In her book Mindset Matters, Gemma Leigh Roberts highlights resilience as the quintessential skill for the evolving work landscape.
After all, resilience facilitates overcoming challenges and fosters learning and growth from those experiences.
“The construct of resilience can be complex to navigate,” writes Roberts. “It can be tricky to know where to start when focusing on building and nurturing your resilience.”
To help navigate the complexity of resilience, Roberts suggests exploring “The Six Pillars of Resilience.”
Let’s look at each in turn.
The Six Pillars of Resilience
Confidence
Roberts emphasizes the pivotal role of confidence in problem-solving and innovation. Confidence is less about interactions with others and more about believing in one’s problem-solving abilities, even in unfamiliar situations.
Spotify’s journey is a testament to this. Despite being revolutionary in the music industry with its “freemium” model and data-driven personalization, Spotify faced challenges in 2020 due to reliance on ad revenues.
Its confident pivot to original content, akin to Netflix, underlines the importance of taking control amidst uncertainty. Similarly, a 2012 study on Olympic champions found that confidence, focus, and social support were key to resilience and peak performance.
You can mirror these findings in workplace settings, as Roberts concludes that genuine confidence isn’t about knowing all solutions but believing in one’s capacity to find them, individually or collaboratively.
Adaptability
There’s more to resilience than merely “bouncing back” from adversity. Roberts advocates for “bouncing forward,” where we see challenges as opportunities for growth. Drawing an analogy to marathon training, Roberts emphasizes the importance of learning from setbacks rather than returning to the pre-adversity state. Such experiences of adversity can be rich in lessons, turning failures into successes.
Adaptability is central to this. Roberts highlights Elon Musk’s emphasis on maintaining a feedback loop and continuously striving for improvement. Starbucks’s transformation, inspired by Howard Schultz’s trip to Italy, exemplifies adaptability. Schultz’s idea of creating a “third space” between home and work transformed Starbucks from a coffee seller to a communal space.
Another case in point is Spotify’s Daniel Ek, who champions learning from failures. Roberts stresses that genuine failure only happens when one doesn’t learn. For peak resilience, she underscores the need for rapid, flexible thinking, innovation, and a proactive response to challenges.
Positivity
There’s a profound link between positivity, optimism, and resilience. In fact, studies indicate that positive emotions aid in stress recovery, and those with hopeful outlooks often fare better during hardships. (Colin Powell had a similar outlook, calling perpetual optimism a “force multiplier” in his “13 Rules of Leadership.”)
Roberts highlights that, while we all have varying degrees of natural optimism, it’s a skill we must develop. Some optimism can benefit us, but blind optimism without a tangible plan can be detrimental. The essence lies in balancing hope with reality, akin to “having your head in the clouds and one foot on the ground.”
The author also cites James Dyson’s journey, emphasizing his relentless optimism and adaptability. Despite thousands of failed prototypes and initial market rejections, Dyson’s resilient perseverance, coupled with strategic energy allocation, eventually led to the success of his innovative vacuum cleaner. As Roberts suggests, resilience combines perseverance, realistic optimism, and strategic planning.
Perspective
How we perceive a situation significantly influences our experience. Two individuals can perceive the same event—like a job layoff—differently based on personal circumstances and mindset.
Roberts illustrates this with a coaching example where a new graduate was more devastated by a job loss than a sole provider for a family, illustrating our outlook isn’t solely defined by external factors. Embracing setbacks as learning opportunities rather than failures is crucial.
Leaders, in such cases, should foster environments encouraging risk-taking, learning from missteps, and celebrating innovation. A prime example of perspective shift is Herbert Hyman of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Faced with a potential business threat from Starbucks, he leveraged the situation to his advantage, ultimately benefiting his company.
Building resilience involves taking control, adjusting one’s perspective, and accepting uncontrollable factors and past mistakes.
Mastery
We can explore the mastery of resilience through three pivotal components: a growth mindset, goal-setting, and flow. Roberts posits that building resilience is best achieved before facing challenges, likening it to preparing for a future drought.
A prime example is the remarkable turnaround of Lego under CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. Despite initially over-diversifying, Lego refocused on its core capabilities, adopting a growth mindset rooted in continuous development and learning. Strategic goal-setting, aligned with this mindset, further bolstered Lego’s resilience, enabling it to remain agile even during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another resilience booster is finding one’s flow, a concept by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which refers to engaging in challenging, skillful, and enjoyable activities. Engaging in such activities builds psychological reserves, fortifying resilience. By mastering resilience through these components and fostering a sense of control over situations, we better prepare to tackle unforeseen work challenges.
Stamina
Roberts references Sheryl Sandberg’s journey of resilience after tragically losing her husband. Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, emphasizes collective resilience, underscoring the power of community support during hardships.
Drawing from various studies, Roberts indicates that social support significantly enhances resilience and overall well-being, underscoring its importance in workplace contexts. Leaders play a pivotal role in fostering such supportive environments to bolster team resilience.
Interestingly, avoiding adversity is not the key to building resilience. On the contrary, moderate exposure to challenges can bolster resilience against future adversities. This exposure helps us learn to handle situations effectively, increasing our confidence to face subsequent obstacles.
However, balance is crucial; while some pressure benefits resilience-building, excessive stress can be detrimental. Roberts advocates for a conscious approach to resilience-building by embracing challenges and stepping outside our comfort zone, ensuring optimal performance without overwhelming stress.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the six pillars of resilience outlined in Mindset Matters provide invaluable insights into navigating challenges and setbacks in both personal and professional contexts.
By fostering confidence, adaptability, positivity, perspective, mastery, and stamina, we can better prepare ourselves to face and overcome adversity.
Remember, building resilience is a continuous process that requires conscious effort, but the rewards are well worth it.
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