A sometimes much-overlooked challenge of business resilience preparation is the human element, whereby individuals in a complex and difficult situation must be prepared and educated on how to respond effectively.
Resilience is essential in today’s workplace where everyone feels increasingly pressured to deal with constant change, whilst still getting more work done of higher quality, in new ways, with fewer people, in less time with less budget.
Resilience is a quality owned by some of the world’s greatest business leaders, presidents and figureheads. Whatever opinion you have of them, they all share many of the traits listed below by Creativedge Training and Development as its 5 top tips for how managers can become more resilient:-
1. Accept Setback
Accept that some situations cannot be changed. Some things are simply the way they are and cannot be altered – and resilient people accept this, not wasting energy on trying to do the impossible. Don’t waste lots of your time and energy trying to change others or change situations that are fixed. Instead, use your energy to focus on changing yourself, your attitude toward the situation and those things you do have the power to change.
Remember, while you can’t control everything that happens in life, you can control how you react to it.
2. Have a strong sense of purpose, a goal
Having a sense of where you are going is important. Everyone needs a sense of direction in their life. Set some goals and most importantly, if you really do believe in them, take the actions to accomplish them.
By achieving something that you set out to do (however small it may be) you will fuel your inner motivation, your self-esteem and your mental toughness to keep going. Glitches and setbacks are inevitable, but resilient people keep the destination in mind.
3. Be proactive, seize the day!
The holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, noticed that people in the camps who believed they had some measure of control over their circumstances were far more likely to survive than people who felt they were passive victims of circumstance.
Resilient people take responsibility and choose to take positive actions to change things. They choose to work on things rather than sitting back and letting things work on them.
4. Keep things in perspective
Accept that stressful situations occur but they aren’t insurmountable. We can easily get caught up in the here and now emotions and we ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’. Once we learn to step back and take in the bigger picture from a bird’s eye point of view, many of our immediate problems can seem to become far less important. What’s the worst that can really happen? What were your biggest problems 1 year ago? 3 years ago? 5 years ago? Do you even remember? Did the very worst thing you expected actually happen? What does this tell you?
5. Learn from failure – and keep learning!
Resilient people are determined to learn useful lessons from setbacks and problems. Remember to learn from your past – you have overcome many obstacles in your life up to this point. How did you do it? What strengths did you rely on? Use lessons from past difficulties to help you get through your current situation.
Looking back, we often realise that we learned the most from what (back then) seemed to be the most difficult or impossible of circumstances.
For more advice and recommendations on other staff management issues, visit the new Creativedge ‘Top 10 Training Tips’ App which is available via the Apple Store and Google Play for use on iPhone, Android and Windows devices.
