If Surprises Are the New Normal, Then Resilience Is the New Skill

In yesterday’s blog, Harvard’s Rosabeth Kanter summarizes her five lessons
from 2010 worth repeating, beginning with the recognition that surprise
and change are the new normal.  That being so, then resilience for
individuals is the new skill.  Simply put, resilience is the ability to
bounce back successfully when facing stressful or even traumatic
experiences. 

Experience suggests that most of us are not very reliable at
predicting how we’ll behave when facing difficult situations. That may
mean the loss of a child, a spouse or a job, or in my case the loss of
my wife to Alzheimer’s and the subsequent downsizing from a large home
to an apartment.  Reflecting on my two recent traumas, I can tell you
now that I should have multiplied my expectations by 8 to 10.  My
training in stress management didn’t improve my predictive ability,
although it was a great help in managing much of the stress.

Many of us have faced or will face the question posed by Benedict Carey: Do I have the right stuff?  Or, is this sinkhole simply too deep?

There is a long history of the study of resilience, but two studies
are of special value for facing a volatile economy that that continues
to affect many of us in very personal ways.  A recent lifetime
resilience study by Seery, Holman and Silver finds
that our success at resilience is not a matter of personality, genes or
even the nature of our stresses and traumas.  Instead, as Dr. Silver
finds: Each negative event a
person faces leads to an attempt to cope, which forces people to learn
about their own capabilities, about their support networks–to learn who
their real friends are.  That kind of learning, we think, is extremely
valuable for subsequent coping. 

But there’s a caveat: Frequency makes a difference.
 You can have too much stress, and go under.  Or, you can have too
little experience with stress and trauma and then be hit, unprepared, by
a knock-out blow.  I’ve found numerous settings in which highly capable
business people have sailed through top schools without the slightest
perceived difficulty, and then fumbled badly.  So badly that some never
recovered from their first major job or family stress.  Dr. Seery said
that the people in the study who recalled zero or one negative event
were actually worse off than those with a handful of adverse events.

In short, the people in the middle who had successfully faced two to
six major stresses throughout their life showed the greatest resilience.
 Because they neither avoided nor were inundated by stress, they were
able to learn how to successfully cope with their traumas.

The second study, which I believe is more valuable,
found that the source in overcoming hardship and adversity is not a
matter of individual toughness.  Rather, it is an individual’s
relationships.  Through them resilience can be strengthened.  The study
reported by Linda Hartling of Wellesley College showed that the focus on resilience development will need to be on growth-fostering relationships.   

In sum, when faced with difficult situations, reframe them as
opportunities to learn and grow, and keep building those quality
relationships.

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