Resilience
Build it before you need it
Lynn Harris
10-minute read
Summary
Our fast-moving, disruptive world demands personal and organisational resilience. The good news is that resilience is a human quality that can be developed and strengthened. The bad news is that if you wait until you need it, it may be too late. To prepare for the inevitable challenges ahead, this article nudges you towards developing three foundational characteristics of personal resilience.
We cannot survive and prosper without resilience, and the speed and prevalence of disruptive change mean there is no lack of opportunity to develop it.
As I write this, Twitter has just sacked roughly half of its workforce; FTX, a major crypto exchange has filed for bankruptcy; and Apple’s iPhone production has taken a significant hit because of a draconian COVID-19 lockdown in China. This is on top of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sending much of the world into a food and energy crisis, and climate change causing worldwide floods, fires, and droughts. Events such as these spotlight the need to not only develop both our personal and organisational resilience, but also to update how we think about it.
Resilience used to be about bouncing back. However, the speed of change and disruption means we are likely to be left behind if we simply bounce back. Resilience is now the capacity to navigate uncertainty, disruptive change, and adversity, and arrive at a better outcome. It’s about identifying and learning from a disruptive event to prepare for the next challenge. It’s about bouncing forward.
That’s easier said than done of course. The best chance we have of bouncing forward is to intentionally build a set of resilience characteristics before we need them. Here are three steps to get you started.
1. Acquire a taste for reality, even if it tastes awful
Life can be difficult. Things will change. You have a choice. You may not like these realities, but if you accept them, you can start to strengthen your resilience. This mindset helps you to move beyond seeing yourself as a victim of circumstances (why is this happening to me?) to acceptance and choice (life is difficult, things change, what choices do I now have?) As the ancient Greek stoics argued, most things are outside of our control, so obsessing about why things happen is a waste of time. It is our response that holds the power.
But what about positive thinking, you might ask? Thinking positively is a helpful response once you have accepted reality. When my husband was diagnosed with cancer he accepted reality very quickly and chose a positive orientation that helped him to make good choices (thankfully, he is now cancer free). His response was in stark contrast to some of his fellow patients who unfortunately got stuck in the morass of this isn’t fair and why is this happening to me?
Resilience nudge 1: When confronted with everyday challenges build your resilience by grounding yourself in the mindset that life can be difficult, things always change, and you have choices (instead of wasting your energy thinking that life isn’t fair, I don’t want this, and I have no choice).
2. Think differently
If you want to build your resilience to ‘bounce forward’ it helps to see change and uncertainty as an invitation to think differently.
In over 25 years of leadership coaching, I’ve noticed that when navigating change and uncertainty, the predominant thinking styles often fall into two categories:
either/or thinking (we can either do A or B)
or
trade-offs (we can do more here if we reduce something over there).
These thinking styles are identified as level 1 and level 2 thinking by former McKinsey Director, Colin Price, and can be perfectly adequate in times of stability or when confronted with simple problems. They are, however, unlikely to help you arrive at a better outcome during times of disruption and uncertainty. To think more creatively Price recommends elevating our thinking to levels 3 and 4.
Level 3 thinking explores how we achieve both A and B to get a win/win solution.
Level 4 thinking completely reframes the problem.
Case study: How to improve customer service and reduce costs.
Level 1 thinking - either/or: We can either improve customer service or reduce costs.
Level 2 thinking - trade-off: We can improve customer service for our high-end customers and cut costs at the lower end.
Level 3 thinking - both/and: How can we improve both customer service and reduce costs?
Level 4 thinking - dissolve the choice and think differently: Let’s stop thinking about these two seemingly opposing choices and look at the problem differently. What is the real challenge we face? And what is the ideal outcome we want to create?
One of my former clients, a call centre leader, demonstrated level 4 thinking when he was confronted with this same challenge. He stopped thinking about the apparent choice of improving customer service or reducing costs and instead reframed the problem to focus on the root cause - his dissatisfied call centre employees who were leaving their jobs in droves.
Counter-intuitively he increased costs for six months by investing in training for his call centre managers and employees (despite much opposition from his senior colleagues). In the following six months, better employee training resulted in improved customer service, and better management resulted in reduced costs through decreased attrition. This produced a reinforcing loop of better-trained and happier employees and managers providing improved customer service, resulting in dramatically lower attrition, thereby sustainably reducing costs.
Resilience nudge 2: When faced with uncertainty and change, step back and identify how you and your colleagues are thinking – is it at levels 1 and 2 and if so, will these levels of thinking meet the challenges you face and help you to bounce forward? If the answer is no, experiment with levels 3 and 4 thinking to achieve more creative solutions.
3. Develop your own renewable energy
It is hard to imagine building your capacity for resilience if your reserves of mental and physical energy are consistently low. For many leaders, simply knowing this doesn’t translate into making good choices that support their health and resilience. It takes more than knowing new stuff to motivate sustainable behaviour change. If eight hours of sleep, healthy eating and regular exercise are personal sustainability targets that have so far eluded you, it might help to start with smaller steps and work up.
Start by identifying your personal sources of renewable energy. For example, I know that taking regular short breaks, walking (especially in nature), and having a coffee with my son (virtually or in person) all renew my energy.
Once you’ve identified your personal sources of renewable energy use level 3 thinking to integrate them into your day. Experiment with how to get your work done and regularly renew your energy. For example, I listen to work-related podcasts during my walks. A few examples from my clients are switching to telephone meetings so that they can walk and talk; reimagining a morning commute by walking several laps of the garden with a cup of coffee before attending their first virtual meeting; and eliminating back-to-back meetings by scheduling at least 15-minutes between each one.
Resilience nudge 3: Identify your unique sources of sustainable energy and integrate small changes into your daily routines. Start doing this today.
If building resilience is not on your personal and organisational agenda it needs to be. If you lead a team, make it a team priority. When confronted with change, disruption, and adversity, apply a resilience mindset; practice levels 3 and 4 thinking by asking different questions; and role-model simple ways of renewing your energy. Don’t wait until you need resilience before building it.
Lynn Harris is a founding Partner of Leadership Mindset Partners