Building, Increasing and Improving Your Resilience

Over a year ago I visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in Bishop, California.

I learned that these trees are not just any trees and that when scientists defined them as "ancient", they really meant ancient.

These trees have been around for thousands of years and have survived and thrived in one of the most inhospitable regions in the world, where temperatures can swing between below zero in the winter to over 100F in the summer, with winds blowing at dozens of miles an hour, barely any water, and in an a constantly shifting and eroding landscape and soil.

In fact, it is said that one of these trees, called Methuselah, is almost five thousand years old (located in an undisclosed location so that humans don't mess it up). And Methuselah is not just an old tree, it is considered to be the oldest living organism in the planet! Imagine this: it was born as early as some of the first ever human civilizations began!

How did they do it?

These trees have something incredibly powerful in them, product of their evolution, adaptation and learning. They are resilient. And through their resiliency they have learned not just to cope with the extreme environment, but they have also adapted in order to be better equipped to survive and thrive in the unique conditions of the region. For example, they have no bark, barely any leaves, they require almost no water.

The conditions in their environment were different when they were born, but they changed. For those trees, the only way to survive, and thrive, was by being resilient and adapting.

Humans

These ancient trees have no cognitive say in whether the conditions in the environment change or not. They can't control their surroundings on an intentional, future-looking basis. But what they have is something truly amazing: the capacity to adapt and endure.

Many humans say how much they long the times when things seem to have been under control, when disruption was just a strange word in the dictionary, when chaos was rare and stability was usual.

I wonder if there was actually ever a time like that in the history of humanity.

Looking back at different times of our biological and cultural evolution, it wasn't that things were ever under control, it was that they were moving at a boringly and dramatically slower pace than they move today, giving us more than ample time to adapt.

Today, there is a big difference, and it is speed. Things are moving at a ridiculous, ultra fast pace and everything around us seems to be in a state of constant disruption and chaos. And this is not just very hard to comprehend, it is even harder to cope with, adapt to and endure.

We are not equipped to deal with so much change, so fast. We need anchors to bring us some sense of stability. But, when things are so chaotic, even the very anchors (family, friends, work, communities and more) that gave us a sense of stability and upon which we relied to stay sane, are changing too, and fast.

This is why resilience, both at an individual, organizational and even societal level, has become such an important "capability" (or skill?).

Resiliency has always been part of the human experience. We have learned how to cope with change. But, even today, the resilience muscle that we have trained for so long isn't strong enough to keep us going when change is more dramatic and faster than ever before.

We need to cultivate and nurture a whole new level of resilience... Some sort of Resiliency 2.0.

How can we do this?

Let’s find out.

What is Resilience?

The first step to understand something is to define it.

Good old Mirriam-Webster says resilience is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” [1]

Why would you need this in the workplace? You don’t want misfortune at the office, after all.

Remember – the human experience.

Employee wellbeing should be one of your top priority as an HR leader. Building resilience prepares team members to bounce back from bad days, drops in stock, or a global pandemic that sends the entire planet into panic mode. It helps them not just survive, but thrive, even if the environment is harsh (just like the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest).

By building resilience, you can equip people with better tools for their entire lives.

The other part of this definition is important too: change.

You DO want change in the workplace. Change is the only way we grow!

Whether it’s adjusting to working at home permanently, new and exciting promotions, or shakeups to the executive board, our jobs are constantly changing. They should be. This keeps things interesting, forces us to think outside of the box, and keeps us from getting too comfortable.

Change can be an awesome thing.

Change can also be scary and hard. Working from home comes with a slew of scheduling challenges. New positions usually mean more work. It can be difficult for employees to adjust (especially if they are neuro-divergent or dealing with stresses outside of work, as we so often are).

Resilience makes it easier.

The good thing? Everyday Health reports that more than about 79% of people surveyed were at least fairly resilient. 50% are very resilient – or higher! [2]

How to build resiliency and be like a Bristlecone Pine

In 2006, Salvatore R. Maddi and Deborah Khoshaba published a fascinating book called “Resilience at Work: How to Succeed No Matter What Life Throws at You.”

Maddi and Khoshaba found three variables that strongly impact resilience. These are commitment, control, and challenge. [3]

“Simply put these attitudes are commitment, control, and challenge. As time gets tough, if you hold these attitudes, you’ll believe that it is best to stay involved with the people and events around you (commitment) rather than to pull out, to keep trying to influence the outcomes in which you are involved (control) rather than give up, and to try and discover how you can grow through the stress (challenge) rather than to bemoan your fate.” (Maddi & Khoshaba, 2006) [3]

That means by playing with these variables, we can build resilience.

First, look at your employees’ commitment to the company. Do you have a strong work culture? Is there a sense of belonging? Or are the team members resentful, disengaged, and bored?

Without commitment, there’s no reason to bounce back. Why would you, when you can just jump ship?

Next is control. Does the work that employees do affect the company, not in a boring input-to-output way, but in a meaningful passion-to-purpose way? Does work feel valuable? Is it appreciated?

When team members believe that their work is important to the company, this gives them a feeling of control and autonomy too. They can affect what happens with their work.

And last, we have challenge. This is not a concrete thing; this varies from person to person. How we deal with challenges is an integral part of how resilient we are.

80% of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage stress. And 42% say their co-workers need such help. [4] Luckily, you can provide that exact help!

Building skills that help reduce stress can help employees deal with challenges more effectively. Promote positivity, mindfulness, disconnecting after work, and other stress busters.

Educating yourself on resilience is the only way to grow it. Give your team members the tools for a better human experience.

Resilience After the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is a somber example of how “bad” things can happen to anybody, at any time. Our World in Data estimates 6.8 million people worldwide have died from COVID. [5] There are millions more who were hospitalized or struggling with long-term effects. Then you have all of their family, friends, and loved ones, who now carry this extra emotional baggage.

There is no way to quantify the mental toll this pandemic has had on people.

Employees coming back to work, whether it be in office or at home, have had these experiences during this time. You must be sensitive to this, while also helping them return smoothly. In other words, you must help build their resilience.

Prepare yourself with knowledge. The Department of Health in Washington created a great PDF specifically on building resilience after COVID. [6] They warn to look out for three major struggles: burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury. (We will discuss these terms more at length in a later article.)

What do they recommend you do to push through?

Adaptability and flexibility, as always. Blessed be the flexible, for they are never bent out of shape.

Remind yourself and your team of yourself of your purpose. Why do you do the work that you do? Who are you helping with this work?

Nurture the connections. Pay attention to the people. Ask how they are doing, and really listen. Be prepared to help, to offer resources, or to simply be a shoulder to cry on.

These three components are part of what we do as HR leaders, no matter what. What can you do that is COVID specific to help build resilience?

Focus on hope.

Hope, like resilience, can do amazing, transformative things.

There is still good in the world. You still have an excellent team, doing incredible things. For you, and your team, hold on to the hope. Find the positives and celebrate them. This gives people a reason to bounce back. This builds resilience.

There are many excellent resources on resilience online, from child trauma specialists to HR leaders like you and me. I highly recommend researching more into this topic, especially in these unprecedented times.

Your team, and your business, will thank you.

1.??????https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilience

2.??????https://images.agoramedia.com/everydayhealth/gcms/Everyday-Health-State-of-Health-Resilience.pdf

3.??????https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-in-the-workplace/

4.??????https://www.gostress.com/stress-facts/

5.??????https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer

6.??????https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/1600/coronavirus//COVID-19-BuildingWorkplaceResilience.pdf

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Written by Enrique Rubio