Resilience

This week in the Isle of Man, the pretty little hamlet of Laxey was inundated by floodwater. Whilst not on the scale of some disasters, in Isle of Man terms it was serious enough to trigger a major incident alert, and see the arrival of a huge Coastguard helicopter. At one point the village was effectively cut off. Mercifully, there was no loss of life, but the damage to property, hearts and minds was substantial.

Back in 1980, and again in 1981 my family home on the Fylde Coast of England was flooded. It is a miserable, filthy experience. With the way weather events are going, more and more people are likely to be affected by it. Living next to a river or coastline, once an idyll, is now a source of concern. Even to this day, persistent rain makes me anxious, even though my house is effectively built on stilts, 100m above sea level and 500metres from the coast!

So what has this to do with resilience? I’ve just finished reading ‘Wellbeing at Work’ by Ian Hesketh and Cary Cooper. They talk about those points in our lives when we have to lean on our reserves of resilience. The word comes from the latin ‘resilire’  - to rebound. The important aspects of the rebound seems to be ability to do so, and also our capacity.

A single, shocking life event, especially one with a long recovery phase can take its toll, but in the long term, good recovery is possible. When combined with the ‘drip-stress’ of everyday life, things can quickly compound, and that reserve of resilience – that capacity, can rapidly find itself overflowing – just like the Laxey River. In the latter case, blockage by trees, an old abandoned weir, and a hole in the bank wall were effectively ‘drip stress’. When 100mm of rain came, that was all it took to tip over.

So can we do anything to improve it? I think that we can, through improving our capacity by dealing with some of the ‘dripping’. Taking time to organise the workaday issues – making better systems, dealing with elephants in the room and getting things into perspective can all help. Then, when a big event comes along, its magnitude isn’t as daunting because there are fewer concerns in the background.

If you are a manager, even being able to take some time off to manage the recovery from the ‘big one’ in your own life is a lot easier if you are more confident there isn’t going to be a load of issues on your return. But if we leave these things unresolved, we shouldn’t  be surprised when we find ourselves near breaking point when the taps are turned up.

Think also about the environment you are creating for your people. If your organisation is ‘running hot’, there is usually very little in terms of extra capacity that they can provide. Sure, you might get a few weeks, or maybe months out of them, but remember that they also have their own ‘drip-stress’ outside of work, and this is just adding to it. Soon, absenteeism is up, people are leaving, and the whole organisation is at risk.

Wherever you can, build in resilience. Help your people to be strong, both for themselves, and the organisation. That way, when the chips are down, they will rebound better, and faster. Then after the rebound, learn the lessons, and build  stronger again.

Derek Flint Cert. Ed, MCIPR

Hesketh, I., Cooper, C. (2019), Wellbeing at Work: how to design, implement and design an effective strategy. Kogan Page, London