LOI Toolkit: Fostering Personal Resilience

Mission Pack N0. 5 Fostering Personal Resilience

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Hello cubicle warrior, today you are on-top-of-my-day-jobber passionately adding to your daily challenges for the good of the world!

Your mission

To maintain your wellbeing, sanity and perspective while working to transform your organization.

Your challenges

To keep yourself thriving and turn the “daily grind” into a corporate playground for your passion, ideas and potential.

Your super power

The ability to catalyze multiple intrapreneurial projects while still delivering on your day job. You find ways to shed the redundant and unproductive in search of über efficiency.intrapreneurial challenge.

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Pushing against the status quo on a daily basis takes energy.

How many times have you heard the word ‘no’ in its various shapes and sizes?

It can be easy to forget you’re running a marathon when everything seems like a sprint. But, changing the status quo is a long-term commitment. Most intrapreneurs take years to realize results. This is why your own resilience is of the essence. Without it, you risk giving up from exhaustion before you reach the finish line.

‘It’s like always being late for a train. I needed to learn not to run for every train’– Rachael Barber, former intrapreneur at Barclays and Aspen’s First Mover Fellow.

The secret to long-term success lies in your own personal ‘Resilience Regime’ – staying physically and mentally fit during your intrapreneurial journey. Physical needs are fairly well understood – your mission is to carve out the time to ensure healthy eating, exercise and sufficient sleep.

Mental health, however, is an increasing area of focus for intrapreneurs. Your mind is your most powerful tool. Finding ways to calm the mind in times of stress, gain perspective and strengthen your core being will help you rise to your intrapreneurial challenge.

Of course, we can’t promise absolute Zen overnight. But, we can promise that even small daily doses of mindfulness will help.

Namaste.

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A good half of the art of living is resilience.

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Stay mission focused

Spend time with your supporters

You are on a mission, so stay focused. Avoid energy draining drama or distractions.

Find support and connection from outside networks that energize and re-charge you.

Choose your battles wisely. If something is a direct threat to your mission, engage in that conversation, but don’t recklessly strike out. Being an intrapreneur doesn’t mean you have to become Joan of Arc and slowly burn at the stake. Identify and stay true to your non-negotiables.

‘I ask myself what am I uniquely positioned to do that no one else can?

It helps drop a lot of not so important projects and keep the long-term vision in mind (and heart).’

Joanna Hafenmayer MyImpact

When you’re feeling misunderstood or deflated internally, look outside to people who honor who you are and what you are about.

Sometimes finding acknowledgement or generating momentum externally can be just what you need to gain internal traction.

Participate in or create a circle of trust, a peer group that provides you not with the tips on what to do and how to do it but rather with a supportive space where you can hear yourself better.Sometimes finding acknowledgement or generating momentum externally can be just what you need to gain internal traction.

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Go with the flow When you resist something, stress is created. So slow down and simply “love what is.”

Practice compassion Don’t get frustrated when reality doesn’t conform to your expectations or when things don’t go as planned. Accept the organization as it is without becoming overly critical.

Complaining drains your energy.

Leadership is about maintaining a positive attitude even in the face of adversity.

‘ Nowadays every visionary CEO is inspiring their organization to be more innovative. But barriers to innovative thinking are often a lack of mental and social skills.’

Mandar Apte (League of Intrapreneurs Awardee) Shell

It’s easy to dismiss people who ‘don’t get it’. But, taking time to understand these disconnects can help you to build your resilience and strengthen relationships.

Many people operate from a position of fear – fear of failure, fear of reputation, fear of the unknown. Ask yourself: What is motivating this person at a deeper level? How can I better understand their point of view?

And, don’t forget to look in the mirror. What biases am I bringing? Which of my fears is this person tapping into?

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Leave your ego at the door

6th tip?

Most of the stress that we experience is the result of the voice in our head that kicks in when things don’t go as planned or expected.

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That voice is your ego, reacting based on past experience. As useful as our ego is as a protective mechanism, it does get in the way of your creative potential, that wonderful right brain activity.

Take time to ‘observe’ what’s going on in your head and question whether this resistance you are feeling is simply the good old ego at work. This is where a mindfulness practice is key.

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You should meditate once a day. And if you don’t have time to do that, you should meditate twice a day.

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Small steps Change your environment, take a deep breath, hydrate If you feel a wave of a negative emotion coming on, get up, breathe and hydrate. It’s amazing how something so simple can quickly shift your perspective.

Even moving into an office stairwell, or stepping outside for a few minutes can help clear your mind and help you to start thinking clearly again.

Visualize your accomplishments People say the life of an entrepreneur is a lonely road.

Well, the life of an intrapreneur living under the radar can be even lonelier. To stay energized, you need to give yourself a pat on the back for your different accomplishments. Too often,

we don’t acknowledge ourselves for all the hard work we put into something. So take a moment to feel proud. Write down your accomplishments so you can easily visualize them. And keep these accolades around you when you need a boost.

Ask yourself, ‘Is this for me to do?

Susan Collin Marks, Senior Vice President, Search for Common Ground, offered this advice to social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs at the 2013 Skoll World Forum. Her point: you have to prioritize in order not to run yourself in the ground. And she speaks from experience. After ending up in hospital due to a stress-related illness, Susan knew something needed to change. Now, when an

opportunity emerges, she waits 24 hours before committing and asks herself ‘Is this for me to do?’

Your criteria will be unique to you, but pausing to reflect on your priorities will help you both to maintain resilience and increase your impact.

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Bigger steps Words create worlds Monitor the words you say to yourself. Are they sending you off into a sea of negativity?

It’s amazing how easily we can switch into a negative and fixed mindset. Thankfully it’s temporary. Get savvy at spotting when it happens, then see if you can pick up on any patterns in

Begin your mindfulness journey what triggers this way of thinking.

Explore how you could respond differently to these trigger events. Also look at the words you are saying to yourself. Try to re-frame what you are saying in a more forward-looking, open way.

Mastering this is a powerful tool in your Resilience Regime.

Be realistic about what you can control Resilient leaders “are characterized by a staunch view of reality. They are very logical in their interpretations of setbacks—what is in their control, out of their control, and options for taking action.”

If you are feeling overwhelmed

or frustrated, pause and make a list of what is realistically within your control to change and what is outside your sphere of influence. Literally, making two columns and identifying what you can control will help you regain perspective and re-focus your

The mind is a powerful tool and we are increasingly learning about how it works and interfaces with the rest of our body. Several intrapreneurs we spoke with use ‘mindfulness meditation’ as a way to manage stress and keep perspective. Mandar Apte, an intrapreneur at Shell, for example, practices a system of 20/20/20 – 20 minutes of meditation, 20 minutes of breathing and 20 minutes of yoga a day.

Whether you are just starting or more evolved in your mindfulness journey, reconnecting with the power of your mind is essential to building resilience. There are many ways to do this – meditation, yoga, a walk or run out in nature, a surf session.

At the end of the day, find the activity that helps you to clear your mind, get centered and allows you to practice love and kindness towards yourself. And most importantly, make it a habit!

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Where can I learn more?

Managing your Day-to-Day Edited by Jocelyn Glei Cataloguing wisdom from 20 creative minds on how to manage the modern workplace without feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and overdistracted.

The Resilience Institute www.resiliencei.com The Resilience Institute founded by Sven Hansen brings insights from diverse fields including medicine, psychology and neuroscience and offers practical resilience training to individuals and teams. Their web site features a host of articles and other resources to help you with your Resilience Regime.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. This book explores why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success – but whether we approach our goals with a fixed or growth mindset.

Emotional Resilience Toolkit Business in the Community This toolkit focuses on the psychological contract between employers and employees governing resilience at work. Available online: http://www.bitc.org.uk/ our-resources/report/emotionalresilience

Contributors We would like to thank our experts for their contributions.

Mandar Apte Shell Gamechangers Ann Marie Healy writer and co-author of the book Resilience with Andrew Zolli Ronit Herzfeld psychotherapist Rosario Londoño Strategic Planning and Innovation, International Investment Corporation Heidi Kikoler Executive coach and personal champion Susan Collin Marks Senior Vice President, Search for Common Ground Luis Ros Manager, Opportunity for the Majority, A division of the Inter-American Development Bank Shauna Alexander Mohr Seven Streams

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‘Over the coming decades, an accelerating pace of change will test the resilience of every society, organization and individual. The balance of promise and peril confronting any particular organization will depend on its capacity for adaptation. Hence, the most important question for any company is this: are we changing as fast as the world around us?’

Over the past five years we have sought to make social intrapreneurship part of the formula for how we think about changing the world. Our initial forays into the field began with John Elkington in The Social Intrapreneur – A Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers.

Building on this initial study, we stepped out and rallied greater institutional support to invest in the creation of a network for corporate changemakers. In the Fall of 2012, The League of Intrapreneurs was born with support from Ashoka, Accenture, the Inter-American Investment Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, Standard Chartered, Virgin and a number of other partners.

The Cubicle Warriors Toolkit grows out of our experiences working in the trenches with leading change-agents at large institutions. The creation of this toolkit would not have been possible without input from leading experts and practitioners, including members of the League of Intrapreneuers.

We would especially like to thank: Gib Bulloch at Accenture and Rosario Londono at the InterAmerican Investment Corporation for their support in helping us grow this community and contributing to the mounting canon of knowledge in service of social intrapreneruship.

Maggie de Pree and Alexa Clay The Human Agency More about the Human Agency can be found at: www.thehumanagency.net

This document was designed

by Adam Loxley.

Illustrations have been done

by Tom Jennings.