission an entire multimedia training program by myself, I could work on communications, sales support materials and get newer sales people familiar with the philosophy to coach others. This went from a failed project to a huge win. Having the “refuse to give up” mindset can help you find a way to climb over the wall.

5. Pitch a trial offer.

One of my go-to tactics in a situation where people are not sure my idea will work or if my in-flight project should continue is to ask for a trial, a pilot, or seed money if you need some money to jump-start something. There is a reason so many products offer a 30-day trial. Most people will agree to try something out. I do this all the time. Let’s try my way for two weeks and re-group. Let’s try out a new program with a small part of the population and re-assess if it should be global. If they don’t, hold that in your Ideas folder and re-present when the environment may be different (see below). Stay committed. Don’t let a wall stop you in your tracks but get agreement on going around it for a period of time.

6. Revisit later.

There are times where your idea, project, process are simply not in the cards. That’s okay too. It may not be the right time. Timing matters as much as your mindset. I have had countless ideas that were just bad timing. I don’t lose them. I hold onto them and file them away in an Ideas folder actually. Yeah...I am pretty literal. I have had many chances to bring something to life one year later, two years later when the organization was ready to embrace what I wanted to do. Readiness matters for people to adopt anything new. Sometimes, you can nudge readiness and sometimes you need to wait. Just because a wall appears, doesn’t mean it will be there forever. For years, I had an idea to create a collaboration portal to share best practices at a company I used to work for. No one thought people would share. They were right. Then, we had a situation where sharing would have prevented a financial loss. That was it. That was the why it was time to build and release the portal I had been wanting to do.

I have seen way too many people newer to the workforce or to a job lose hope when a wall presents itself. I highly encourage people to not give up so easily. We can do the things we want to do. It may take time. It may take enrolling the right sponsor. It may take creativity to come up with a free option, a short-term solution, or a different way of approaching something. 

Having the right mindset, asking questions, being creative and pivoting also helps us be resilient. Resilience is a hot topic today. Being resilient means to overcome obstacles and bounce back from disappointment. This tends to comes from within but following the steps above can certainly help you be resilient in a specific situation.