3 Ways to Build Resilience in Your Organization

Every year, organizations spend billions of dollars on helping their leaders in many types of training. I’ve talked to hundreds of chief executives and in most cases, they state that developing their leader’s ability is of great importance.

Yet, many of the times, they are dissatisfied with the results of these efforts. If you want a high-performing leaders today, you must understand the results of a survey conducted by Angus Reid on the two-year anniversary of the COVID Pandemic;

• 82% say that the pandemic has pulled people further apart.
• 79% say that the pandemic has brought the worst out of people.
• 61% say that the level of compassion for one another has grown weaker.

Most people would agree that with people not performing that well a different type of leadership is needed. This does not mean that people need to be pampered or babied while they are working.

In our research we found that those who struggle;

• Lack passionate goals,
• Feel trapped in the uncertainty loop, and
• Have difficulties which are caused by inflexibility.

It is due to these types of situations; people appear to be distracted or at least not entirely focused on the work at hand. In other words, they are showing a form of weakness or vulnerability in their actions. The definition that we use for resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges, then continuing by taking inspired and on-going action.

In our research we interviewed people that have overcome some of the biggest problems or issues that we have ever heard of. For example; the Prisoner of War and how he handled 7 years of being incarcerated, or the woman who was abused for years by her husband. Yes, I’ve interviewed many people and the one’s that had the greatest impact on me were the ones the overcame their past situations and went on to become outstanding people. This was because those individuals went on to make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others.

Even though I uncovered 8 particular characteristics that they used to make a wonderful difference, today I want to share with you three of these characteristics that will lead to greater resiliency in your organization;

• Adaptability – I lead off with adaptability because we live in a world right now that people want so much certainty that they have lost their ability to be adaptable. They have what I’ve called ‘Hardening of the Categories’. In other words, it is a my way or no way attitude.
• Approach – This is tied to adaptability because if we are not adaptable our approach to life stays in an ego-centered way. Approach is all about enjoying life to the fullest. It is understanding that life does have its ups and downs, so enjoy the ride, and above all don’t take yourself so seriously. In other words, they experience eutrapelia, which is a Greek term meaning “ready wit” or “pleasantness” in honorable, good, and clean fun in conversations.
• Endurance – Is all about knowing that there is a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It is accumulating techniques or skills to keep on moving forward even on the roughest roads.

If developing your leaders is a priority, you need to look deeper on how these leaders are encouraging or teaching by example in these three areas. I am sure that there will be challenges along the way, although I know that these areas will give you a great start to becoming a more resilient organization.

If you’d like more information on our research, you can contact me at 519-539-2267.