Have you ever wondered why is it that some people seem to flourish in the face of adversity, whereas others only freeze or panic?
It’s down to a personal quality that sets apart those employees who deal best with the pressures and stresses of today’s work life.
The same quality determines someone’s ability to respond to the demands of life generally, their ability to bounce back from disappointments or failures, taking them as a positive learning experience and moving forward.
That quality is resilience. In the workplace, it’s the resilient people who can manage constantly fluxing priorities, conflict with colleagues, changing circumstances and fluctuating workloads.
Developing resilience is an active process
The good news is that resilience is not an inherited gift, available only to certain lucky individuals. It’s an active process that anyone can embrace – and indeed, one that everyone should, because how we deal with the things life throws at us greatly impacts on our satisfaction with our lot. The process relies on developing certain behaviours and thoughts, and we give some of them below:-
Work on having good relationships – with your family, friends and colleagues. Good relationships important, as is accepting support from those who care about you and will listen to you.
Don’t make mountains out of molehills – you can’t change the fact that stressful events happen, but you can change how you react to them. Remind yourself that in time, most problems get resolved.
Accept change – instead of focusing on any perceived losses change brings, look for positives and new opportunities. Because the two certainties in life are change and death.
Strive for your goals – create some realistic goals and regularly take small steps towards them. If you want to run a marathon, don’t think about running 26 miles. Think about achieving half a mile. Then the next half mile.
Be decisive – don’t stick your head in the sand when a problem arises. Instead look at the different options available to you and use your judgement to follow the best path.
Be optimistic – a positive approach lets you expect that good things will happen, even if things are tough right now. Focus on what you want, rather than worry about what might or might not happen.
Improving the resilience of a team
From a manager’s viewpoint, there are things you can do to help improve the resilience of your team.
Develop management systems that prevent and reduce stresses – such as organising work to minimise stress, raising awareness within the team of how to recognise and deal with stress, and ensuring systems are in place to identify and resolve stress-related problems.
Use training and development to help teams develop resilience – help your team to develop the attitudes, skills and knowledge that are at the heart of resilient behaviours, such as strategies to deal with in-the-moment and long-term pressure.
Build positive cultures that foster and support resilience – a positive workplace culture promotes learning and shared responsibility. Such environments reassure and motivate workers and build resilience. Positive workplace cultures are based on good practice people management.
Why should organisations be concerned about developing resilience in their workforce?
Because resilience not only has the potential to help us as individuals live happy and fulfilled lives. In the workplace it can transform organisations, allowing them to become flexible, and able to embrace change with minimal disruption. In other words, a good place to work. The type of organisation that the best candidates aspire to work for.
Share this article