What does resilience mean? The word 'resilience' comes from the Latin 'resilire', which means 'to bounce back'. This term is also used in materials science. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, resilience describes the (physical) ability of a material to "return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched or pressed".* In psychology, it stands for 'resistance', which enables people to "be happy, successful and optimistic again after going through challenging times."*
Resilience: Staying Strong in the Face of Change
Resilience is a person's ability to persevere in the face of challenges and emerge stronger from change. In a world that is constantly changing, the ability to adapt and learn from setbacks is crucial. Resilient individuals do not see change as a threat, but as an opportunity for personal growth and professional innovation.
Why Aren't All People Equally Resilient?
The degree of inner resilience varies greatly. What may seem like an overwhelming burden to one person may not be a problem at all for another, and may even seem like a welcomed challenge. Resilience is the result of a complex interplay of many factors that we encounter in life. The necessary inner strength also depends heavily on our social background, personal experiences and environment. There can be many reasons that throw us off course: Failures, global crisis and personal traumas or conflicts.
But there are also some genuine qualities that strengthen us and show us creative ways out of the crisis. For example, social skills or optimism are the skills that give us confidence and make us believe that we can find a good way out of times of crisis.
Resilience in Day-to-day Work: What Can Help Us?
In the fast-paced and constantly changing world of work, resilience has become one of the most important soft skills. In an interview with Bernadette Beck, Bei Bei Yu and Judith Prasser, I tried to get to the bottom of this special soft skill.
Dovile: The first question is how present the topic of resilience is in the world of work. Bei Bei, in your work as a coach, you come across many clients who share their challenges with you. How often do your customers tell you about their challenges being resilient?
Bei Bei: In my coaching sessions, I often come across the question of how to improve resilience. My clients don't always use the term resilience, but they do ask questions such as:
How can I deal better with challenging situations or changes?
I am often stressed. What can I do to avoid being overwhelmed or stressed?
My new colleague is better than me in many areas, which makes me feel insecure. How can I deal with my insecurity?
Strengthening resilience starts with good self-care. In coaching, I am not only examening with my clients their weak points, but also looking at their resources. Questions such as: “What activities do I enjoy?”, “What gives me strength?”, help my clients to reflect on how they can recharge their energy tank. It is important to pay attention to your own resources so that you can master life's challenges.
Dovile: Do you have similar experiences as a team leader, Bernadette? Do you experience team members struggling with low resilience? And how do you recognize whether a lack of resilience is leading to unhealthy dynamics in the team?
Bernadette: In general, I have a strong intuition about unhealthy team dynamics. When I listen to people, I can tell whether communication is genuine and goal-oriented by the way how people communicate. What they disclose or prefer not to speak about. If I notice that something is wrong, I listen carefully. And I start asking technical questions about current tasks. This helps me assess whether there are technical or process-related problems and what the cause could be. Then I make sure that I identify measures directly with the person who is supposed to solve the process or technical problems.
I am able to recognise quickly when people have a role or competency issue. I often meet people who find it difficult to leave their comfort zone or who don't have the right skills. Then I start to work with them. Those who are unwilling to change usually leave on their own after a while. Or in the worst case, I have to remove them from the team. That's part of my job, in which I need to take unpleasant decisions. If there are people issues that are outside of my responsibility, I build the system around them. The goal is to ensure that they no longer have a destructive influence on the team dynamics from the outside. It also helps to give them something useful to do.
Dovile: Do you work with theoretical knowledge that you have acquired or do you trust your gut feeling?
Bernadette: In general, I am a very intuitive person, but I have undergone in-depth psychological training to become a systemic coach. I am now able to combine the theoretical knowledge I have acquired with my intuition. I always follow my intuition first and then try to base my decisions on facts on a rational level. I follow this path 95 percent of the time.
Dovile: And how do you build up your own resilience? As a manager, you are often exposed to stress. How do you deal with it and strengthen your resilience as well as your leadership position?
Bernadette: First of all, I am very clear about my role. I know my responsibility and know what I can and cannot influence. I have learned for myself that I can only take responsibility if I am feeling well and have the appropriate distance. I have a variety of methods for maintaining this healthy distance. On the one hand, mindfulness helps me to recognize my inner condition. I cultivate a mindful approach to myself through hiking, going for walks and yoga. Since integrating these activities into my everyday life, I am much more robust, remain more relaxed and can keep my distance better. This has also improved my diet and my sleep. I very rarely wake up at the middle of the night and have to think about an unresolved problem at work. Of course, there are also restless times. In those times, I even invest more in a mindful attitude in order to maintain my inner peace. In addition to the mindfulness practice, I have also built up a solid network. People close to me know how to redirect my focus to other topics such as family. And in my work environment, I like to talk to people I know who don't work with me directly in order to engage in a non-biased exchange.
Dovile: Do you also work with the specific goal to stay resilient and seeing resilience as a core skill?
Bernadette: Yes, I am a very clear, goal-oriented person. This means that if I'm in a leadership position and there are no predefined objectives, I define clear goals. And not just for the next six months. I'm not interested in the next practical steps, but in the purpose of the project or the company. I work hard to create and maintain this clarity. Knowing what the goal is helps me immediately recognize opposing dynamics in the team. In this case, I try to eliminate those unhealthy dynamics. Above all, clarity helps me to keep my distance when I run the risk of losing myself because of my passion for my job.
Dovile: Judith, after studying humanities, you decided to go into marketing. Do you have any creative methods for maintaining resilience in a marketing job?
Judith: The reference to my literary studies education is actually an interesting point. In the digitalized world of work, we often communicate in written form: by email, in chats, in short messages. And since I'm good with written language, it helps me deal with conflicts, misunderstandings or a lack of appreciation by putting my point of view in writing, for example in an email. I also have a rule: don't send such an email until you've taken three deep breaths or slept over it for a night. Only then you will come up with ideas on how to make your point even better, how to remain more objective and appear more convincing. And this process of finding the right way to express yourself is self-therapeutic. It makes me feel better.
If you don't have such a connection to the written medium, I recommend having verbal conversations. I often find that I need to talk to colleagues after stressful situations. You could also say that I use my network as a resource. My network becomes a safety net. However, it's not so much the people who immediately agree with my point of view who help me, but rather those who point me in different directions and provide genuine feedback along the way. If you have around you people with analytical talents, talking to them will help your self-reflection, enormously. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, who often have heard me out and advice me wisely.
And the most practical advice I can give you may sound like something out of a textbook: sports and exercise (especially outdoors) actually help me to keep my balance. Not only because a stronger body makes me feel stronger in everyday life, but also because training always requires a certain routine, which provides security in stressful times.
Dovile: And what resilience-building techniques do the experts recommend? If so, can you give us an overview of the current research? What is your go to method for not taking things personally?
Bei Bei: Current resilience research are dealing with the following questions:
What enables some people to lead a happy life despite of harsh circumstances?
How comes, that some people emerge stronger from crises and others are broken by them?
It is important for me to emphasize that the current state of research provides hope that it is possible to become more resilient at any age.
To explain this further, I would like to pick up on some of the points already mentioned. Having a good network, whether family, friends or other supporting groups, strengthens resilience. I believe that negative feelings such as sadness, fear and anger are completely natural in a challenging context or change process. In coaching, I use the change curve (by Kübler-Ross) to help clients categorize their emotions. These emotions support the acceptance of change and motivate people to re-engage in learning processes. The aim is to get into the learning zone where clients consciously engage with change. You can find another interesting article on learning here on our blog.
And then I have another recommendation to facilitate change of perspective: an effective tool is “The work” by Byron Katie“** The change of perspective helps to recognize other approaches that contribute to strengthening resilience. The worksheet*** is extremely practical and provides good guidance to go through the exercise.
Conclusion
Resilience is crucial for navigating the professional everyday life in a healthy way. "Never walk alone!" A strong social network is immensely important; it provides us with valuable support and strengthens our resilience. Furthermore, we should pay attention to our personal resources. Maintaining a healthy distance from work and having clarity in our goals promote our well-being and performance.
By integrating these elements into our daily lives, we strengthen our resilience and create a solid foundation for professional success and personal satisfaction.
What are your resilience strategies? Do some of our thoughts sound familiar to you or do you disagree? Comment on LinkedIn.
This interview is part of our series "Soft Skills in professional life". Explore our concept and idea behind the conversations.