Resiliency Advantage Excerpt

Download PDF

Chapter One
Thriving in Today's World

Cynthia Dailey-Hewkin poured herself a hot cup of coffee, sat down at the little table in her kitchen, and opened the morning paper. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped open when she saw the front-page headline announcing that the Trojan nuclear plant where she worked was going to shut down. She was shocked. Her first thought was, "Oh no! What am I going to do?"

Cynthia says, "The plant closure came at a particularly difficult time in my life. I was going through a divorce after being married 28 years, and my mother was dying of a brain tumor. Now I was losing my job."

How do you respond to extreme setbacks? People react to life's rough blows in many different ways. Some emotionally explode. They become enraged and flail around. They have emotional tantrums in which they may want to hurt someone. A few become physically violent.

Others do the opposite. They implode. They go numb. They feel so helpless and overwhelmed they can't even try to cope with what has happened.

Some people portray themselves as victims. They blame others for ruining their lives. They spiral downward, mired in unhappy thoughts and feelings. This isn't fair, they complain over and over. Look at what they've done to me now.

Then, as shown above, there is another group, the people who get through their distress, orient quickly to the new reality, and cope with immediate challenges. They bounce back and often spiral upward, stronger and better than before. In the workplace, they convert what could be a major career loss into finding an even better new career.

Highly resilient people are flexible, adapt to new circumstances quickly, and thrive in constant change. Most importantly, they expect to bounce back and feel confident they will. They have a knack for creating good luck out of circumstances that many others see as bad luck.

In the past, individuals had to learn how to become resilient on their own. Now, for the first time, the new science of resiliency psychology can show you how to become quickly and easily resilient in a way that fits your world. Research into coping, optimism, hardiness, stress-resistance, post-traumatic growth, creativity, emotional intelligence, and the survivor personality has identified the main attributes of resiliency.

In the chapters ahead, you will learn how to use knowledge gained from the latest psychology research to develop your unique way of being resilient.

Avoiding the Victim Reaction

Sadly, some people get stuck in the victim/blaming mode when their lives are disrupted. They reject all suggestions on how to cope with what happened. They wonÕt take steps to overcome their difficulties even after the crisis is over. Get- ting stuck in this frame of mind is like tying a rope around your feet and then trying to run a raceÑitÕs a major handicap. Victim thinking keeps people feeling helpless, and by blaming others for their bad situations, they place responsibility on others for making their lives better.

"ReactionÓ is used here in the sense of a reflex that happens without any conscious thought processes or feeling of choices.

"ResponseÓ indicates that your actions after a threat or setback are guided by conscious choices.

Blaming others for ruining the life you had will block you from bouncing back. Blaming an organizationÕs executives, Òthe government,Ó self-serving politicians, administrators who lack emotional intelligence, cheap foreign labor, stock market managers, taxpayers, or any person or group for ruining your life keeps you in a non-resilient victim state in which you do not take resiliency actions.

Your opinion is probably right, of course. As corporate consultant Gary Hamel has observed, Òthe world is becoming turbulent faster than organizations are becoming resilient.Ó2 The chaos of change in todayÕs world is beyond the ability of most organizations to handle well. Some executives and administrators manage their organizations in ways that hamper employee resiliency. Changes in the workplace occur so often now that very few employees have up-to-date job descriptions. And it isnÕt just frequent, disruptive change that must be handled. Morale suffers when friendships with co-workers are disrupted by reorganization, downsizing, and layoffs. Pride in oneÕs work can be hard to maintain when a system you developed for doing things is tossed out and a new system that doesnÕt work as well is imposed on you.

When groups of employees make lists of their challenges and difficulties, they often tell me that there may be an impressive mission statement posted in the front lobby, but back where they work, they feel pressured to do more work of better quality in less time, with fewer people, in new ways, using new technology and new methods on a reduced budget Ñwhile worrying if their jobs are safe. An older manager in a large retail store said, ÒIt used to be that when you took on a bigger workload, worked through your lunch hour, and took work home, you were trying to get a promotion. Now it means you may be able to keep your job three months longer.Ó

The shock of an unexpected layoff can be devastating to someone who has enjoyed strong career progress and expects even more career success. Some people feel crushed and remain depressed for a long time. Some may settle for much lower paying jobs and drift into bitterness about how they feel mistreated. A former manager of a manufacturing plant kept telling upper level executives that they shouldnÕt change anything in ÒhisÓ plant because everything was working fine and his operation was profitable. When they fired him because he refused to consider making changes they wanted, he did not cope well. Three years later, he still felt angry and bitter as he worked to support his family by driving a taxicab in ChicagoÑan occupation he felt was beneath him.

Negative emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety, distress, helplessness, and hopelessness decrease your ability to solve the problems you face, and they weaken your resiliency. Constant fears and worries weaken your immune system and increase your vulnerability to illnesses. Taking tranquilizers is not a good long-term solution; neither is using alcohol to sleep at night and stimulants to become energized in the morning. The situation is serious. At the present time, one out of six Americans uses tranquilizers regularly. According to current U.S. Food and Drug Administration figures, approximately 1.5 million adults are tranquilizer addicts, and tranquilizer mis-users currently outnumber abusers of illicit drugs.3 (See the Notes and References appendix for sources of facts and quotes.) A significant benefit from developing resiliency strengths is that you cope so well that you are less likely to need tranquilizers. If the organization you work for is unstable because the executives and administrators canÕt manage rapid change, itÕs possible to find ways to handle the pressure and keep bouncing back without anxiety attacks.

The Resiliency ResponseÑNot Easy, But Worth the Effort

Resiliency means being able to bounce back from life developments that may feel totally overwhelming at first. When resilient people have their lives disrupted they handle their feelings in healthy ways. They allow themselves to feel grief, anger, loss, and confusion when hurt and distressed, but they donÕt let it become a permanent feeling state. An unexpected outcome is that they not only heal, they often bounce back stronger than before. They are examples of Wilhelm NietzscheÕs famous statement, ÒThat which does not kill me makes me stronger.Ó

This is why resilient people usually handle major difficulties easier than others. They expect to rebuild their disrupted lives in a new way that works for them, and the struggle to overcome adversity develops new strengths in them.

Definitions: Resilience, resilient, and resiliency refer to the ability to:
Â¥ cope well with high levels of ongoing disruptive change,
Â¥ sustain good health and energy when under constant pressure,
Â¥ bounce back easily from setbacks,
Â¥ overcome adversities,
Â¥ change to a new way of working and living when an old way is no longer possible, and
Â¥ do all this without acting in dysfunctional or harmful ways.

If you look in an unabridged dictionary, you will see that ÒresileÓ is the verb for resilience and ÒresilingÓ is the adverb. The words ÒresileÓ and ÒresilingÓ will be used in this book at times to emphasize that resiliency is something you do, more than something you have.

Resilience is more important than ever in todayÕs world. The volatile and chaotic period we are going through will not end soon. To sustain a good life for yourself and your family, you must be much more resilient than people had to be in the past. People with resiliency skills have a significant advantage over those who feel helpless or react like victims. In this world of life-disrupting, nonstop change:
Â¥ Corporations with highly resilient employees have an advantage over their less resilient competitors.
Â¥ During downsizing, a resilient worker with a wide range of skills has better chance of being kept on.
Â¥ When many people are applying for one job, a resilient person has a better chance of being hired.
Â¥ When your old job skills are no longer needed, you are quick to learn a new way to earn an income.
Â¥ During economic hardship, resilient people give their families a better chance of pulling through and bouncing back.
Â¥ Resilient people help their communities get through hard times better.
Â¥ Resiliency is crucial when there are the added challenges of physical injury or living through a terrorist attack.