How do leaders help their organization become more resilient? part #1

In the last six months, I have heard more people use the following two phrases than in the entire course of my 30+ years of doing this work: “I am stuck” and “We are stuck.” It is an acknowledgment of the depth of challenge and frustration that people are feeling at this time period. They deeply want to move forward and yet they can not overcome the problems before them. Acknowledging their “stuck-ness” is their first step in the right direction. Becoming resilient is essential to their long term success.

The technical definition for resilience is “the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.”, e.g. the resilience of rubber. This technical definition does not work in the world of leadership. From my observations, being resilient is rarely, if ever, the return to a former condition or “original shape”, because the act of going through a change changes the “original form”, be that a person or an organization. 

The non-technical definitions of resilience are the following: “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”, and “the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again when something bad happens.” The two key words for me are recover & adjust.

Having worked with many leaders and many different organizations, I have learned that resilient leaders create resilient organizations. The question before us today is the following: What makes a leader become a resilient leader?

Elena Lytkina, Botel Ho, Kim Rosenkoetter Powell, Stephen Kincaid, and Dina Wag in their Harvard Business Review, May-June 2017 article called “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart” states that successful, i.e. resilient, leaders show  “decisiveness even in the midst of ambiguity and incomplete information,” “the ability to engage stakeholders,” and “adaptability when dealing with situations that are not in the playbook.” They also are able to be reliable about producing results which is based on their ability to set realistic expectations, get the “right team in place” and upgrade talent.

Adi Ignatius in the same May-June 2017 Harvard Business Review issue wrote an article called “Above All Acknowledge The Pain: A Conversation about Resilience With Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.” Sandberg and Grant share that “Resilience is about the speed and strength of your response to adversity…. The best thing you can do is build routines that might be applicable in an unexpected situation.”

Given all the current challenges before business leaders, I have noticed the following about resilient leaders. First, they do very analog things and connect with people face to face instead of solely focusing on things. This includes visiting with people in person and respecting the daily efforts of people. These same leaders proactively listen and always conduct themselves with the utmost integrity.

At the same time, these leaders are continually focusing on the building, maintaining and execution of teams. They understand that recovery and adjustment happen outside the comfort zone and thus healthy teams are essential.

Next, these leaders are able to stay centered in the midst of all that that is happening. Being centered means drawing on adaptive expertise and not over thinking something. Instead these leaders focus on being present. As Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao wrote in their book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014), “We used our mindset as a guide, not as the answer to every question and problem.” In essence, they did not retreat to a pre-defined solution.

Finally, these leaders respected a diversity of opinions because they were an expression of different options. They focused on adherence to the goals of the organization over the agendas of others.

This week, reflect on how you can become a more resilient leader. It is the first step to creating a resilient organization. 

Quote For The Week: The Grateful Pledge

“I am grateful for today’s problems; they will be tomorrow’s successes. I am grateful for today’s successes; they will inspire me to see tomorrow’s challenges waiting to still be met. I am grateful for tomorrow’s challenges as they will bring next day’s problems. I am grateful for those future problems as they will become our future success. I am grateful.” - Jennifer Bauer

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Staying Centered in the Midst of Constant Interruptions

We were sitting together over lunch when he shared that he was exhausted, and that he had lost his passion for the work. He was overwhelmed by new endless projects plus doing his regular job. From my perspective, he had reached the end of his rope, and it was a sad, frustrating and difficult situation.

As I reflected on what he was saying, I remembered the following quote by Carl Jung: “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” Looking inside is hard work and important work. Listening to one’s heart is complex and yet important.

Norman Vincent Peale and Ken Blanchard noted that we have two selves, namely our external task-oriented self and our internal reflective self. Most people are only living with their external focused, task-oriented self. They do not take time or give themselves permission to take time for the internal reflective self, mostly because it is a longer and more deliberate process 

In a world of hyper action and constant interruptions, Ken and Margie Blanchard in the book, The Best of Personal Excellence - Volume 1, Executive Excellence Publishing, 1998, noted we need to “gain a balance between success and fulfillment.” Fulfillment is about “connecting your life and work, connecting spirituality, and balancing time at work with your family and friends.” Rabbi Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People contends that there are two acts in life. Act 1 is “Achieve” and Act 2 is “Connect.” Achieve is about setting goals and completing them. For many this is all that matters. Connect is about fulfillment in relationships, health and spirituality

I think one major challenge this summer for leaders is to rediscover what it means to stay centered, i.e. how to find calmness in the midst of chaos. I have learned from others and from my own experience as an executive coach that when there is chaos on the outside it often reflects chaos on the inside. Linda Rosh and Lynn Offermann in their article, “Be Yourself, But Carefully.” Harvard Business Review, October 2013, note that “Authenticity begins with self-awareness: Knowing who you are - your values, emotions and competencies - and how you are perceived by others.” This helps tremendously when seeking to stay centered.

Another element of staying centered happens when we are willing to co-evolve. I find too many people today who are living as a community of me. They are widely connected and completely isolated. While this may help in coping with change, we need to evolve in a collective, rather than individual manner because the support from co-evolution is vital to process all of the difficulties associated with change. This can take place when we build shared purpose rather than individual purpose into our lives. Start this process in your life by asking the following questions:

- Why do we come together to do this work?

- Who are we?

- What matters to us?

It is time this summer to reteach people about how to live and work in a community, not just on teams. When people have valued roles in the community, then we take care of each other with compassion and respect.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257