High performance South Africa: from surge fatigue to new habits and new horizons — LRMG CEO Ricky Robinson
You are not alone. After years of turmoil and disruption, with solutions still feeling distant, many South African leaders feel destabilised, fragile and emotionally worn. Decision-making capacity and idea-generating ability feel eroded or significantly compromised. Creativity, mental agility, resilience and residual energy may have surged for a while. But now many of us feel spent.
“Citizens have made huge sacrifices. It has come at an extraordinary cost, which has exhausted all of us, regardless of where we live, or what we do.”
What Is Surge Fatigue and Why Does It Affect High Performers Most?
We all have a capacity to cope with a period of stress, anxiety or shock. In the early phase of crises such as Covid-19, we draw on surge capacity to keep functioning as normally as possible. Our reserve depletes as the crisis period extends. Many people have now reached the limits of their capacities.
This may be particularly discomfiting for high achievers in South Africa and globally. Their problem-solving skills cannot address circumstances beyond the scope of their experience or knowledge. Their energy is ineffective when the medically mandated strategy requires drastically reduced interpersonal contact.
"Personal attributes which have created success in the past can no longer be relied upon."
Surge fatigue carries some related and oppressive associations.
Weariness Breeds a Danger: Apathy
We should be careful not to slip into a discouraged or disengaged mental state. Academic literature calls this descent “learned helplessness.” This 2007 recording of an informal classroom experiment shows how quickly it can set in.
The clip captures what happens when half the learners face an unsolvable assignment. They are unaware it cannot be solved. Within five minutes, they give up. They watch classmates rapidly accomplish what appears to be the same task. In reality, their colleagues have a different, simple question.
The next task is easily solvable and now the same for everyone. The disconsolate group does not even attempt it. Their confidence is destroyed. “I felt ignorant,” admits one student, bluntly.
Losing Perceptiveness: How Surge Fatigue Narrows Our Thinking
Surge fatigue also causes us to forfeit open-mindedness in our thinking. Some basic assumptions about work, routine and socialising have been stripped away.
"In trying to remodel our thinking we are up against our hardwired system of culture of origin and beliefs."
Beliefs are exceedingly difficult to reframe. When beliefs are frequently and forcefully challenged, the process of defending them can actually entrench them further. This is known as the Backfire Effect. There is a neurological reason. The region of the brain that fires when core beliefs face threat is the same region activated when we face physical danger.
This reveals the power of our psychology. When beliefs become integral to how we frame our identity, our minds protect that part of our psyche as deliberately as our body protects itself from harm.
How Attachment to Beliefs Compromises Decision-Making and High Performance
Beliefs are hefty. They sometimes skew motivations, compromise common sense and cause logic to be defied. Consider how we prioritise information that confirms our viewpoint. Consider how we assign greater validity to the most recent news rather than the most relevant. We are also subject to the anchoring effect. This roots our evaluation in a familiar rather than a more relevant context.
Behavioural psychologists and economists consistently show that we compromise our perceptions of value when weighing the past. Multiple cognitive biases operate simultaneously. We are particularly susceptible in times of uncertainty or volatility.
"The past is often a poor way to frame current decisions."
So, given our dislocated context, what are these turbulent times calling for?
Certain Habits May No Longer Be Serving Us
To replenish our surge capacities and raise our performance through these challenges, we may need to adopt new habits. There are four levels to this. First, clarifying the cues and motivations underpinning our habits. Second, understanding what our habitual responses and actions actually involve. Third, pinpointing the rewards that close the loop of a habit. Fourth, and perhaps most important, understanding our identity.
The last is powerful. It can refocus our behaviours towards the kind of person we hope to be, rather than a specific result. For example, expressing a desired behaviour change as “I am a reader” rather than “I want to read more” is likely to achieve a more effective and sustained impact.
Achieving optimal results in changing habits requires dedicated attention at all four levels. Each is tricky in its own way. By focusing on appropriate behavioural shifts, we can break patterns of thinking that are no longer adequate and reenergise against stifling surge fatigue.
The Good News: We Can Forge New Mental Muscles, Tools and Abilities
"It helps to accept the situation."
This goes deeper than understanding a new normal. Agility opens up when there is a letting-go. It frees mental space and energy to redirect constructively. Like the concept of Wu wei in Daoist Chinese philosophy, meaning effortless action. A passivity that incorporates a coiled, poised position of readiness. Like bamboo, which thrives by abandoning resistance and so grows immensely tall and remarkably strong in almost any environment.
Another way to look at this is to confront the brutal facts. This tenet was popularised by leading business writer Jim Collins in his Stockdale Principle. Named after US Admiral James Stockdale, who led fellow captives to survive a Vietnamese POW camp, the principle is to confront reality yet simultaneously never lose belief in the ability to ultimately prevail.
Embrace duality. Hope and plan for more predictability and stability. But also try to focus in the strange, stressful here-and-now. Binary thinking creates more anxiety in situations where there are no black-and-white answers. A habit of successful companies is to pursue more than one approach to strategic thinking and problem-solving. We can apply this individually too, if we practise embracing ambiguity.
The Good News: We Can Forge New Mental Muscles, Tools and Abilities
A curious mindset may help. Fatigue is often alleviated when we focus on learning something new. Developing the habit of appreciating new knowledge builds self-efficacy and resilience. This ties in with another principle of visionary companies: they incubate and experiment with many ideas simultaneously in their quest for breakthroughs.
Redirect motivations and demands. Goals remain crucial. But resolve to consciously shift away from the internal expectation that every moment requires achievement. Small wins become more important.
Practise Centredness. This is the ability, acquired through practice, to apply physical and mental skills that create greater mindfulness. Bain argues persuasively that by developing the ability to settle into our physical bodies and mitigate the automatic fight-flight-fright response, sense our felt emotions and begin managing our responses, and shift into a position of neutral observation to better control our choices, we make improved decisions. Bain goes further. They identify centredness as a requirement for inspiring others today. Studies show a direct correlation between centredness and organisations with improved performance, lower emotional exhaustion and higher satisfaction with work-life balance.
Help others. As a form of positive action, it re-instils a sense of control. In demonstrating empathy, it re-roots a sense of togetherness.
Do not overthink. A series of studies by a Harvard University team, including renowned social psychologist Daniel Gilbert, concludes that “as the prevalence of a problem is reduced, humans are naturally inclined to redefine the problem itself.”
Decrease the size of the task. Tim Harkness, Head of Sports Science and Psychology at Chelsea Football Club, argues that separating motivation from pressure is crucial. One way to increase motivation is to increase the size of the reward. The other is to decrease the size of the task, including the perception of the task.
Play to your strengths. Be conscious of your special capabilities. Capitalise on those and delegate to others who have complementary skills. The belief that we can play Rambo in a crisis is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.
Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste: Turning Surge Fatigue Into High Performance South Africa
A quip attributed to Winston Churchill. The point is clear.
"A crisis is an opportunity for drastic action or pivotal change.
Crises hit us at watershed moments. They drain our surge capacity. They shock us into the realisation that our world-view is inadequate to encompass the new situation. As a crisis causes boundaries to blur, this can become an invitation to outgrow the existing vision of self and the world. It is an opportunity for positive change.
It may not be easy. But by accessing new tools and building new habits, we can turn surge fatigue into higher performance. For ourselves and for our organisations.
At LRMG, we help South African leaders and organisations build the talent development infrastructure, leadership capability and high-performance habits that sustain performance through disruption and beyond. To find out how LRMG can help your organisation move from surge fatigue to genuine high performance in South Africa, contact the team.
Frequently Asked Questions: Surge Fatigue and High Performance in South Africa
What is surge fatigue and how does it affect leadership performance?
Surge fatigue, also called post-surge fatigue, occurs when the burst of energy and resilience that people draw on during a crisis period becomes depleted. In the early phase of a disruption, people use surge capacity to keep functioning as normally as possible. As the disruption extends, that reserve runs out. For high achievers in South Africa, surge fatigue is particularly challenging. Their usual problem-solving tools and personal drive become ineffective in circumstances that fall outside the scope of their experience. As a result, performance drops, decision-making suffers and motivation becomes harder to sustain.
H3: What is learned helplessness and how does it relate to surge fatigue?
Learned helplessness is a psychological state in which a person, having faced repeated uncontrollable negative events, stops trying to improve their situation even when change is possible. It is a danger that surge fatigue can accelerate. When people feel consistently outpaced or outclassed by circumstances beyond their control, their confidence erodes and their willingness to attempt new solutions diminishes. Recognising the early signs of learned helplessness in ourselves and our teams is an important first step in reversing its grip on performance.
What is the Stockdale Principle and how does it apply to South African leaders?
The Stockdale Principle, popularised by business writer Jim Collins, is the practice of confronting the brutal facts of one’s current reality while simultaneously maintaining unwavering belief in the ability to ultimately prevail. It is named after US Admiral James Stockdale, who survived years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam by applying this exact combination of realism and optimism. For South African leaders navigating disruption, economic volatility and ongoing uncertainty, the Stockdale Principle provides a practical framework for sustaining performance without resorting to denial or despair.
What are the most effective habits for building high performance through uncertainty?
The most effective habits for building high performance through uncertainty include developing a curious mindset by learning something new regularly, practising centredness to manage the fight-flight-fright response, playing to personal strengths rather than attempting to be everything, focusing on small wins rather than expecting every moment to be a peak achievement, helping others as a form of positive action that restores a sense of agency and breaking large overwhelming tasks into smaller, more manageable components to maintain momentum and motivation.
How does LRMG help South African organisations build high-performance cultures?
LRMG helps South African organisations build high-performance cultures through talent development, leadership capability building and talent technology solutions that equip people with the mindset, habits and skills to perform at their best even in demanding conditions. With nearly three decades of experience and partnerships with over 800 organisations across Africa, LRMG understands the specific pressures South African leaders and teams face. To find out how LRMG can help your organisation build the resilience and capability to turn disruption into high performance, contact the team.
