opinion

The pace of change is faster than ever

Our world is changing ever faster. The technology that enables possibilities to become reality – how ever apparently unlikely they are today, but which become a fact of life tomorrow – is developing at a rate of knots, stimulating and enabling organisations to aim higher, become more profitable, gain in efficiency and get a better return on investment from their people.

At the same time, global pressures, regulatory imperatives, competitive threats and political uncertainties create tensions and demands on a scale previously unknown.

The requirement for increased resilience

I notice amongst leaders whom I coach that advances in technology don’t necessarily make their working lives easier because those advances come with a parallel intensification of expectations, which exert more pressure – with a corresponding demand (usually implicit) for increased resilience.

Leaders are constantly required to deliver more with less. But their resilience can’t be taken for granted.

What resilience means

I understand resilience to be (as Dr Carole Pemberton defines it, in her book ‘Resilience: a practical guide for coaches’): The capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, feelings and behaviours when faced by a life disruption, or extended periods of pressure, so that we emerge from difficulty stronger, wiser and more able.

Inherent in this definition is the understanding that resilience implies a process of learning from difficulty.

Training for resilience

As organisations quicken the pace of new strategies, restructures and rationalisations, some of them are also recognising the need to resource their people with new learning about resilience: they implement training schemes and make resources available in the hope and belief that their people will be better fitted for the new world they are creating.

Resources for resilience

Among the broad range of support resources that can be accessed in order to build resilience, some are becoming more mainstream. Those that I value include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

Self-compassion and self-care, both of which are invaluable routes to the sense of wellbeing that provides a firm foundation for resilience
Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally, according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction). Inherent in mindfulness is the capacity to accept what is
Awareness of habitual thinking patterns such as learning to spot and challenge assumptions rather than taking them on board as reality: the ability to distinguish assumptions from reality builds clear-sightedness and thus clarity on the range of real choices available
Clarification and articulation of purpose: Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Dachau concentration camp, identified purpose as the single most important factor in overcoming adversity
Building adaptability and the ability to flex in difficult circumstances can help develop creativity and alternative thinking patterns and behaviours that will increase optimism and broaden vision, and reduce the rigidity that limits options
Physical resourcing through sleep, diet and exercise. All these resources are critical to mental and physical resilience – and Dr Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, sees sleep as pre-eminent.

Resilience and leadership

One of my clients expressed the need for resilience as doing more than ‘just keeping going’. Without this resource and the ability to manage stress, the leader can become self-focused, intent on getting through the difficulty, but without the capacity – crucial for a leader – to look outwards, to engage with what is happening around them in their immediate team, in the organisation more broadly and in the wider world: they lose their view of the system they’re in.

Acceptance

Given the stresses and strains in their environments, leaders’ capacity for acceptance – facing reality, and agreeing to things as they are without necessarily agreeing with things as they are – is critical before it’s possible to move on, take control, find direction, and find a sustaining resilience.

An organisational culture that will nurture resilience

However, the system needs to change too: it isn’t enough to expose leaders to learning about resilience if their organisational culture doesn’t embrace or even accommodate the new approaches they’re gaining access to. That culture needs to proactively support employees in their efforts to build their own and their teams’ resilience.

Photo by GRID Arendal via Compfight

Resilience in a changing world

Leaders are constantly required to deliver more with less. But their resilience can’t be taken for granted. Resources that are particularly valuable for building resilience include: Self-compassion and self-care; mindfulness and acceptance; awareness of habitual thinking patterns such as confusing assumptions with reality; clarification and articulation of purpose; building adaptability and the ability to flex; physical resourcing through sleep, diet and exercise.

Leadership, culture and successful selling

Leaders often start their careers by excelling technically. However, as their careers progress, they require an increasingly nuanced approach – particularly in relation to communication. Leadership means getting things done through people, not in spite of them, and leaders need to tap in to their self-awareness and to convert that into self-managed communication. In the high-stakes climate of the oil and gas industry, from Texas to Saudi, the leader has a consistent need for humility, integrity, curiosity, a willingness to think beyond the usual boundaries, trust, an awareness of one’s impact, and a finely-honed capacity to listen and to respect each individual.

Stretching to breaking point

Some senior people I coach are being stretched to a point where their wellbeing has reached dangerously low levels. At the heart of their recovering their health and balance is the realisation that, whereas they’d previously regarded self-care as selfish, self-indulgent or disposable, not only is it ‘OK’, legitimate and necessary, but also it enables them to make a better job of their jobs and their relationships in and out of work, enhancing their efficiency, their insight, the ability to take a broader perspective, their emotional intelligence, and the quality of their judgments and decisions.

Whose life is it anyway? Loyalties and agendas

Leaders may give away their authority by prioritising other people’s agendas and interests over their own – often indiscriminately and usually unconsciously. This blind loyalty to an assumption that questioning or challenging someone’s else’s agenda isn’t possible can, in turn, be down to another loyalty. This underlying loyalty can be to the leader’s outdated or misplaced belief that they have to do everything themselves if things are to get done to the necessary standard. This thinking habit or indeed a lack of thought - and the consequences - can be damaging to their leadership, career prospects, reputation, effectiveness, relationships, judgements and decisions. Leaders need to remember to be aware of the moment when a situation is drawing them in, and to give themselves space to think and options for alternative action.

Compassion: a business issue

Paul Gilbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, defines compassion as "a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it" – and he notes that the core of compassion is courage. Far from being a soft issue, his scientific perspective is directly relevant to how organisations can boost their effectiveness. Compassion can do much to restore trust, confidence and a sense of safety in the individual and in the system – and it’s partly about both presence and acceptance, with a close link to mindfulness. Leaders and their reports can take practical steps to boosting both their self-compassion and their compassion towards others.

Building resilience in a tougher world

We all - and particularly leaders - seem to be experiencing more and more pressure in our modern world. The need to build and maintain resilience seems more pressing than ever. By ‘resilience’ I mean not so much the ability to simply cope, but more the capacity to consistently adapt to changing circumstances, to learn from adversity, and to manage intense emotions and uncomfortable thinking in oneself and others. We need to learn to flex in our responses to adversity.

'Just being': my article in Coaching at Work

Transactional coaching objectives are irrelevant to some of my clients. 'Doing’ keeps them out of trouble but offers no fulfilment or satisfaction, whereas - ironically - 'being' and objective-free coaching offers them the time and space that are essential for them to profoundly engage with their coaching objectives

Honesty, wellbeing and mental health

Mental ill-health in organisations may be a taboo subject and may carry a stigma. Sufferers may suffer in silence until their condition worsens to the point of crisis. When crisis does strike, in addition to individuals’ difficulties, the organisational upheaval and cost can be significant, as can the damage to working relationships. However, in an open culture people are more likely to feel engaged and to give of their best, and evidence shows that business results are much better than in cultures where the issue is not faced. It is the coach's responsibility to work with whatever shows up - but not to aim to heal or cure.

A sense of belonging

The deepest human need is to belong. A strong sense of belonging and connectedness is positively associated with wellbeing, happiness and mental health. Feelings of belonging are understood to influence an individual’s identity and the extent to which they feel accepted, respected, valued for who they are - and these feelings in turn, by strengthening relationships, impact on engagement, effectiveness and productivity

Confidence, effectiveness and systems

Confidence that is depleted – which often results from an individual interpreting an external event or behaviour, and believing (albeit unconsciously) the message that they construct from it – leads very easily to effectiveness that is depleted. Looking outwards from the individual into their environment and the systems of relationships they are part of is often a more elegant and rapid process, offering more sustained and richer outcomes for rebuilding and re-resourcing, than cognitive approaches.

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