Resiliency Skills

Resilient People

Resilient people

• Flourish in a constantly changing workplace
• Hold up well under pressure
• Orient quickly to new demands
• Adapt to changing circumstances
• Work without an updated job description

Compliant individuals trained to fit in and follow orders flounder in an environment of nonstop change!

Can resiliency skills be learned?

Yes! You are not born with resiliency. You develop resiliency strengths gradually as your competencies increase. What follows is a five-level hierarchy of developing resiliency skills.

Level 1: Health and Wellbeing

The myths of stress are as follows:

• It's an important mental barrier to overcome.
• Staff blame working conditions and management for feelings of distress.
• Stressed individuals feel like victims and do not develop resiliency skills.

Distress is not a result of what actually occurs, but rather a result of how you perceive what is happening:

• Stress is an internal, physical feeling of anxiety or strain you don't like; a mental interpretation of an external event.
• Strain is the internal effect.

Developing Level 1 Resilience

• Replace stress-reduction classes with sessions on developing strengths for coping with emotional and workplace strains.
• Make wellness and healthy lifestyle programs a high priority.
• Some strain is necessary to remain healthy—become aware of your personal, optimal strain zone.
• Handle each workday like you are at a fitness center.
• Be conscious of your optimal strain level, and pause between strains to relax before engaging the next strain.

Positive Workplace Atmosphere

A positive workplace atmosphere is important, as it broadens cognitive skills and strengthens resiliency. Enjoy your work, and create pleasant moments with coworkers. Negative feelings of anxiety, anger, fear, and helplessness narrow cognitive functions and decrease resiliency.

Level 2: Problem Confrontation

Problem solving has a strong connection with resiliency. It makes you more resilient than people who are disengaged, helpless, and highly emotional:

• Individuals who use problem-focused coping in a constantly changing work environment are more resilient, more self-confident, and enjoy better health.
• Least resilient individuals do not concentrate on solving problems, as they focus on their unhappy feelings and blame management for their unhappiness.

There are three kinds of intelligences that determine success in life:

• Analytical
• Creative
• Practical

The most effective people

• Integrate left-brain analytical thinking with right-brain creative thinking
• Shift from one mode of thinking to the other, and are better able to handle impending challenges

Employers need to place a high value on level 1 and 2 resiliency skills.

Develop good physical and emotional wellbeing of your staff, and teach problem-solving skills to cope with new and unexpected challenges.

Level 3: Mind Versus Body

There are three mind–body dimensions. The three core "selfs" are

• Strong self-confidence
• Healthy self-esteem
• Positive self-image

These function like gatekeepers to higher-level resiliency abilities. Focus on your strengths and what you have accomplished to gain further skills in these areas.

Level 4: Self-Direction

Develop advanced resiliency skills through self-motivated, self-managed learning:

• Be optimistic and self-confident.
• Enjoy childlike curiosity and playful humor.
• Learn from experience.
• Trust your intuition, and "read" other people well.
• Be the go-to person when something must be done right.
• Steer groups through chaotic times.

What It Means to Be Level 4 Resilient

Resilient individuals show flexibility—in actions, feeling, and thoughts—as well as adaptability. Having many counterbalanced complexities also helps to make choices for responding to different situations. Traits can be balanced between being

• Optimistic and pessimistic
• Trusting and cautious
• Serious and humorous
• Unselfish and selfish

Resilient individuals are not limited to be either one way or the other! Leave them alone to what they do best.

Level 5: Accentuate the positive.

Level 5 resiliency

• Converts accidents and misfortune into good luck
• Is best suited for nonstop change
• Helps you bounce back quickly from setbacks and emerge stronger than before

Developing Level 5

• Examine one of the worst experiences of your life to determine if you learned a valuable lesson.
• After a rough challenge at work, determine why it was beneficial that it happened.
• Make learning valuable lessons from bad experiences part of your culture and your organization.

Change happens.

When change takes place, keep these things in mind:

• Not the strongest or the most intelligent survive. Survivors are those who adapt and flourish in the new environment.
• Everyone has an inborn motivation to become resilient and can learn to handle change easily and naturally.
• Facilitate resiliency strengths development in the workplace.

This was adapted from a presentation, which was based on "Developing Resiliency Skills" by Al Siebert, PhD, September 2006, pp. 88–89.