Look around right now and you will notice some people may be coping a little bit better than others. The answer is resilience. It is possible to learn. Like physical fitness, it takes time and a little effort, but its effects are powerful.
Resilient people may have been taught, they may have taught themselves, have learned from experience – when life gives them lemons, they make lemonade. They may already have a strong trusted support network that they can go to for help at any time. They may have worked out their own goals and already know where the motivation needs to come from. Others may never have had that. If you don’t recognize sweetness, lemonade making seems pointless. But even if you haven’t thought about it before, you can begin to build or rebuild your resilience, and that of your teams and your organisatisons.
According to psychologist and author Dr Audrey Tang, resilience is about climbing three peaks: crisis to survival, exhaustion to rebuild and competition to thrive. A business leader from any sized company will have to go through the following stages, especially in the post Covid-19 environment.
1. Crisis is often the known enemy. While it doesn’t hurt to have your energy tank topped up, crisis survival is helped by adrenaline. The bigger the crisis, the more support as the community pulls together. Where the hardest slog comes is when the crisis is conquered.
Ask yourself:
– What or who keeps you going when you are exhausted?
– How can you take or find respite?
– What is the minimum you need during the crisis stage in order to survive
2. After the storm is the calm, but that is the hardest part of all – rebuilding through exhaustion. Key workers are exhausted. There is devastation in the form of debt, despair, loss and trauma, and compassion is now running dry. You need to pick up again when there is less camaraderie, less charity and even more fear of “now what?”
Ask yourself:
– Who or what of your new collaborations can help you restore?
– What renewed, revisited or transferrable skills can now be utilized?
…and do a regular ‘sense check’ on the consumer and client climate, exploring new areas or opportunities where possible.
3. Then you’re ok, you’re finally back… but you can’t stop there. If you stop, you stagnate, and if others grow, you are moving backwards. Now you must thrive through competition.
Ask yourself:
– Have all the exposed weaknesses been addressed satisfactorily?
– What lessons were learned and how can they inform your current decisions?
– Have you thanked people who came together to pull through … and do you continue to do so?
Tips to build resilience
Follow these tips from Dr Tang:
Audit your areas of weakness
i) Reflect on and correct areas of weakness in your initial response stages
While the same thing may not happen again in your lifetime, you may have identified certain areas where your response was sluggish or affected morale and trust. Be aware of what happened, through asking the ‘5 whys’ (asking ‘why’ five times to get to the root of the problem).
ii) Know that intellectual awareness is NOT the same as practical preparation
It is good to know what you might do in theory, action is essential. In life coaching terms, I tell over-thinking clients “don’t be the most enlightened person that never lived”. You need to to put those ideas into practice, and if you cannot, then work to adapt them so you can.
iii) Are there wider opportunities or networks with whom you can grow collaboratively?
Use this time to network or reach out to explore opportunities, especially since you have been afforded time to think, as well as knowing that people’s habits and behaviours may change after a crisis. Consider also previous areas of expertise which may even be now defunct. Would their revival serve you well?
iv) Be aware of changing consumer/client behaviours
After a crisis or changed situation, the lifestyle we had been used to may change and so consumer behaviour may follow. Organisations need to keep abreast of and consider the possible mindset of their clients and customers.
v) Reflect on your responsiveness and growth potential
Ask yourself:
– If you knew a disruption or crisis would last longer than the proposed 12 weeks, how might you respond?
– If you knew six months ago this would happen, how would you prepare?
– What long-term strategic projects may have to change or could be started as a result?
– Who can you collaborate with to help with any changes of direction, or to help each other rebuild after financial loss or other negative effects?
vi) Be mindful of your ‘fear responses’
Crisis brings fear, and fear can result in knee-jerk reactions. Be aware of what yours are so that you do not fall back into old habits. You would not drink poison if you were thirsty, why would you engage in toxic practices just because you are afraid?
vii) Future plan ‘what worked’
You may find that new adaptations such as “work from home” resulted in better productivity (and fewer overheads, more room to add location-based services and so on) – if this is the case, think carefully to best optimise any new implementations. Don’t just rush into buying the technology you are using because ‘it works now’ – think about how that method is going to work in the future and how you might want to use it and invest accordingly.
viii) Keep topping up your energy tank NOW
Resilience is the knowledge that you can and will cope BEFORE the act of proving it. The best time to work on it is when things are calm. (When they are not – you need all that emotional and mental energy you have built up to survive and rebuild!) It is the knowledge that you can and will cope in all three stages of resilience rather than the act of proving it. You will also find that if you have built up your strength, not only is survival and rebuilding easier, but you are already better placed to find ways to thrive after the unexpected.
This article is republished from eaders magazine. Read the
Image: Presidio of Monterey