Deliberate Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World
Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michael Kruyt
HarperBusiness (November 2022)

How to juggle grenades, while walking through a minefield at midnight, during an electrical storm

According to Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michael Kruyt, “At its core, Deliberate Calm is a unique combination of four sets of skills applied to the context of leaders: adaptability, learning agility, awareness, and emotional self-regulation. Each of these skills is critical to the success and performance of leaders, but this is the first time they have been combined to help us learn and lead differently when it matters most.”

As they explain, “This book is written for people who want to enhance their capacity to face challenging situations with an open mind, to adapt as individuals, and to have a positive impact on our increasingly volatile world so they can lead in a sustainable way.”

Brassey, De Smet, and Kruyt organize the abundance of information, insights, and counsel they provide in four Parts: First, they explain The Deliberate Calm Promise and why it is so important as well as how it can help executives (at all levels and in all areas) to accelerate their personal growth and professional development. Next, they introduce the Deliberate Calm Way: “the invisible drivers that result in habitual behaviors and how leaders can uncover and adapt them.” Then they help their readers to understand the Deliberate Calm Process: How to take this work from an individual practice to one that can radically change how they interact with others at all levels of their personal and professional life.” Finally, in Part IV, their readers get an opportunity to “walk the walk” by creating a personal operating model for themselves by completing  “a Four-Week Deliberate Calm Protocol with daily practices to help [them] increase awareness of [their] external environment and [their] internal state, where [they] can reframe challenges as opportunities for growth, adopt new and more effective mindsets, and begin to navigate the Adaptive Zone with ease.”

I presume to suggest that, after reading the Introduction, proceed to the Appendix (Pages 247-290) within which readers learn how to create the aforementioned Four-Week Deliberate Calm Protocol, a personal operating model for themselves: skim-read the Appendix but delay completion of the exercise. Yes, this is an unorthodox suggestion but one I do not hesitate to offer. Why? On rare occasion — and this is one of them — authors or coauthors provide a framework that includes parameters, sequences, correlations, and interdependencies of direct relevance and incalculable value. That is what separates this book from most others that also focus on organizational and individual transformations.

I also suggest that key passages be highlighted and that a lined notebook be kept near at hand in order to record notes, comments, and page references as well as responses to interactive questions included throughout the narrative. These two tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key material later.

I congratulate Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michael Kruyt on a brilliant achievement. I urge those who read it to remain calm while absorbing and digesting the material that is needed far more today than at any prior time that I can recall. All organizations need effective leaders at all levels throughout the given enterprise who exemplify empathy and courage as well as grace under duress and, of equal importance, leaders who do all they can to help others complete the same process.