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Resilience: a direct connection with revenue growth

My attention’s been caught by an article published recently in Forbes by Jan Bruce on ‘The Vital Link between Resilience and Your Bottom Line’ and in particular by the author’s reframing of resilience not as a nice-to-have but as directly connected with revenue growth via the connection between engagement and resilience (although she doesn’t quote it here, there’s evidence to show that employees’ resilience helps build engagement). A three-year study by Quantum Workplace has found that engaged organisations experienced 11.74% quarterly revenue growth compared to a 6.30% decline in revenue at organisations with less engagement.

Building resilience is a constant

Bruce also quotes Rosabeth Moss Kanter (see ‘Surprises Are the New Normal; Resilience Is the New Skill’): stress ‘isn’t a pothole to avoid but the very nature of the road we travel daily’. That resonates for me: my executive coaching clients occasionally make explicit their quest to build resilience, but much more often building resilience is a constant, a part of the backdrop to their working lives and intrinsic to the way they approach their leadership agenda. And so it becomes the backdrop to my coaching, feeding in to – and from – the articulation of the leader’s values and motivations and how they live them, their sense of their own purpose, the systems of relationships and community that they create and move in, the confidence they build in themselves and others, and expanding their perspectives on the options for thinking and behaviour that can nourish and build the quality of their leadership.

Four factors for resilience

It’s funny how sometimes the dots just join up of their own accord: I’ve realised the extent of the link here with the four factors that wellbeing specialists Robertson Cooper have identified in their i-resilience model: adaptability, purpose, self-confidence, and support. Without being conscious of it, I’ve been working to this model virtually every time I deliver executive coaching.

Don’t just keep going: keep learning

Bruce makes another powerful point: success isn’t about travelling a smoother road but rather about climbing out of the pothole and bouncing back – and the key to being able to do that isn’t just to keep going, but to keep learning. It can feel like the hardest thing to do – to focus on the learning when you’re feeling defeated, disappointed or shocked – but learning is the key to creating an organisational culture where creativity and innovation are encouraged, risks (albeit well-judged) are taken and confidence is built. Organisations with such a culture are, in the process, future-proofing themselves and building success through resilient, engaged workforces.

Ordinary Magic

Quite separately, I’ve also been fascinated by the work of Ann Masten, Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Minnesota, who specialises in competence, risk and resilience in human development, with a focus on young people whose lives are threatened by adversity. Listen to this talk of hers ‘Inside resilient children’. In her article ‘Ordinary Magic’, published in 2001, Ann Masten comments that children’s resilience is linked to: connection with competent and caring adults, cognitive and self-regulation skills, positive views of the self, and motivation to be effective. Unsurprisingly, since experiences in their childhoods link directly to leaders’ styles and achievements, my executive coaching sessions range over these issues and challenges, and how they translate themselves in adulthood. When they are addressed effectively, not only does the quality of resilience build but so too does the quality of leadership.

Why the term Ordinary Magic? Masten says that what she means is that resilience doesn’t require anything special or unusual – but it does require the operation of basic adaptive systems, which include healthy attachment relationships, neurocognitive control systems, and community. Damage to resilience is not caused by adversity itself but by damage to these basic adaptive systems in the context of adversity.

It applies to leaders just as much as to children.

Thought-provoking stuff.

Photo by Dennis Jarvis via Compfight

Resilience, the bottom line and Ordinary Magic

Research has shown that engaged organisations experienced 11.74% quarterly revenue growth compared to a 6.30% decline in revenue at organisations with less engagement - and resilience helps build engagement. resilience is often the backdrop to my executive coaching, Success isn’t about travelling a smoother road but rather about climbing out of the pothole and bouncing back – and the key to being able to do that isn’t just to keep going, but to keep learning. Also relevant is the work of Ann Masten, on Ordinary Magic: children’s resilience is linked to: connection with competent and caring adults, cognitive and self-regulation skills, positive views of the self, and motivation to be effective - just like leaders in many ways.

Article on coaching that's free of the coach's ego

When I’ve been truly present, when I’m delivering a deep level of listening, when I’m in a relationship of ‘connected separateness’ with my executive coaching clients - without an attachment to the coaching objectives, albeit holding those objectives in focus - the quality of their development and transformation has sometimes been startling.

Self-awareness: the heart of executive coaching

My belief is that leadership is about creating momentum for a better world by inspiring and engaging other people: in other words, enabling human flourishing. If leaders are to get things done through other people they need to create and nurture trusting, vibrant relationships, to inspire with a vision, to persuade and energise, and to engage with other people’s perspectives. This ability to connect with others is crucially dependent on the ability to connect with self: to become aware of one’s own behaviours and thinking, drivers and blockers. Equipping a client to become deeply self-aware is at the heart of executive coaching.

Chaos and organisational life

In the chaos and confusion that sometimes is the hallmark of life at work, while their organisations are demanding big results, what leaders really need is the simplicity and peace to know who they are and that they have the resources to sustain and nourish themselves.

Creativity, innovation and leadership

David Bowie, pop artist and visual artist, was a creative and innovative pioneer. The leaders we need in our turbulent and fast-changing climate likewise value experimentation, creativity and innovation, they read the market and the system, and they have the courage to pioneer.

Career refocus: stepping off the treadmill

Several of my executive coaching clients feel like they're on a treadmill, stressed and under pressure. And yet it's exceptional for any of them to choose to get off the treadmill. Instead, they make career decisions based on a fuller sense of awareness, within a context of well thought-through perspectives, rather than being based on emotion, stress, exhaustion or just not seeing broader horizons

Development and transformation as coaching outcomes

Development is the release of more of an individual's potential and transformation is a fundamental shift in thinking, feeling or behaving. In my experience the shift is often around a previously unresolved issue that an individual has kept carefully guarded for a very long time. When they make their peace with that old issue in a transformational way, the change sticks and the chances are higher that they will become a transformational leader.

Mindfulness: coaching the leader

Mindfulness training and practice enable sustained attention, an improved capacity to regulate emotions and to manage that chatter in the mind that can so inhibit constructive thinking, reduced stress levels and increased resilience and well-being. How will my clients benefit from my training in mindfulness.

Mindfulness, leadership and results

Mindful awareness is about learning to pay attention, in the present moment, and without judgement. It's like training a muscle - training attention to be where you want it to be. It's a valuable tool for impactful leadership.

Building blocks of healthy relationships: autonomy

Leaders who treat their people as autonomous adults are likely to get the best out of them: an autocratic style gets quick, short-term results but anything less than an empowering style doesn’t adequately nurture the discretionary effort and engagement that are essential for organisational success.

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