Lead the resilience revolt

Workplace frustration happens to us all; never feel you are on your own with that one. Unless you live in a disconnected vacuum with absolutely no influence from anyone or anywhere else, it is just not possible to have everything ‘your way’. Quite frankly, I really can’t think of a person who would benefit from living in such a disconnected way either. While accepting this reality, it should not translate into a sense of hopelessness; you can easily maintain control over the way you face and respond to any frustration.

Picture a fully-inflated balloon, tethered by a string and bouncing around in the breeze; colourful, bright and just ‘full’. That would be a great analogy for a successful team member at work when things are going well, fully participating in meetings, producing results and building great relationships at the same time. No workplace woes and only workplace wows follow that person. Suddenly the balloon is hit by a rather forceful child who has a deep and strong grasp on it, squeezing it tightly and not allowing it escape. The balloon changes structure, shape and consistency. In the workplace that child may be compared to a tightening of the budget funding, a shorter time frame for required results, less people to do more work, more communication coming from every angle stifling your freedom to create or any number of other influences.

The balloon escapes the child’s grasp and instantly bounces back to its full shape and position. There were no questions, no analysis, no doubt – it just happened as a natural reaction. We too are a vessel of possibility that has full opportunity to bounce back instantly from facing adversity and being squeezed, yet we often don’t let it happen. We become the story of frustration, providing every reason why the reduced budget, the increased input or the decreasing freedom is simply not right. Yes, it will be ‘not right’ once it is labelled ‘not right’, when we look at it as ‘not right’ and when we reinforce it with further judgement as ‘not right’. Resilience doesn’t judge, it just allows you to reposition, repurpose and re-energize effortlessly. How can you increase your resilience?

3 Tips for Greater Resilience

1. Stay Healthy and Alert

Physical wellbeing has vast impact on resilience capability. Our muscles maintain strength, our nutrition continues to nourish and our reflexes are ready, willing and able to protect at any given moment. Physical wellbeing is the air in our balloon, having us colourful, bright and able to fly high given the quality of the air within. Exercise turns on our ‘feel good’ factor, stimulating our natural chemical called dopamine. Ample sleep allows us to download and release the previous day allowing for the creation of our next day’s experience.

Mohammed enters the workplace to find that the meeting has been moved to midday, which clashes with an essential project meeting. His co-worker is off sick and the manager wants to see their joint project progress at 11am.

Watch Mohammed bounce like the balloon. He makes contact with the business owner of the rescheduled meeting, indicating his inability to attend given the need to be in another meeting, and provides the business owner a summary of what would have been asked of him in that meeting. He speaks to others who will be in the meeting, allowing them to be aware of what he has done.

This was also providing great opportunity for personal contact to see how they are doing, and offer any help they may need. He then sits with project results of his colleague and himself, finds the gaps that have not been recorded and quickly adds them. When in doubt he checks with others on the accuracy on what has been added. Now that he’s prepared for the original meeting, he now invests the time he would have shared working with his colleague in finding new resources for the next step of that project, something he really wouldn’t normally have time to do. Not a minute goes by in that day without some productive activity, and he returns home reflecting how a day that had potential for confusion and chaos was highly productive and organized.

We can only think straight and construct alternatives with a clear mind and healthy disposition. Oh, and of course, passion for your job!

Difference in every angle of life and work is one of the healthiest traits to surround yourself with. Difference between cultures allows us to increase curiosity into ‘why’, difference in reaction allows us to see different results, difference in approach allows us to compare and choose the ‘most appropriate’ approach, difference in mindset allows us to experience other than our norm.

Being ‘difference-ready’ and not ‘difference-averse’ brings further depth to that bounce-back factor of our own balloon. Difference when misunderstood or unappreciated can bring fear and ridicule.

Maryam is the CEO of a business entity, a highly successful organization due to its unrelenting focus on customer needs and desires. She is clearly a transformative leader, one with a tendency of changing direction in support of better outcomes. Her Director recognizes that a new service appears to be emerging in the CEO’s mind and ‘inflates her balloon’ a little more by listening through a lens of exciting challenge. This difference will put smiles on the customer faces and have ‘virtual queues’ making paths to the doorway. She refuses to let any resistance enter the picture and looks to the future with vigor.

3. Build a purpose in the network

We are social beings and thrive when surrounded with strength. Strength is impacted by quality and quantity. Resilience is required at times when ‘air can be sucked out from you’ and when it all becomes too suffocating! So just like on a diving trip if your air supply runs out, there’s always a buddy nearby to top yours up.

Michelle is a manager of a very busy call center that provides support for complaints; there’s no surer way to have the air squeezed out of you than by dealing with complaints day in, day out. Many agree with that statement, yet others who truly view a complaint as a gift (the opportunity to right the wrong) disagree. The call center transforms into a center of excellence for opportunity to put smiles back on people’s faces, and keep their loyalty over and over again.

Michelle recognized this and knew the power of community, the energy in like-mindedness and the growth in challenge, so set about training the entire call center team in facing challenges and turning ‘black into white’. She walked the walk by training sessions in creative thinking, problem solving, customer relations, the magic of alchemy’, exceeding beyond belief. Yet she didn’t stop there. The organization’s recognitions changed into rewarding resolution, her meeting agendas dedicated a major item on the agenda to resolution through customer care, and her vision was etched into a drawing so every day, the team members could put themselves into that adventure in differing places. Retention and motivation grew and conviction went through the roof. One thing that did not ever happen again was a negative response towards complaints; resilience fueled challenge!

When your balloon is being reshaped by adversity, add the resilience pill, let the balloon go and watch it soar!

Debbie Nicol, managing director of ‘business en motion’, builds org systems, frameworks and cultures through the services of training, coaching and solutions, helping move businesses and leaders ahead through change. ‘learning en motion’, a niche brand of ‘business en motion’ is a contemporary response for those leaders who feel frustrated in the workplace, enabling them to be part of the solution.