Those ‘teachable moments’

The conversations generated in these workshops have been positive, insightful, and honest. Leaders, both new to the role and those more experienced have shown remarkable levels of self-awareness when asked to reflect on what might trigger a move into resilience mode for them personally. In most cases it’s not any one single demanding or intense experience but rather the cumulative effect of numerous small and often random challenges – the sorts of things that can easily sneak up on us when we’re least expecting it.

Of course, the scale and pace of change has pushed most companies to limits they didn’t know they had, but this in itself has built resilience and the workshops we’ve delivered have enabled individuals to reflect on what they’ve learned as part of this process. As Barak Obama would say, these are important ‘teachable moments’, but only if we know how to recognise and use them positively. To change how we respond in the moment, equipping us to react to similar situations that come along to test our resilience in the future.

In sharing these moments as part of the workshops, not only have delegates come to appreciate the value of their own personal trials but also those of others, through deliberate and considered self-examination learned helplessness can be avoided and learned resilience achieved.

Help or hinder; making team and individual choices to protect our resilience

In a recent podcast talking about her book ‘Bounce Back; How to Fail Fast and Grow Your Resilience’, Dr Susan Khan, business psychologist and coach, asked if the choices we make help or hinder our resilience? In a recent download session with an Exec team around resilience and ‘what next’ the overwhelming sense was one of having almost emptied their reserves; ‘frazzled’, ‘draining’, ‘relentless’, ‘tiring’. They all realised they needed to not only make some individual choices but some team ones too – aligned resilience became the goal. We have the choice to say no, to ‘protect’ our resilience when needed. But how many of us exercise this right? Either individually or collectively.

It’s something Greg McKeown talks at length about in his book ‘Essentialism; The Disciplined Pursuit of Less’. He argues that:

“Our ability to choose cannot be taken away or given away, but it can be forgotten.”

Choosing what we take on, what we do (either in our personal lives or at work) requires us to be confident in knowing what matters, because in striving to ‘do it all’ we will almost certainly achieve very little longer term.

In the workshop we remind delegates that resilience is neither constant or limitless – we all have a finite amount of ‘grit’ and so how we choose to use it is important. Choice being the key word here – if we say yes to things that we know will use up ‘grit’ but actually deliver little or no gain we are stretching what could already be depleted resources. You may be forgiven for thinking that in these most difficult of times very few choices are available to us – at times we are having to deal with the choices others are making on our behalf. Our options might be limited, true, but many choices are genuinely still within our agency.

Finding strength in the collective

In encouraging delegates to consider ways in which they can protect and grow resilience the discussion invariably lands on the importance of networks and social connections. As one delegate described it:

“Sharing your resilience to help others when you’re feeling ‘strong’ but they might not be – and leaning on them when the opposite is true”.

Networks not only offer support but also a different perspective when needed, a more balanced view and alternative ways to move forward. They offer choice. Our favourite quote this week compared collective resilience to ‘herd immunity’ – by tapping into the power of the collective we can mitigate the worst of the lows and build momentum on the back of the highs.

Photo by Fabio Bracht on Unsplash