Exciting news! We have been working with  Tandem Learning to create a “serious game” (a game designed for a specific learning purpose) on change that uses our resilience model. We were waiting for approval from a client for the funding to take the game to completion, and we just got the green light. Once it’s done, we will be able to make it available to other clients who want a fun, simple way to introduce people to the concepts of resilience. Stay tuned for more.

One of my inspirations for thinking about resilience is the natural world. Think about the resilience of a willow tree, or a river, or a colony of ants. What strikes me about all of these things is that for them the process of “bouncing back” does not just start when they encounter a disruption; it’s built into the system from the beginning. A willow tree is resilient because it has grown deep roots, and has a cellular structure that allows it to bend with the wind. A river is resilient because its droplets keep flowing, patiently moving around or through whatever might be in the way. A colony of ants is resilient because a thousand little creatures, each following its own simple logic, come together to move objects, recreate structures, and carry on when disruptions occur.

As human beings, we are built to change. We do it all the time. When change feels hard, it’s usually because we have established expectations about how things will be, and we struggle against the fact that they are not going the way we wanted or planned. We sometimes struggle against the power that others exert over us–we resist being changed. But the more energy we spend in the struggle, in emotions such as anger, disappointment, and fear, the less we have to give to the process of moving on. So one challenge, for me, you, and all of us, is how we find in ourselves–and create in ourselves–the deep roots, the patience, the persistence that will allow our natural resilience to surface even when things don’t go the way we’d planned.

I just ran across an interesting article in the journal Psychological Science, by Todd Kashdan and several co-authors. They focused on the fact that some people are able to describe the emotions they’re feeling in specific categories (sad, anxious, etc.) while others simply describe feeling good vs. bad. They hypothesized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to “self-medicate” with alcohol, and studied drinking behavior in a group of underage “social drinkers.” They found that people with intense negative emotions who were better at describing their emotions consumed less alcohol than their counterparts who relied on more global descriptions of emotions.

So how does this relate to resilience? Well, the skill of emotion regulation is an important element of resilience. People who are better able to manage their emotions are better able to move through the adaptation process rather than getting bogged down in negative feelings. One of the ways that people seek to regulate their emotions is to use substances like drugs and alcohol in an attempt to feel better. While there may be some short-term benefits to this strategy, it’s generally not a good approach in the long run. The study cited here suggests that people who are better able to differentiate their emotions may be less likely to rely on maladaptive strategies for dealing with their emotions. In turn, this suggests that helping people learn to understand, identify, and articulate their own emotions may be a building block of resilience.

If resilience is about how we respond when unexpected and disruptive things happen in our work or personal lives, how do we go about building it? I believe that there are really two levels of resilience-building that are important. The first is making sure we have the skills and capabilities to respond to adversity when it happens. The resilience characteristics we describe in our model address these “change muscles”. For instance, Positive: The World and Positive: Yourself involve skills such as those described in Dr. Martin Seligman’s work, including developing an optimistic (rather than a pessimistic) explanatory style. The Flexible: Thoughts characteristic involves skills such as generating multiple creative options and tolerating ambiguity.

It’s important to practice and build these skills before you need them. I use the analogy of “change muscles” in my classes and presentations. Just as with physical muscles, it doesn’t work to try to develop strength all at once, or in the midst of major stress–you need to build your physical and psychological muscles up over time and voluntarily increase the level of challenges you take on. With physical muscles, exercises include things like running on the treadmill, lifting weights, stretching, and playing sports. With resilience muscles, exercises include things like deliberately pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, taking steps to build a network of social support, clarifying your own priorities, and a range of other things.

The second level is about living so that you are less likely to encounter major disruptions. This can encompass quite a broad scope. For instance, to the extent that you have very entrenched or rigid expectations about how the world should be, you are more likely to experience disruption when you encounter the normal level of change that takes place in the world. To the extent that you do not take care of your physical health, you are more likely to encounter disruptions that are created by medical problems. Exercises to address these include meditation, mindfulness, regular exercise, healthy diet, etc. Over time I hope to give a lot more thought to this topic and write some more entries.

I’ve started to post daily resilience exercises on Twitter (if you’re not on Twitter, they also show up on the Resilience Alliance Facebook page). Each one provides a simple thing you can do that day–the equivalent of a biceps curl, a pushup, or a jog around the block. You are invited to pick the ones that resonate with you and make them a regular practice, challenge yourself to do a different one each day, share them with friends…whatever works best for you. Many of them are targeted toward specific resilience characteristics (Positive, Focused, Flexible, Organized, Proactive), while some are more general. Many are inspired by people around me and the things I see them doing that reflect various aspects of resilience.

I’d love to hear ideas about what you do to build your own change muscles.

I had a recent conversation with some wonderful people from GLG about resilience, and they mentioned a couple of authors who had resilience books I hadn’t yet run across. So of course I went to Amazon and found some good used copies to add to my library.

One of them is called The Art of Resilience: 100 Paths to Wisdom and Strength in an Uncertain World, by Carol Orsborn. I’ve just begun to delve into it, but it is a lovely book. She presents 100 different nuggets of wisdom related to the process of recovering from disruptive change, each of them accompanied by an essay–some personal stories or stories about others, some musings on a topic, some folk tales, some sage advice; and all good food for thought and healing the soul. The items are divided into 10 sections, which she describes as being organized in a progression from the initial shock of impact to short- and long-term stages of recovery. It’s a very poetic book that would make a good series of meditations for someone going through a tough time.

According to the Amazon web site, it’s not available in print any more, although there are some used copies available, but there is a Kindle edition.

I hope to periodically find additional books to share. Would love to hear your suggestions!

Dear friends and colleagues,

For a while I’ve been experimenting with various forms of communication…Facebook, Twitter, newsletter, blog, etc. I’ve decided that I need to make a few minor adjustments to my approach, so I can better reach the various audiences I want to touch.

What you can expect to find here are thoughts on personal, team, and organizational resilience, and other related topics. This will include notes on books I’m reading, features on various clients, invitations to participate in research, and a range of other things.

If you’re interested in daily “resilience exercises,” you can find those on my Twitter feed.

The Resilience Alliance Facebook Group is one place for people interested in resilience topics to gather. It’s set up so that blog posts and tweets automatically show up there.

I also have a personal blog that I keep for topics not related to work.

I don’t know yet exactly what I will do with my newsletter. At this point it’s going out to an interesting combination of friends, family, clients, colleagues, etc. Some of the content will shift to this blog, but I’ll have to see how it unfolds from there.

Anyway, thanks for finding your way here, and I hope you’ll stay!

Linda