Resilience: an essential tool for the 21st century

Resilience: the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

Resilience is such an interesting word.  Over the last couple of weeks it’s cropped up quite a bit for me.  It started in a meeting with a corporate client about a programme my HAW partner and I are developing for them.  After that meeting I gave quite a bit of thought to the term “resilience” and why it’s so important, and ever since then the concept has kept popping its head up here and there.  Just another example of “energy flows where attention goes” I suppose 

Anyway, getting back to this meeting that started me off:  the HR manager in this place is wonderful - she truly cares about the welfare of her employees and is completely on board with how essential happiness is in the workplace.  But over the course of our discussions the programme evolved into Resilience at Work rather than the initially proposed Happiness at Work.   

The reason for this is that there'd be greater buy-in from management and participating employees in a programme that offers them "resilience" rather than one that offers them "happiness".  In an increasingly stressful workplace, everyone wants to be able to cope with the demands placed upon them, and with juggling their roles in and out of work.  "Resilience" is something they clearly see the benefit of. 

"Happiness" is a different kettle of fish entirely.  It's perceived to be a whole lot more touchy-feely, and as having no real role to play in work.  As employees, we work to live, and it is outside work where we seek our happiness.  As employers, our main concern is the bottom line performance of our business, and we want focused, productive workers, not smiley happy people going around being nice to each other all the time!

Am I out of touch?  Is that not the common view of the working brigade?  I have been out of the formal workplace for a few years now, choosing to be my own boss, and putting happiness (on the job and off it) ahead of conventional career success, so maybe what I'm recalling is no longer the case.   But listening to my clients talk about their working lives, and its impact on their personal lives, I'm inclined to think that culture is still alive and well, and sucking the life and wellness out of way too many people.

The culture of long hours; the reality of long commutes; the perception that success requires a hard-nosed attitude and approach; getting home after the kids are already in bed; these are the things the modern worker is struggling with, and they take their toll on mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

And yet it is accepted as the way things are.  Instead of seeking to change this culture, the majority are clamoring to learn how to cope with, or manage it.  What they want is to become resilient.  I suspect many people are afraid to focus on happiness at work, because they fear they’ll wind up quitting the high salaried job to follow a dream that will render them penniless!   So give them resilience which will help them to cope and be happier, if not quite as happy as they could be…

But the way I see it, that doesn’t have to be the case.  It is completely possible to learn ways of being happy at work that don’t require drastic life changes.  And besides, happiness and resilience are completely inter-related.  A resilient person tends to be happier because they bounce back from life’s knocks more quickly and easily.  And a happier person tends to be more resilient for a whole heap of reasons (they look after their own needs, not just the needs of others; they interpret life’s events – be they good or bad – in a positive manner which in turn enables them to cope with them better; happier people have better mental and physical health than unhappy people; I could go on for a while here …) So, being committed to being happy at work doesn’t mean you’re a big softie – it means you’re strong, RESILIENT, and can cope with a hell of a lot more.

Happily (!), the resistance to happiness at work is starting to thaw.  Many companies are starting to truly appreciate its importance, and for those who are still more attracted to “resilience”, well they’re already on the slippery slope of embracing “happiness” ;-)   As for our client, what are they going to get?  Well exactly what they asked for of course: a Resilience at Work programme.  BUT, we'll be sneakily empowering them to be happier at work in the process!