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Resilience: The Fine Art of Bouncing BackI’ve had several thought-provoking conversations about resiliency recently, and what it means as a leadership quality, so I thought I’d revive an article from June 2003 on the topic. If you read it before – enjoy it again!
As an older and much wiser colleague always used to say, “Nobody goes through life unscathed.” If you live long enough, sooner or later “stuff happens.” Why do some people snap back, while others snap under the stress of unanticipated occurrences? The quality of resilience is very often the determinant of success in work, as well as in life. Studies show that resilience matters more to sustained high performance than education, experience, or training. In this issue of my newsletter, I’ll explore how you as an individual leader can build your resilience and improve both your performance and your outlook. There are two other aspects of resilience – workforce resilience and organizational resilience – that you’ll want to learn more about if you want to bolster your company to withstand the ups and downs of our 21st century milieu. (Note: You can find two additional newsletter
articles on those topics in the July and August 2003 editions of A Different Optic. Here’s the dictionary definition of “resilience”: 1.) The ability to recover quickly from
illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy. 2.) The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity. The important thing to note here is that we are not talking about being unaffected by events and forces in our world, but rather about the capacity to move with them and then reestablish a working balance.
According to experts, the main building blocks of resilience are the capacity to accept reality and stand up to it; the ability to find meaning in life; and the ability to improvise. Other important factors are a strong sense of self; the belief that you are the author of your own life; and the ability to be flexible. It’s an interesting mix of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual qualities, all of which can be cultivated. My own experience in
coaching leaders in a variety of organizational settings confirms the observation. In their influential book, The Power of Full Engagement, authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz build their recommended “Corporate Athlete” personal growth program around
those four dimensions. Loehr and Schwartz have researched how winning athletes train for high performance, and they translate their findings into practical strategies for the rest of us. Fundamental to this approach is the idea that you can’t manage time – you only have a fixed quantity -- but you can manage the energy available to you, and the quantity and quality of that is not fixed.
We build mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity in the same way we build physical capacity – by expending energy beyond our usual limits and then recovering. So, effective energy management in all domains requires cycles of expenditure (stress) and renewal (recovery) of energy. Building your own resilience means mastering the practice of these rhythmic cycles. Resilient people have developed rituals that help
promote cycling – going to the gym at the same time every day, for example, or sitting down to dinner with the family every night. It’s interesting – hopefully not discouraging – to note, as the authors do, that the demands on today’s executives dwarf the challenges faced by professional athletes. Executives must sustain peak performance while athletes play in relatively short bursts
of energy. Athletes spend most of their time training and very little performing – executives just the opposite. Athletes have off-seasons, most executives are lucky to get three or four weeks of vacation. An athlete’s career averages five to seven years, while most executives will work for 40-50 years. All the more reason to build your capacity to bounce back from the inevitable setbacks, so you can go the distance. Coaching can help you build your own resilience, and that of your workforce and your organization. Let’s talk. Call (410)626-6008, or email info@bloomfieldassociates.com. 
Beginning in August, Utah will become the first state government to move to a four-day workweek in order to save on rising energy costs. Proponents also say the move appeals to younger workers and those who are looking for more flexible workdays. Minnesota is also considering a similar plan. Technology giant IBM has launched a program to help channel retiring workers to the
U.S. Treasury Department, which has 14,000 unfilled “mission critical” jobs, more than half of those at the IRS. The average employed American sacrificed three days of vacation this year--up 50 percent from the two days they gave up in 2003, a recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found. U.S. workers are also taking shorter vacations than ever before. 
Freeconomics The economics of giving away goods and services, now very common on the Internet,
but increasingly used as a marketing tactic elsewhere as well. Some observers believe this trend will change our existing models of capitalism; others say it remains to be seen. 
The Sportswriter; Independence Day; and The Lay of the Land, all by Richard Ford. What I like about it: This trilogy by one of America’s best contemporary novelists has been on my bookshelf just waiting for a summer reading marathon, and I’m enjoying it immensely. Taken together, these three novels follow the complicated yet somehow ordinary life of Frank Bascombe, a reflection of our lives as the millennium
draws to a close. Maybe not your typical beach read, but beautifully written, often funny, and completely real. Beth Bloomfield
Executive Coach, Strategy Consultant
Principal, Bloomfield Associates Share what you’re into —
books, articles, movies, music, websites — with others on the list! Send us the title and author or other pertinent information, along with a sentence or two on what you like about it, and if we use it in A Different Optic we’ll not only quote you, we’ll provide a link to you or your website. |
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"My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can."
-- Cary Grant |  |
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This week marks the publication of On
Becoming a Leadership Coach: A Holistic Approach to Coaching Excellence, edited by Chris Wahl, Clarice Scriber, and Beth Bloomfield. Contributors include faculty members of the Georgetown Leadership Coaching certificate program, and a portion of the proceeds will go to charitable causes. You can order the
book on Amazon.com and recommend it to all your coaching colleagues and friends! A Different Optic has joined the blogosphere! Beth Bloomfield has started her own blog, dedicated to exploring what makes for good leadership, how to help leaders develop their skills and capacities, and how to create organizations that
nurture and support good leadership. As always, the aim is to provoke her readers to look at things a little differently than they normally would. You’re invited to take a look, and join in the conversation by adding your own thoughts and comments. Subscribe to the blog feed and get notified by email whenever there’s a new post. Click here to get started.
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