Resilience and Coping with Adversities.

I received a comment on one of my previous posts on how to deal with the incompetence of a colleague. This got me thinking and following on from the previous post about significance and size the question open the door to a discussion that will lead into the rest of the posts.

In the “reply” on the comment I mentioned that there can possibly be three reasons why we see incompetence as an adversity and that is that our performance is dependant on the other person; that it threatens the expectations of the workplace, whether it be quality, safety, sales etc. and that we find it personally annoying.

I would like to start with a description of an adversity. An adversity is a deviation from the expected or from the norm, whether that is societal/personal norms or what we experience as normal.  We experience this deviation as being negative. A sudden cold front in the middle of summer is abnormal and most people will experience it as an adversity to a more or lesser extent. Adversities may be dramatic or chronic or somewhere in between. The dramatic adversities are usually things like storms, floods, fires, bankruptcy, divorce, death, accidents; the chronic adversities are things like the current economic crises that will take time to resolve, chronic illness, poverty, poor relationships etc. The two are sometimes not mutually exclusive – a period of poor financial results can lead to bankruptcy, poor relationships to divorce. The coping that we do is different however in these cases and this will be explored in a future post.

Please bear in mind that the opposite of an adversity is probably an opportunity and it takes as much resilience to sustain and “conquer” an opportunity as it does to master an adversity. The feelings accompanying the opportunity is completely different but the roller-coaster ride is the same.

So, the million-dollar-question remains; why do you see the event as an adversity and why does it tap your resilience?

Back to the previous post – is it really such a big deal or has it personal significance to me? The personal significance, is it fundamental i.e. beliefs, values, culture or is it just my hot buttons? Am I for instance car mad and although I cannot comprehend that someone can ignore the newest and best gadgets in cars, I must admit that it is my thing and if someone wants to ride an old jalopy it is his business. On the other hand this event may trigger aspects that are very dear to me, my beliefs, culture and values and it will be difficult for me to live with this adversity.

On the graph of the previous post, on the personal significance axis we now have to ask ourselves: “What is the significance to me; why is it so important; can I see it another way?”

The books (loving what is, Who would you be without your story) and website (www.thework.com) of Byron Katie has some very useful insights and worksheets in this regard. Her website is a good place to start; although it does not give the whole theory, as explained in the books, it does offer articles and worksheets that will help you “get into it” quickly. Keep an open mind, we are so inclined to attribute our experience of the adversity to the size of the adversity and not to the significance we place on it.

It is quite easy to see where differences in a relationship can start that can lead to arguments, resentment, etc. The same disaster happens to a couple i. e. the car breaks down, to one partner it is a disappointment and he or she knows it will cost something but it is a hiccup; to the other partner spending money is a problem and the breakdown is a disaster not in so far as the car is concerned, but what it will cost. While one partner is arranging alternative transport, the other is in frenzy and virtually incapacitated worrying about the money.  Now just imagine the first partner saying to the second; ”You know this breakdown may be a warning sign, we must start thinking about and saving for a new car.”  The second partner now has the added worry according to him or her of the cost of a new car on top of paying for the breakdown!

This is normal; we all have our own storeroom of significant things, what is important is to become aware of it, acknowledge it and deal with it on an ongoing bias. Simple questions such as: “Is this really such a big deal? Is my fear running away with me?” can help to restore balance. In this regard the work of Byron Katie mentioned above can help.  Partners of course must become aware of, acknowledge and respect one another’s “significances” and collaborate to find solutions that will satisfy both parties.

I once had a colleague that was a scuba diving instructor in his spare time and safety was of paramount importance to him for obvious reasons. He was a “difficult” person to work with when it came to safety, but we did have a safe lab! There can be benefits as well as drawbacks in our “sigficances” – it all depends on how we manage them.

In a future post I will explore this topic further.

I suppose your colleague’s incompetence really taps your resilience and challenges your ability to persevere and deliver high quality work. You see your colleague’s incompetence as an adversity. Why? I can think of three reasons why we would, a. our work performance is in some way dependent on the performance of our colleague i e an editor at a magazine or newspaper who has to check the articles of his/her journalists, b) the incompetence impacts negatively on the health, safety, sales quality, service etc of the group that you are part of, c)it irritates you.
Incompetence and the effects of incompetence is sometimes very difficult to expose and one wants to do it in such a way that the incompetent person is not shamed but assisted to become more competent. As I comment I realise that this is actually a huge subject and it may be better to dedicate a blog post to this rather than to scribble a quick answer, thanks again ,you have given me food for thought.
One question though: Why do you see your colleague’s incompetence as an adversity?

Can we Categorise Adversities or Resilience?

Whenever we think of adversities we tend to think of the big and dramatic happenings, 9/11, Katrina, the war in Palestine, the first days of the economic crisis springs to mind.  What about the ongoing adversities such as the effects of the economic crisis, the re-building of Palestine or the slow meltdown of Zimbabwe and the re-building of that country?  These are different sets of adversities that may not be as dramatic or as obvious, but need as much resilience to deal with. So is there an Adversity Measurement Scale as there is a Disaster Scale or a Richter Scale?

We cannot use the word resilience without also thinking of adversity.  The two are basically interdependent.  We are also inclined to evaluate the level of resilience according to the size of the disaster. Although the size of the disaster cannot be ignored, the significance of the adversity for us is just as important a factor to consider. The significance to us depends on a number of things, our beliefs, attitudes, past experiences, present circumstances  – the list is long.  Adversities are as different as people are and people cope better with some adversities than with others. For instance some adversities are short and brutal, others are chronic or last much longer and they eat away slowly at your resilience. Different people cope in different ways and with different levels of success with different types of adversities.

Sometimes we judge ourselves and others negatively because: ”We should have coped better!”, or “Why do they make such a fuss, it’s not such a big deal!” .  When we measure the level of resilience we have or someone else has we must be gentle.  It may be better to try and understand the effect the adversity has or had on the person and how he/she coped with it rather than to say the adversity was big or small or the person coped well or poorly.  It is not only the size and impact of the adversity that counts, it is also factors such as the significance for us that counts. Many years ago my mother-in-law was involved in a minor motorcar accident months after my father-in-law passed away, she was most upset and we were surprised because she was a strong woman. Then we realized that she was afraid of losing the car – it was one thing that still connected her to him, after he died she moved from their house and there seemed to her to be less and les things that they “did together”, but the car was still a link.

Adversities then have the nasty habit of acting like a mirror, showing us to ourselves. Instead of judging ourselves because we reacted in a particular way, we may want to ask questions such as: “What are the significance to me?”  “How did I cope in the past or what experience do I have” , “What does this say about me.”

The following graphic may help to illustrate what we have been saying:

Play around with other words and situations on the two axis; for instance you may find that a financial disaster is more significant to you than a car breaking down, or a distant family member falling ill. To somebody else family is everything and they will hit panic stations the minute their family, even extended family, is affected.  This will help you to understand the situation better. In the example above of my mother-in-law we did not understand the situation until we put “Loss of car” against “Personal significance”

An analogy in the physical world will probably be that the same Richter Scale reading of seismic activity on a remote island in the Pacific may have far less impact than if it was San Francisco.  It all depends on how you look at it – loss of lives, economic impact or ecological impact. Of course, the personal impact cannot be generalised, it is unique to you.

Scales that measure your level of resilience often look at your disposition such as your level of optimism or your support structures to get an idea of your resilience rather than to establish how big the disaster is or what significance it has for you. Such scales are very valuable from a self-help or educational perspectives, it alerts us areas that may need improvement such as developing a proper support structure to deal with disasters. A good place to start is www.authentichappiness.com– the official website for Positive Psychology and the work of Martin Seligman et al. There are also a number of stress resilience scales on the web that will give valuable insights.

There are some adversities that we will have difficulty coping with no matter how high our resilience is and it is extremely important that we seek professional help in such instances. This series of posts are no substitute for professional help, the aim of these posts is to increase your levels of emotional intelligence, your self-awareness and self management and your ability to understand other people as they deal with the adversities in their lifes. The aim is to improve your understanding and to enhance your coping mechanisms not too treat you. Only a qualified health professional can do that and if you feel unsure whether to consult one or not rather err on the side of caution and visit one as soon as possible.

Resilience, adversity and change: Phases 7 – 9

“Shoulda, coulda, and woulda won’t get it done. In attacking adversity, only a positive attitude, alertness, and regrouping to basics can launch a comeback.”

Pat Riley

Legendary Basketball Coach

Phase 7: Experimentation:

It is in the seventh phase that the individual begins to seriously experiment with new and different behaviours and beliefs.  It may be as simple as finding out who your real friends are, or how much your family actually means to you. Think of a heavy drinker who stops and loses all his drinking-buddies!  He discovers that what he thought were his true friends were only there to drink.  Suddenly he has to behave differently, develop new relationships and try to understand the new “rules of the game”.  In this process, there will be both successes and failures and the individual’s belief in his own ability to cope will fluctuate accordingly.

If the individual succeeds in other words if what he tried out worked the way he expected, the new behaviour is repeated and strengthened, if he fails he or she may be back, to an extent, at the first phase and go through all the phases a second time. Think of a person who loses a business and now goes through the process again of building up a second one. Let’s say his second attempt fails at the first try i.e. he cannot get sufficient credit “because of a poor track record.” He will probably be devastated by the news! It takes a lot of courage to pick yourself up and try again.

Phase 8: Realization:

Through the experimentation of the previous phase, the person learns what behaviours work and what doesn’t.  This understanding helps the individual build confidence and competence to succeed in the new environment as he/she begins to trust him or herself and others begin to trust him or her as well.   Gradually a new comfort zone emerges.

When we start at a new company we are uncomfortable and it takes time before we understand  the new culture and expectations. We try different forms of behaviour to see what works and what is acceptable or not and as we find out what works we relax and become comfortable – we feel as if this is our place.  The same is true of all change.

Phase 9: Integration:

In this final phase, the individual integrates the change completely and the new attitudes, beliefs, patterns of thinking and behaviour come easily and naturally.  The new way becomes the comfort zone.  His or her life is in balance and integrated in the sense that it has fallen into a pattern that is effective, efficient and appropriate for the situation that he or she is in.

The Phases and Resilience:

The phases described above are what happen when everything goes well.  In the ideal world we will pass seamlessly from one phase into the other and we will integrate easily.  In reality this seldom happens.  More often than not we get stuck at one or more of these phases and we either remain there or we suffer through to the next phase.  When there is a major adversity that we have to face such as loss of a job we can often pin point our experience very clearly.  But there are usually a myriad of other smaller adversities that also take place that are so small that we hardly notice them although they run the same course underneath the surface.

For instance; if you have lost your job you want to save money and you decide to use only one car.  That means that you have to drop the family off at work and school so that you have the car to go to job interviews etc.  The family now has to get used to this new pattern.  To them this is an adversity while to you this is trivial as finding a job is your adversity.  You find yourself boxed in trying to see as many employers as possible while still being available to pick up the kids from school.  Suddenly having the whole morning for interviews appears to be shorter than when you first planned it.  Adversity after adversity seems to pile up, and you cannot even begin to understand or manage or sort any of them out.

This model helps us understand what is happening to us.  It is useful to think back to adversities that we handled in the past – whether well or poorly- so that we can better understand what happened and use the insight to deal with future adversity.

Let’s look at some of the typical stopping points when we are faced with an adversity.

Denial: – Some people just cannot face the adversity and go into denial.  They may refuse to talk about it, ignore what has happened or withdraw.  In extreme cases they can develop pathologies to avoid acknowledging the event.

Refusal: – We can refuse the change in many ways.  Often employees wait a change out as they have heard it before and experience has taught them that nothing will come of it.  This often happens with quality drives or productivity drives or any of the other changes that regularly take place in the company. People cling to their old way of doing things and refuse to adopt new patterns of behaviour.

The Twilight zone: – The twilight zone is one of the most difficult phases to go through as we constantly fluctuate between intellectual understanding and emotional acceptance.  We must fluctuate because intellectual understanding is often a precursor to emotional acceptance, but the opposite is also true. Sometimes when we are passionate enough about something we learn what we have to learn in order to understand it rationally.  In this twilight zone it is easy to jump back to ‘Refusal’ in order to get away from the uncertainty and anxiety.  We have to suffer through being in limbo until we can accept emotionally what has happened and how it will affect us.

Emotional Acceptance: – There is no easy way to change emotionally.  It takes time, introspection, discussing it with other people and sometimes even professional help before we can reach the stage of acceptance.  This is often called a crisis because it is something that we have to discard and something new that we have to fit.  We can get stuck in this process, not wiling to let go and not willing to embrace the present.

Experimentation:- In experimentation we may not be able to get it right and forever be in the process of trying something new.  The situation may be very difficult.  For example, adapting to life in a different country and culture.

Summary

This is just some of the stopping places along the way, there are others and we will discuss them in future posts. Go through the last three posts again to get an overview of the model and take a situation that you have experienced and work through it phase by phase. Remember that positive change goes through the same phases as adverse change, you can use either a positive or a negative experience for this analysis.

Resilience, Adversity and Change: Phases 5 & 6.

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”

Norman Vincent Peale Author of “The Power of Positive Thinking

Phase 5 – Intellectual Understanding:

If this adversity does not go away then the individual has to start adjusting his/her thinking to obtain an intellectual grasp of the situation.  At this stage, people often get caught up in the process or the details and they can fall into emotional paralysis or an over-emphasis on the details.  This can be an attempt to avoid taking the next step, (Emotional Acceptance) or it can be a way of working through or dealing with the next phase.  Often when someone passes away the remaining spouse or another family member gets very involved in the funeral arrangements and other details and people often say: “The fact of the death hasn’t hit him/her yet; it will come and we better be prepared.” This is true, often such people react emotionally only some time after the death. It is as if the person left behind has an intellectual understanding and deals with the situation intellectually, but emotionally they are clased off.

In many organizations, managers and other change agents often give lip service to the idea of change but as there is no passion in the message they convey they have difficulty persuading their subordinates to implement this change. Managers may fall into the trap of details and process while their subordinates may be more concerned with other, more personal and emotional issues. In the case of job retrenchments the subordinates may ask: ”How will it be done?” Many managers respond by giving details of the process when the employees only want to know: “Who are to be re-trenched?” and “How will you select?”

The Twilight Zone:

Strictly speaking this is not a phase, but it is probably the most important stage of the process and the one that is the most difficult to manage and often misunderstood.  In the twilight zone the person fluctuates between Intellectual understanding and Emotional Acceptance.

Although the individual understands intellectually what is happening or has happened, he or she has not yet accepted it emotionally.  Therefore they go through the necessary actions, mechanically and numbly without any enthusiasm or emotional commitment. It is a “going through the motions” phase.  Mistakes are very common and the level of procrastination is high.  Generally there is a prevalence of low productivity, absenteeism and illness.  Stress, anxiety, panic attacks, crying or arguing are all common in this phase as the individual reacts emotionally and displays rebellion and anger.  If it remains difficult for the individual to accept the change or adversity, depression can set in.  Due to the uncertainty, the individual may withdraw into him or herself and “shut down” as much as possible in an effort to self-protect.  The stages of the Grief Cycle as mentioned in a previous post, comes into play now, have a look at those stages again it will help you to better understand the Twillight Zone.

At this stage, resilience is very low and the individual often has very little belief in his/her ability to cope.  During this period it is necessary for the individual to be in a safe structured environment while being guided by someone else who is less involved, more in control and who has already emotionally accepted the adversity. Anybody wha has experienced any transition in their careers know how important the support of your family and friends are.

Imagine somebody that was in a coma for a period of time and then passes away. The family has had to go through a long period of intellectual understanding while the patient was in the coma, without necessarily achieving emotional acceptance, as there is the uncertainty as to what will happen next. When the death occurs, the emotional acceptance can now be more difficult as the family members are likely to have hoped that their relative will recover. The death now means that the family has to adjust from; “Where there is life, there is hope” to “ maybe it is better that he died as it is likely he would not have recovered completely and that would have been worse.”

To understand this stage completely you should read the next phase and then return to the Twilight Zone.

Phase 6 – Emotional Acceptance:

The most difficult and also most important phase is the emotional acceptance of change.  It is the most difficult because it often taps our deepest beliefs, values, attitudes and “the way we see the world.”  It is the most important because if we do not accept we will have difficulty moving on to the next phases –  experimentation, realization and integration.  Without acceptance we will be paying only lip service to the change and will not be able to embrace it and go forward with enthusiasm.  As we often have to re-think our beliefs and align ourselves with the change that has happened in our lives, this phase usually take time.

There is both an intellectual and emotional component in the definition of an attitude.  If we have to change our attitude to embrace a change and we have done the intellectual understanding in the previous phase we now have to deal with the emotional acceptance.  It is interesting to note that a “good” event may be as difficult to accept as a “bad” event.  It can be as difficult for a poor man to achieve sudden riches is at is for a wealthy man to accept bankruptcy.  The individuals involved in both cases now have to suddenly start to “think differently” about themselves, their life and the environment they live in.  In certain cultures this process is sometimes prescribed.  For example, the clothes and colours that a widow or widower may wear is prescribed.  Often this process helps the individual to make the adjustment from married to widower to possibly marrying again

Resilience, Adversity and Change; Phases 1 – 3

Phase 1 –Business as Usual:

This is the pre-adversity phase where although everything is not perfect it is going along well and we are able to cope.  We are relaxed and functioning within a comfort –zone.  The aspect of comfort and comfort zone is very important – our circumstances may not be so grea, we may be actually unhappy in a particular job or relationship but the comfort keeps us there. We may believe consciously or unconsciously: “Rather the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

Phase 2 – Adversity:

This is an event that takes place and which we experience as negative or adverse.  This may be personal or situational i.e. the present economic crisis may affect you personally or it may not; the effect may be intense or it may be mild. What is important is that you see it as an adversity.

Phase 3 – Denial:

Our first reaction is one of disbelief and denial.  We cannot believe that this has happened to us.  We are stunned and may even feel numb or disoriented.  We generally experience a feeling of “This cannot be happening.” 

Phase 4 – Refusal:

This is the phase where we refuse to accept that the incident has happened and return to our old belief system.  It is as if we do not want to acknowledge what has happened and the possible resulting consequences.  Our behaviour can take many forms and include; anger, defensiveness, blaming and bargaining.  If there is a need for retrenchment in an organization, people are likely to say; ”This won’t happen to us as they’ll only cut non-essential staff.”

Why do we do this? The individual’s perceived competence is increased because he or she falls back on the values, attitudes and competencies that have worked well in the past.  This way they manage to  “restore their comfort zone,” by such talk and thoughts. Joel Barker in the “Business of Paradigms” warns however that when a paradigm changes everything goes back to zero. A paradigm is a mental map that we have of how the world works and how we can best function in the world. Not all adversities are paradigm shifting, but more than we realize actually are and the way we function in the world changes.

On a personal level when a parent(s) die the children often keep family festivities in exactly the same way for instance Christmas, it is as if we refuse to acknowledge that life has changed and that we now have to start new traditions and ways of doing things.  This may be one of the reasons why we find it so difficult to stay on a diet or an execise programme or make personal improvements. We say to ourselves “I just have to eat more healthy and exercise more.” Instead of defining clearly what we want, what we are going to do to get it, identify the resources and systems to do it and then do it. If you want to cut out sugar don’t have sugar in your house or hide it away well, if you want to exercise join a gym or club, get to bed earlier, organize everything so that you can stick to your plan. As Mahatma Gandhi said:” If you want things to change, be the change.”

In organizations change often meets with resistance and with an attitude of “we have heard this before.” The change is ignored and people carry on in the same old way.  Management has to emphasize that there is a change, that it is here to stay and all systems and resources must be geared towards the change. A change killer is a situation where the change is announced in January but nothing can be done because the budget will only be approved in April, or the change is not supported by an accompanying change in performance management or other systems.

Resilience, adversity and change.

In the previous posts we looked at the different aspects of resilience and that resilience come into play when we meet adversities. There is a very intense and dynamic interaction between the self and the events that take place in our environment. We perceive or interpret an event in a certain way according to our belief system. We usually call an event a disaster when this event is out of the ordinary and we perceive it as being negative. The very fact that we call an event (the event is neutral’ it just happened) an adversity or a disaster or worse is already an indication of this interaction.
Ironically so called “good” or positive events can trigger the same reactions; everything that happens to us has an emotional reaction. As there are a stream of thoughts through our mind, so is there is a stream of feelings and these feelings trigger thoughts and the thoughts again trigger feelings.
Imagine the following: you are unattached and you meet someone and you think there is a chance of a relationship and thoughts of love, relationships, sex, maybe marriage all crowd your mind and your thoughts and feelings ride roller-coaster inside. At the same time a friend of yours has borrowed money from you and keep on avoiding paying it back. You have to confront him or her and you realize that it may be the end of the friendship. Thoughts and feelings about friendship, relationships, money, honesty tumble through your mind. The first situation you will probably call an opportunity, luck, wonderful so exciting. The second a disaster, so horrible, so depressing! Form the point of your inner turmoil however they are both the same and both can be very exhausting!
What we define as an adversity and how we react to it is very individual and is a function of our own unique make-up. In a future post I will discus some of these aspects. There are so many factors that influence our reactions that it is virtually impossible to discuss everything, but as we discuss some of these issues it will probably trigger thoughts and feelings that will help you to understand yourself better. When you face adversities you should.
Be aware of your own thoughts and feelings,
Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings – make a note of them,
Reflect on them,
Try to understand them,
Choose to have those thoughts and feelings or
Change the thoughts and feelings to more resilient thoughts and feelings.
Research and theory have established that there are very typical stages or phases that we go through when we are faced by an adversity.
The first of these theories we will discuss is Dr Kubler-Ross’ G rief Cycle. Dr Kubler-Ross worked with terminally ill patients and in her book: “On Death and Dying” she describes the following stages that a terminally ill patient goes through:
Denial,
Anger,
Bargaining,
Depression,
Acceptance.
Although there is no denying that these stages exist and if you think about it you will probably have experienced these stages yourself when faced with a tragic event like the death of a loved one. However the theory was developed for terminally ill patients and the cycle concludes with the acceptance of the inevitable end.
The question now arises; how do we react if we have to go on?

Oliver Recklies (2001) developed a model for organisational change that with some adaptation can also apply to individuals. Although it also has Acceptance as one of its sages it does not end there, but describes what happens when the person goes on with his/her life. Moreover it bridges the gap between what an individual feels inside and what happens on the outside where the adversity took place. The model is graphically illustrated below and each stage will be described in a future post.

In the previous posts we looked at the different aspects of resilience and that resilience come into play when we meet adversities. There is a very intense and dynamic interaction between the self and the events that take place in our environment. We perceive or interpret an event in a certain way according to our belief system. We usually call an event a disaster when this event is out of the ordinary and we perceive it as being negative. The very fact that we call an event (the event is neutral’ it just happened) an adversity or a disaster or worse is already an indication of this interaction.
Ironically so called “good” or positive events can trigger the same reactions; everything that happens to us has an emotional reaction. As there are a stream of thoughts through our mind, so is there is a stream of feelings and these feelings trigger thoughts and the thoughts again trigger feelings.
Imagine the following: you are unattached and you meet someone and you think there is a chance of a relationship and thoughts of love, relationships, sex, maybe marriage all crowd your mind and your thoughts and feelings ride roller-coaster inside. At the same time a friend of yours has borrowed money from you and keep on avoiding paying it back. You have to confront him or her and you realize that it may be the end of the friendship. Thoughts and feelings about friendship, relationships, money, honesty tumble through your mind. The first situation you will probably call an opportunity, luck, wonderful so exciting. The second a disaster, so horrible, so depressing! Form the point of your inner turmoil however they are both the same and both can be very exhausting!
What we define as an adversity and how we react to it is very individual and is a function of our own unique make-up. In a future post I will discus some of these aspects. There are so many factors that influence our reactions that it is virtually impossible to discuss everything, but as we discuss some of these issues it will probably trigger thoughts and feelings that will help you to understand yourself better. When you face adversities you should.
Be aware of your own thoughts and feelings,
Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings – make a note of them,
Reflect on them,
Try to understand them,
Choose to have those thoughts and feelings or
Change the thoughts and feelings to more resilient thoughts and feelings.
Research and theory have established that there are very typical stages or phases that we go through when we are faced by an adversity.
The first of these theories we will discuss is Dr Kubler-Ross’ G rief Cycle. Dr Kubler-Ross worked with terminally ill patients and in her book: “On Death and Dying” she describes the following stages that a terminally ill patient goes through:
Denial,
Anger,
Bargaining,
Depression,
Acceptance.
Although there is no denying that these stages exist and if you think about it you will probably have experienced these stages yourself when faced with a tragic event like the death of a loved one. However the theory was developed for terminally ill patients and the cycle concludes with the acceptance of the inevitable end.
The question now arises; how do we react if we have to go on?

Oliver Recklies (2001) developed a model for organisational change that with some adaptation can also apply to individuals. Although it also has Acceptance as one of its sages it does not end there, but describes what happens when the person goes on with his/her life. Moreover it bridges the gap between what an individual feels inside and what happens on the outside where the adversity took place. The model is graphically illustrated below and each stage will be described in a future post.

“If it looks like a duck, if it quakes like a duck, if it waddles like a duck – it is a duck”

Resilience has more than one facet to it and the many facets reflect the various aspects or sides of this concept. By looking at these aspects we learn more about the concept and can use it better to enrich our lives and the lives of the people we work and live with. There are a number of terms that are close to resilience and are often used instead of resilience or because the speaker come from a particular point of view or background but actually he or she means the same thing.

We will discuss a couple of these terms in this post, but if you have comments or a different opinion or another term that you want to discuss please comment and we will discuss it.

Mental Strength – Mental strength is used very loosely, but usually it refers to a person’s ability to focus or concentrate for long periods of time and to stay on track. Sport stars are sometimes said to “lose it half-way through the match.” Mental strength is also a factor in studying or working on a project. Some occupations require enormous amounts of concentration such as surgeons during a long operation, air-traffic controllers, etc. There are two factors at least involved here the person’s mental capacity, in short how his/her brain works and the emotional capacity, that is the capacity not to get despondent, too follow procedure at all times, to carry on even if it seems hopeless etc. In this series of posts we will concentrate on the emotional side but if there is enough interest we can look at the mental side as well.

Perseverance /Persistence – Can be defined as “refusing to give up or let go.” Seth Godin argues that: “Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.” Both definitions are true; sometimes we have to just keep on doing the same thing and we will succeed. At other times we need to change our tactics or approach in order to achieve the same goal. What is important however is having the flexibility to change tactics and the determination not to give up.

Willpower – is the ability to exert one’s will over one’s actions. Willpower manifests as inner firmness, decisiveness, determination, resolution and persistence.
Remez Sasson describes willpower and self-discipline as follows; ‘Willpower is the inner strength to make decisions, take action, and handle and execute any aim or task, regardless of inner and outer resistance, discomfort or difficulties. It manifests as the ability to overcomes laziness, temptations and negative habits, and to carry out actions, even if they require effort, are unpleasant and tedious or are contrary to one’s habits’.
Self discipline is the ability to reject instant gratification or pleasure in favor of something better or a higher goal. It manifests as the inner strength to stick to actions or plans in spite of obstacles, difficulties or unpleasantness. It is one of the pillars of success, and bestows the inner strength to direct your energy and attention to your goal, and persevere until it is accomplished.
Willpower and self-discipline have very similar definitions, which share the common trait of perseverance.
It is clear that there are no watertight distinctions between these terms and elements of the one appear in the description of the other. Sometimes certain aspects are emphasized more in one than the other. Rather than to differentiate between these terms we will use all of them under the umbrella term of Resilience.
Courage: Although not as directly related to resilience as for instance willpower, it may be asked if resilient people are not just more courageous. Hannah, Sweeney & Lester in 2007 did some research on the topic and found that courageous people appear to share the following traits:
1. Openness to experience: This trait is associated with both divergent thinking, e.g. brainstorming, and the related idea of creativity. Being courageous, then, is all about having options, and in order to generate those options you need to be creative.

2. Conscientiousness: Conscientious people tend to be dependable and have a sense of duty towards themselves and others. They get the job done.

3. Core self-evaluation: Such individuals generally exhibit traits of emotional stability and maintain an internal locus of control. As a result they tend to manage to feel in control of most situations.

4. Self-efficacy: Individuals with this trait tend to have a sense of self-confidence and an innate ability to achieve desired goals.

5. Means efficacy: This is the belief that the tools available can do the job.

6. Hope: Believing the task is possible and seeing a way of carrying it out at the time at which it needs to be done.

7. Resilience: This is bounce-back-ability. It’s also having the belief that should the inevitable problems arise, it is possible to overcome them.

8. Inner convictions: These include independence, selflessness, integrity and honour. These types of beliefs can all have important effects on behaviour in the face of fear.

9. Social forces: Individuals look at how others react to a situation and then consider how they should act in relation to others.

Character – Usually refers to a number of qualities that a person possesses or does not possess. Qualities such as courage, integrity, honesty, loyalty and many others. It can also refer to his/her behaviour or habits. Character refers to a person’s adherence to a set of morals or values and he becomes known as such – although this is true of all of us, well-known figures such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King are renowned for their moral character and moral stance. Character then supersedes the personality and distracting circumstances and keeps the person on course and focused despite these distractions. Psychologist Lawrence Pervin defines moral character as “a disposition to behave expressing itself in consistent patterns of functioning across a range of situations” (Pervin 1994, p.108)

Imagine the following situations: You are by nature an impatient person and you have a date with your partner. Your job is to help mentally challenged people who can take their time doing things and may also take longer to grasp what needs to be done. It is getting late and you know your partner is waiting for you; By nature you will lose your temper and become impatient with this person, by nature your partner who is left waiting for you will annoy you, but out of respect for the patient you take a deep breath and with patience and kindness you help the person to do the task.

Resilience is part of many of the terms we have discussed and many of the terms is part of resilience. Resilience and its associated terms are not uni-dimensional concepts and the different terms highlight different aspects of resilience. It is also true that what is “normal” for one person is an act of resilience to another. For example, the average person goes to work everyday without giving it much thought. However, a disabled person has many more daily challenges to face before he or she can achieve what most people take for granted in this regard.

Resilience, Goals and Process.

I am friends with a lady who is part of a group that is interested in “living history,” This group travels the country as a group or individually and let one another know what quaint places they discovered, what bits of history there is such as a horse cart repair museum (does that make sense?) etc. The lady that I know wanders around the country in a car, as you would walk around in your neighbourhood. She sometimes books a room; otherwise she just pitches and hopes she finds a bed at a B&B. She discovers the most interesting farm stalls and people, and listen to their stories, visit the places they suggest and have a ball o a time. She keeps an e-newsletter and sends it to the members of the group.

One of the other group members always comments, often on suggestions she made about a nice place she discovered. He mostly concurs with her findings, but he will give the best and fastest route to the site, the best value for money B&B, petrol consumption, travel time, road conditions etc. He is very goal directed and plans everything to the last detail. According to my friend they each have their own following and the two groups can be quite bitchy with one another!

What has all this to do with resilience? Although you cannot classify people in absolute categories, people are inclined to be more process-oriented or more goal-oriented. Process people enjoy the ride or the game or the project. Process people learn on the fly and they learn from experience rather than from formal or preparatory study. Process people sometimes have difficulty putting their learning or experience into words – it is such a total experience that putting it into words diminishes it. Whether they reach the goal or not is important, but if they don’t they have had fun along the way. They enjoy basking in the glory of the experience and it may be some time before they embark on another adventure.

Goal directed people on the other hand has a specific goal in mind, reaching that goal is the object, you have to find the fastest and shortest route to that goal, you have to prepare and educate yourself before you start, you have to stay on track and once the goal is reached you start on the next one – no wasting time on reflecting. It is easy to put an experience into words, you just follow the structure that you laid out at the beginning and that is it!

Do you recognize yourself? Or a partner, collogue, friend or family member?

What has all this to do with resilience?
The goal-directed person when he experiences adversity sees it as a setback, it wasn’t planned, it can seriously affect goal achievement and totally screw up the program, schedule, resources and whatever else. Adversities have to be dealt with immediately and seriously, even brutally. You have to get back to the budget, time-line etc. Adversities are conquered and eliminated, not indulged and something to learn from and to study. Get it over with and out of the way.

Process people see adversities as opportunities to explore, as a sidetrack that may lead to something new, as being in the deep-end and learning to swim. They don’t fight adversity they embrace it and see where it leads. Process people of course, get distracted and resources get spent, time wasted and they do end up in dead-ends. 3M discovered a “glue-that-won’t stick” and invented Post-it notes, a huge business success. Many researchers, inventors, explorers and artists work in this way and it works for them although it drives most managers, accountants, project managers and bureaucrats crazy!

Goal-directed people may lack resilience because they only see adversities; and when there are too many or they come too often they can become stressed and even suffer from burnout. Goal-directed people may need to be more flexible and they may have to pay more attention to creativity and spotting opportunities. They may miss opportunities because they are so goal-directed. You often hear sportsmen and woman interviewed before the game say “Just too enjoy myself,” this is a reminder to themselves not to be so intent on winning that they forget to play and enjoy the game. Goal-directed people may be hard on themselves and their team “because they missed dead-line, or are over budget etc.” Although these things are important it is also important to have a more balances scorecard and ask questions such as:” What have we learned; what opportunities have we discovered; what skills have we acquired; where can we use what we have learned?” Keeping a research diary, or a journal also known as a portfolio of evidence, both individually and as a team, is very important in this regard. Sports teams watch videos of their previous games to improve their performance; the research diary is your video.

Process people may think that they lack resilience because they are distracted by every adversity although they see it as an opportunity! They may beat themselves up because they never make deadlines or budget and they often have to work 24/7 to make deadline. They wish they were more organized and made better use of resources. They forget about the opportunities they spotted, what they have learned etc. For process people it is also necessary to keep a research diary as it helps to keep them on track – have you ever noticed that when something is bugging you and you write it down you can deal with it better? It is as if the thoughts are not so obsessive anymore and even if you still think about it you add that thought to what you have written. Slowly you build a whole frame of reference from a single fleeting thought that would have bugged you while you were working or until you have set time aside to work on it exclusively. That is where the time wasting often occurs, paying too much attention to fleeting thoughts. Write them down and return to them when you think of something to add or at the end of the project when you are finished. This blog post was never planned – I had the thought from watching a TV programme on the life of an artist and remembered something I learned at a workshop I attended decades ago – and linked them to resilience. It took a month to build this post. Why? Because the fledgling idea took time to grow and I added as I went along. I could do that because I kept track of my thoughts.

The goal directed person lacks flexibility, the process person stickability!

It doesn’t matter which one you are – what matters is that you are aware of your style and learn to manage it for optimum results.

Why Emotional Resilience?

If you search the web or wikipedia for “resilience” you get all sorts of definitions and articles. The term emotional resilience is commonly used to distinguish the resilience that people have from the resilience that materials have i.e. breaking strength or that companies have to survive economic and other crises. Although it is understandable that a distinction has to be made between human resilience and other forms, to call human resilience emotional resilience is a bit of a misnomer. Emotions are not the only factor that plays a part in our resilience. For people to be resilient they need to be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually strong.

Physical:- How physically healthy, fit and strong you need to be to be resilient depends to an extent on the adversity. If the adversity is physical in nature then of course being physically strong will be an advantage, think of a group of people that are trapped and one of the survivors are very unfit. Obviously he will suffer more and be less resilient. Being physically healthy and fit, although not a pre-requisite for resilience, is definitely to your advantage.

Mentally:- You don’t have to be a genius to be resilient, rather you must have the ability to think clearly under stress and if you have a number of thinking tools to analyse the situation and to decide on the best course of action it will be to your advantage.

Emotionally:- Your ability to manage yourself emotionally so that you don’t panic or that unwarranted fears do not adversely influence your functioning will help you overcome adversities. Your ability to understand and manage other people if required, will help them and you to cope better with the situation.

Spiritually:- Belief in an organized religion or in a particular religion is not at stake here. Rather it is the fruits of a spiritual life that we talk about such as faith, love, respect, hope, gratitude, unselfishness, that help us through an adversity. After the tsunami at P’iket the tourists all praised the inhabitants for their unselfishness to help tourists although their own lives were destroyed. When asked why they were helping strangers, they would answer: ” My house is destroyed, but my family is safe.” One is humbled by such resilience.

These factors work in unison and although the type of adversity we face may call upon more of a certain aspect than on another all four are important and we should try and live a balanced live and be ready and able to respond appropriately to the adversity.

What is Resilience?

When I hear the word resilience I think of a rope or some material that is tough, can withstand pressure, can be twisted and retain its shape and function. Something like a ball or a rope comes to mind. A ball can be kicked, thrown, hit, sat on, rolled, but it still remains a ball. It can also be used for many things – besides sports, think of the many commercial and industrial uses – ball bearings, wheels, ball cocks, “chairs”(Pilates balls) and much more. No matter how you use it or abuse it or what its function or purpose, it remains a ball.

The same is true of other materials and objects, take a rope for instance, it can be turned, twisted, knotted, stretched, it can be used to carry, haul, catch, tie, keep, – the uses are endless – if you think of a fishing- net do you think of the individual ropes that it is made of or the function, the fish that you want to catch? And a hammock do you think of the ropes or the lazy afternoon sleeping under the trees or on the beach?

Is the same true of people and emotional resilience? I think so – the qualities of a resilient person are much the same as that of the examples we have used above.

Resilience is how well you deal with the curve balls that life throws at you. Curveballs however, as you know, are very specific to the player; some players can deal with certain curveballs very well while other players can be caught flat-footed with the same curveball. Curve balls are difficult balls for any player to hit but some players have learned certain tricks and techniques how to spot these curveballs and how to play the curve balls. You know what I mean, sometimes you get pitched a curveball and you spot it early and you get excited because of the challenge and you hit it and you look at the pitcher’s face and you see the dumbfounded expression on his face because from his favourite curveball you scored a home run! Other curveball leave you floundering and flat-footed, you didn’t spot it, you don’t know what to do with it and you either strike out or you hit it straight up in the air for an easy catch.

Sometimes the playing field is not quite level and what may be a normal ball for most people suddenly become a curveball for you. I have a friend who is directionally challenged and she can lose herself in the smallest of shopping malls! When she has to turn left she turns right, when she has to go straight she turns around and go the other way. What for most people will be an easy shopping center to negotiate and find your way in, to her is just a merry-go-round of same looking shops. To her, finding her car in the parking lot is a major achievement. The playing field is not level for her. What most people experience as fun and a great experience, to her can quickly turn into a very difficult situation.

So the question is not only what curve balls life throws at us, the question is how effectively do we deal with these curve balls. Emotional resilience is the ability to deal effectively emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually with the hardships, adversities and difficulties that life presents to us. Although the adversity is one side of the coin, the other side of the coin is our ability to deal with it, our experience in dealing with similar situations, how level the playing field is for us in this particular situation and the resources that we have at our disposal, resources that we may not even have been aware of or have not used very regularly.

In future articles we will explore each one of these aspects in greater detail to understand emotional resilience better and also how to deal with adversities more effectively.