WorkPuzzle

Resilience: Are You Able to Thrive Under Stressful Conditions? Part 2

Dr. Salvatore Maddi, a professor of psychology at the University of California says,

“People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties. They find themselves more involved in their work when it gets tougher and more complicated. They tend to think of stress as a normal part of life, rather than as something that's unfair.'' 

As mentioned yesterday, resilience has been a topic of intense study by researchers. The research has given us clear characteristics of what differentiates people who thrive under stress from those who become less healthy and tend to languish.

The researchers indentified the traits of commitment, control, and challenge at the “transformational coping skills” shared by those who become stronger during stressful times.

More specifically, the people who possessed these coping skills were able to:

• Find the personal meaning in the challenge, rather than detaching and giving up.

• Plan out sound problem-solving strategies.
• Facilitate an atmosphere of support and encouragement among co-workers
• Help those around them build the traits of commitment, control, and challenge (they decrease the isolation, powerlessness, and fear that others feel).

Most importantly, while researchers believe that resilience traits come more naturally to some people, they’re finding that these skills can be taught.

Closely examine the “transformational coping skills” listed in the last blog. Which skills should you deliberately work hard to develop? Which skills could you focus on teaching to those you manage?

In addition, be alert to hire people who have demonstrated these traits throughout their lifetime. Hiring “top talent” based on a short-term track record (i.e. performance on their last job) may not be the only criteria worth considering when you add people to your recruiting pipeline.  Look for people who demonstrate resilience.

Also, tailor your interviews to include questions that allow candidates to demonstrate their natural tendencies to be committed, seize control, and see opportunity amidst challenges.  

Editor's Note:  Much of the above research was accessed through the Center for Confidence and Well-Being.  This organization is a great resource on this topic if you care to learn more on your own.

 

Resilience: Are You Able to Thrive Under Stressful Conditions?

How are you and the people you manage handling this economic downturn?

The research on resilience tells us there are two possible outcomes in responding to the current economic stressors. Either you’ll become stronger and more successful, or you’ll become weaker, less mentally healthy, and less likely to do great things in the future.

Which outcome will best describe you?  The answer to this question will depend on how you’re able to handle job-related stress and whether you can become a resilient person. 

Management consultants Salvatore Maddi and Deborah Khoshaba conducted a 12-year study of the Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) company staff who were enduring almost constant organizational change during the de-regulation changes in the telephone industry.

Every year for 12 years, 450 IBT employees (including supervisors, managers and executives) were interviewed, evaluated, given psychological tests, and given medical examinations.  While everyone in the organization was feeling stress, almost 50% of those sampled lost their jobs. The purpose of the study was to research how people under job-related stress handled these difficult conditions. 

The research revealed that the employees reacted to the stress in two distinct ways:

• 65% of the employees suffered additional serious stress-related events in their lives such as divorce, heart attacks, depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol abuse.

• 35% of the employees thrived under the stress.  If they stayed at IBT, they rose to the top of the heap.  If they left, they either started companies of their own or took strategically important employment in other companies.

When the data started to show a distinct difference between the two groups of employees,  the researchers then attempted to quantify what caused a person to be part of the second group. 

In their book, Resilience at Work, the researchers outlined their findings.  A “Resilient Person” is someone who possesses the following three attitudes: commitment, control, and challenge.

“As times get tough, if you hold these attitudes, you'll believe that it is best to stay involved with the people and events around you (commitment) rather than to pull out, to keep trying to influence the outcomes in which you are involved (control) rather than to give up, and to try to discover how you can grow through the stress (challenge) rather than to bemoan your fate.”

In short, their commitment allowed the resilient employees to engage more fully in the job at hand (or with a new opportunity for those who lost their jobs).   This helped them to understand and interpret the events that were having an impact on them.

Their sense of control empowered the resilient employees to consider ways that they could proactively influence the changes that were affecting them. Their less resilient colleagues tended to passively withdraw effort, believing there was little they could do to impact what they believed was their fate.

The resilient employees interpreted the stressors and changes as a challenge, and tended to look for the potential opportunities that change would bring about. They took the outlook that change is an inevitable part of life. It didn’t mean that these people enjoyed the stress, but the positive outlook they took positioned them to keep an eye open for new opportunities.

More tomorrow on how to apply this research to what you’re facing in your workplace...

Editor's Note: 

Much of the above research was accessed through the Center for Confidence and Well-Being.  This organization is a great resource on this topic if you care to learn more on your own.

 

Tapping Your "Best Work"--Part 2

"The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly

… Yet it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed and that individuals sometimes reject growth and responsibility. Regardless of social strata or cultural origin, examples of both children and adults who are apathetic, alienated and irresponsible are abundant.

Such non-optimal human functioning can be observed not only in our psychological clinics but also among the millions who, for hours a day, sit passively before their televisions, stare blankly from the back of their classrooms, or wait listlessly for the weekend as they go about their jobs."

-Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci

If you read part one of “Tapping your Best Work” and found yourself lacking the desire to do your best work, you’re not alone—millions of people struggle with this problem and want to be reinvigorated.    Fortunately, there is a great deal of science around motivation, personal strengths, and engagement in one’s work.

“Engagement” is another way of referring to that state when we are immersed in work for its own sake. That is, we’re driven to do the work for intrinsic reasons (meaning, contribution, curiosity) rather than solely for extrinsic reasons (pay, recognition).  Understanding engagement, both in yourself and those with whom you interact, is vital in building a foundation of understanding for your role as a recruiter, coach or leader.

We can’t tackle this topic in just two discussions, but I will share a few ideas of how you can start reinvigorating your sense of engagement right away.

Approach critical tasks with methodologies that create “Flow.” 
 
Flow (a term coined by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi) is the mental state where a person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Flow exists in any interesting sport, game or work task. Creating flow in any task requires that you have the following conditions:

• The task must be challenging (i.e. not easily obtained or accomplished).

• The task must require a high personal skill level to accomplish.

• The task has must have clear goals and rules of performance.

• The task must be performed in an environment where you have the ability to concentrate and avoid distractions.

• In accomplishing the task, there must be a way to gain ongoing feedback about your progress.

• In accomplishing the task, there must be a way to measure or gauge success.

Think about the tasks that you perform on a daily basis.  Do some of the tasks you perform fit the criteria of producing flow?  If not, then you may need to add some tasks or a project that would allow you to experience more flow in your workday.  At the same time, remove some things from your schedule that have no chance of producing flow.

If you’re a manager, are the people you manage performing tasks and projects that fit the criteria of producing flow?  If you do not know the answer to this question, it’s important that you find out.  By nature, each individual experiences flow differently based on their talents, strengths, and interests.  If an employee is experiencing flow in their day-to-day work, they’ll be engaged and produce their best work.

If you’re a recruiter, are those in your recruiting pipeline experiencing flow in the tasks and projects they are performing in their current jobs?  Most are not.  If you can engage a person in a dialog concerning these issues, you’ll have clearer insight concerning their true motivations for staying in an existing job.  You’ll also better understand the objections and fears of making a change. 

Being able to inspire candidates to consider new roles by indentifying with their deep frustrations will put you on a new footing in the recruitment dialog.   Demonstrating how a candidate could then be experiencing flow in his day-to-day work transforms you from a recruiter into a trusted and credible career counselor.