HOW TO LEAD YOUR STAFF TO RESILIENCE

By Alan C. Guarino

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life.” ―J.K. Rowling

According to Forbes, J.K. Rowling is the first author to become a billionaire through book writing. She is, of course, the author of the Harry Potter series. But her story isn’t one of a rapid, easy rise to success. She epitomizes resilience.

She was born in 1965 and had a challenging childhood. At the age of 17, she applied for admission to Oxford University. She was rejected. Instead, she attended the University of Exeter. She married soon thereafter. There were reports of domestic abuse, which led to an eventual separation and divorce. In 1990, before her marriage, she conceived of the basis for Harry Potter. However, by 1993, she had only three chapters fleshed out. Then divorced and unemployed, she moved to Edinburgh to live with her sister. At that point, she considered herself a failure. She has stated that she was diagnosed with clinical depression and was suicidal.

By 1995, five years after she first conceived of Harry Potter’s wizardry, she finished the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She tried to get the book published, enduring one rejection after another; in all, 12 major publishing houses had rejected her book.

Finally, in 1996, after the 12th rejection, a tiny London-based literary house named Bloomsbury gave her a very small advance of ￡1,500 to complete the book. After seven years, 12 rejections, clinical depression, divorce, and stints of unemployment, the first Harry Potter book was published.

Stories of resilience are vast. The human spirit possesses amazing strength to rebound and persevere. Now is indeed a time for resilience.

Here are three points to consider and build into your message as a leader during these unprecedented times, to help your people find their resilience.

• Help them accept the new normal. “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.” ―Elizabeth Edwards, the late author and healthcare activist

We indeed have a new normal. Your staff now wakes each morning to a home office or kitchen table where they work. Gone are the colleagues and the normalcy of the old office, or the shop, or the warehouse. Gone is the routine they followed to get to and from their work. Gone is the convenience of coworkers to help with the network problem or the ink in the printer, or to help brainstorm through a problem on a whiteboard standing three feet apart. This is all indeed a fact. What they had grown accustomed to has changed. There is an end in sight, but it’s still a bit unclear. If China and South Korea are examples, we will return to much of our previous ways of working. But for now, we have a new way of operating, and the staff needs to make this new situation workable and possibly even something good. The resilience will come from accepting rather than fighting or denying.

• Have them find the good in this difficult situation. “My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”―Mizuta Masahide, 17th-century Japanese poet and samurai

Focus will naturally be drawn to the difficulties of the new normal. Lead your staff to look for a few silver linings. Some will find new and better ways to work. Some will dream up great new ideas that will lead to better products, better work environments, and new and different customers and suppliers. The fact is that change for the better will come from this difficult situation. The message is to look for and see and embrace the good. It is the silver lining. For your staff, the resilience will come from seeing that there are some rays of hope and good things that will come from this.

• Engage their power to act. “No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not entirely own us. It can’t take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action.”―Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal method

Undoubtedly members of your team are terrified or dejected or frozen with shock. Rapid changes, a life-threatening environment, and loneliness are present today, and it’s human to become a bit paralyzed by all this. The message is to get busy. There is much to be done — work to salvage the situation, work to look ahead to the future, and innovate while surviving for today. No matter what theme you focus on, the fact is that this is a time to act and your staff has the power and the need to get things done. The resilience will come from taking away the sense of hopelessness some may be feeling; it will be replaced by the feeling of having the power to act.

Lastly, in order for you to lead, you need to find your power and resilience. I wish I could wave a wand and give it to you. That can’t happen. But you are a leader because you have special strengths. Engage them. I leave you with this final quote:

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ―Helen Keller, activist and humanitarian

Click here to begin “Leading Through and Beyond COVID-19,” an eight-part learning series.

 About the Author: Alan Guarino is Vice Chairman at Korn Ferry. A former founder and CEO, he works with CEOs and leaders to execute their business strategies by optimizing talent.

 Follow Alan on LinkedIn.