Page 237 - How to Create a Winning Organization

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ADVERSITY IS YOUR ASSET

“Things turn out best for those who make the
best of how things turn out.”

ust before I was due to ship out on the U.S.S. Franklin during
JWorld War II, I got appendicitis and was rushed to the hospital
for emergency surgery in Iowa City. While I was recovering from the
operation, the Franklin shipped out and left me behind. The sailor
who took my place on board was a friend of mine, Freddie Stalcup,
a fraternity brother and former football player at Purdue.
Weeks later news came back that the Franklin had taken a dis-
astrous hit from a kamikaze while on patrol somewhere out in the
South Pacific. Freddie’s battle station, the one I would have been
manning had fate not put me in the hospital, was destroyed when
the kamikaze crashed directly into it. Freddie was killed instantly.
A tragedy like that gets you thinking. For reasons unknown, fate
had smiled on me but taken my friend’s life. With the loss came
the clearest comprehension that so often our destiny lies beyond
our control. And while we can’t control fate, we must do all things
possible to control our response to it.
That response becomes all important because fate plays such a
profound role in much of what we do in life and in leadership. Cir-
cumstances we can’t foresee, understand, or desire can be—and

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