Resilience: The Everyday and The Extraordinary

For many of us, the pace of our professional life combined with our personal roles and responsibilities makes it a challenge to stop and engage in essential self-care. The month of May was Mental Health Awareness Month and that afforded all of us the perfect opportunity to focus on this critical aspect of our well-being.?With the close of May, earlier this week, I wanted to share some personal reflections on mental health here.

There are so many dimensions to our mental health that merit attention, but I will focus on two: resilience and renewal. Addressing not only the challenges to our mental health, but also understanding and engaging with the resources and practices that help us to build resilience.

Certainly, the challenges of the past two and a half years amid the pandemic have galvanized our efforts – appropriately – to put a spotlight on self-care. To develop strategies and routines that feed our needs and replenish our capacity to face our challenges, great and small.?

One epic tale of resilience.

Witnessing the power of personal resilience – and leadership – in the face of great adversity is a topic that resonates with me on a personal level. In 1914, the British explorer Ernest Shackleton set out to complete the first crossing of Antarctica. The expedition would go down in history not for reaching its goal, but for serving as one of the most extraordinary tales of survival ever recorded. The crew aboard his ship, Endeavor included Frank Hurley, the official expedition photographer, and also, my great-grandfather.

Early on, the ambitious expedition encountered difficult weather, with the Endeavor ultimately becoming locked in thick pack ice. What followed was a life-threatening odyssey for the entire crew, one that almost defies comprehension. As the ice crushed the Endeavor, Shackleton and the crew were forced to abandon their ship, taking what provisions they could move, to live on an ice floe. When the floe itself began to crack, the crew took to their small lifeboats and battled squalls and frigid sea spray for six days.?

Adversity and leadership.

Upon reaching solid frozen ground, Shackleton once again took the lead with a daring decision. He and a handful of his crew would set sail in one of the lifeboats and head for a whaling station, more than 800 miles away. After battling massive ocean swells, a successful landing – on the wrong side of the island – meant a hazardous trek across the frozen landscape, a journey no human had ever completed. Thirty-six hours later they arrived at a small whaling station. When Shackleton identified himself and the whalers realized it was the head of the expedition missing for over a year and a half, one of the whalers simply wept.

Incredibly, every member of the crew survived, was rescued, and brought to safety nearly twenty months after they originally set sail. Their detailed survival story is replete with tales of supreme teamwork under the most dire of conditions; selflessness for a greater shared mission; and raw courage that fueled courage in others.

The story remains a timely one as the Endeavor re-entered the headlines this year when on March 9, over a century later, a team located the remains of the ship in clear icy water nearly 10,000 feet down. (For one of the many more detailed accounts of the expedition, a good place to start is this exhibition from The American Museum of Natural History.)

Lessons for our time – and beyond.

The strain and suffering of the global pandemic have truly been unprecedented, with so many losing loved ones and others battling lingering effects of the virus. Fear and sadness drain us of our energy and resilience, whether from the pandemic or another loss.

While the current challenges many of us face are in no way equivalent to the difficulties the crew of the aptly named Endurance faced, there are principles that served them well which provide valuable reminders for our contemporary struggles.

In my role as head of Human Capital Management, I am privileged to witness so many occasions where our people have gone above and beyond, pulling together in ways that are nothing short of inspiring. Throughout the month of May, we hosted a wide variety of resilience-themed events around the globe. In addition to heightening awareness about mental health and the priority of self-care, we engaged in incredible conversations on mental health, both at work and in our personal lives.

On a broader level, we’ve developed programming to help our people around the globe navigate the wide array of challenges they face. These include seminars on avoiding burnout, supporting children amid such uncertainty and psychological skills essential during turbulent times. Leveraging the power of app-based solutions, we’ve launched a firmwide initiative to engage with meQuilibrium, the digital resilience platform that strengthens our mindset with a customized action plan of mindfulness practices – and even tracks your progress.

Protecting our most important asset.

It’s no secret that the people of Goldman Sachs operate at a high metabolic rate and take great pride in the excellence that this kind of effort produces. But of equal importance in our culture is the principle of teamwork; not “I” but “we.” Throughout our conversations with our team members around the world, it is inspiring to see how much attention our people give to looking out for each other as much as they work to take care of themselves and those at home.

Throughout its history, the firm has recognized that at the end of the day, our people are our most important asset. I’m proud to say that from an organizational perspective, the benefits and programs we offer to our people reflect that commitment; we do “walk the talk.”?

Finding inspiration close to home.

That said, the challenges of the pandemic have served as a catalyst to add important new features to our already extensive offerings to support mental health and overall wellness. This includes an enhanced vacation policy that now provides more time off for even our newest team members, and increased emphasis on the expectation that all employees take three weeks of vacation (with at least one being a consecutive week) each year to relax and refresh. We’ve instituted a new sabbatical policy for our longer-tenured team members, an opportunity to step back from their work role to reflect, explore and recharge. Our extensive Family Care Leave (four paid weeks) now includes bereavement for family members as well as miscarriage or still birth.

There are many more ways we’re supporting our people. From nutrition services to ergonomics to reimagining our workspaces. But perhaps our greatest role is that of sharing with each other the inspiring stories of facing everyday challenges that so many of our colleagues display on a regular basis. If crisis truly does reveal character, I am so honored and inspired by what I see all around me.?