Posts

Finding the Space

/in /by

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I do love this quote often accredited to Viktor Frankl (though it is not) and I share it in almost every workshop/training I facilitate.

Its message is spot on but to achieve this ‘space’, we need to develop our emotional self-regulation. This isn’t easy but it is essential. Self-awareness is the critical first step.

Knowing our values is part of this, as are developing strategies to create the gap between trigger and reaction, so we can choose our response and not get hijacked by the triggered emotion.

Being able to name our emotions also helps to take some of the significance out of them. Especially important for the ‘not so feel good’ emotions. And this does take practice! It’s incredibly liberating and confidence building when we have developed these skills. They also support us in becoming more resilient – one of the critical factors psychologists believe is needed to be successful both personally and professionally.

This is, in fact, what the above mentioned Viktor Frankl accredited quote is referring to. I truly believe we underestimate our ability and our responsibility in developing these skills. Most of us haven’t received any ‘schooling’ in these areas and many of our traditional role models weren’t able to demonstrate them either.

Organizations also have a responsibility to their employees in helping them develop these skills and also in making the systemic changes needed so their people can thrive. By investing in these critical skills, employees stay engaged and the likelihood of absenteeism (and the recently coined term ‘quiet quitting’) is reduced. It also creates an organization that talent will be drawn towards.

 

Should Resilience be our ‘North Star’ Skill in the Workplace?

/in /by

I’ve been promoting building personal and team resilience for more than 12 years. Never have I seen a time when its needed more, than now.

In May 2023, the World Economic Forum published its ‘Future of Jobs Report’. What didn’t surprise me is that Resilience in the 2023 report went to number 3 as a top skill, from number 9 in 2020.

Analytical thinking is at the top of the list for both reported years. Creative thinking went from number 5 to second place.

No alt text provided for this image

My potentially controversial thought for the future of work is since without resilience during stressful, challenging times, you can kiss Analytical and Creative Thinking good-bye – shouldn’t Personal and Team Resilience be desired skill #1?

Our analytical and creative thinking functions get hijacked, if our ability to be emotionally Agile and Flexible ‘in the moment’ isn’t highly developed. Staying calm is of paramount importance in the face of disruption and uncertainty.

A variable of resilience, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Dep’t, is Self-Awareness (#4). Building resilience means building self-awareness. It’s actually the first stepping stone to being able to ‘bounce forward’ and not just ‘bounce back’ from adversity. Bouncing forward means we’ve learned something from what we experienced.

Another of the variables of resilience, as mentioned above, is Emotional Self-Regulation or Agility. With this, we can make choices that are much more likely to serve us.

Curiosity and Life-long Learning skills are also dependent upon being resilient and developing stress ‘hardiness’. When our pre-frontal cortex is heading down the proverbial drain, we start to narrow our focus, which means we’re less likely to be open-minded and have the mental agility we need, when we need it.

When we are self-aware, emotionally and mentally agile, we can be more analytical, more creative, more curious, and more open to learning.

Am I biased in thinking that in addressing the shortage of resilience skills (most of us haven’t received this in our education or in our upbringing) might just be the antidote to many of the other skills we need?

I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this!

Unleash the Full Human Potential in Your Organization

/in /by

My friend and colleague, Vivian Acquah, has regular live LinkedIn webcasts entitled ‘Let’s Humanize the Workplace’.

So I was happy to read in a recent article that: “Unleashing the full human potential in an organization is why forward-looking companies work so hard to create environments of belonging and psychological safety.”

This article states that one of the critical shifts in leadership, for a company to thrive, is to show up as an authentic human being and not only as a professional.

What this entails are three critical factors:
* increasing (self)awareness
* emotional regulation (or emotional agility, as I like to call it) and
* total or integrated wellbeing, embracing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pillars

I was extremely pleased, since ALL of these factors comprise what I and the network of partners I work with, share in knowledge and experience, from when my company started in 2011.

Why are these factors critical for a sustainable future? Without these being part of your DNA, you are unable to let go of instinctive, fear-based reactions; exactly the opposite of what’s needed in this changing and disruptive world.

Diving into your most creative, innovative, and logically reasoning mind is imperative. These can only be tapped into when you are calm (in control of your emotions), energetic, and collaborative. And you will achieve the inclusive cooperation from your teams by becoming so.

As any caring, professional facilitator will tell you, these qualities aren’t developed in a one-off workshop or one-day training. You would be well-served to take a very close look at your leadership team and make a commitment to provide them with the knowledge (training over extended time) and coaching (long-term) most of them will need to become leaders of the future.

Much of the training and coaching on these kinds of topics can be done regularly, at an interpersonal level among team members. However, periodically, these in-context sessions need to be augmented with a professional facilitator and/or coach who are experts in these topics. They can evaluate the progress being made and whether there are interventions needed to accelerate the learning and implementation.

The benefits more than outweigh the costs, when implemented correctly. When respect, appreciation and trust are core values expressed by leaders to their team members, mountains can be moved. Mindsets will be open and limiting beliefs will be challenged to find new solutions to existing challenges.