What helps us be more resilient and adaptable?

Resilience can be defined as…

Having the resources, mental, physical or experience-based, to cope with unexpected, difficult or adverse situations. Whether personally or as an organisation.

Resilient people and organisations are better able to bounce back from adversity and also, interestingly, are also better able to deal with unexpected good fortune!

One facet of organisational resilience is social capital. The social capital of an organization reflects its connectedness. It’s about how easily information flows around the organization and how much trust there is. Both these factors make it much easier for organizations to be resilient and to adapt quickly.

Organizational Change

Organizational and personal resilience are particularly important during organisational change, when people’s habitual patterns are disrupted and they need to be adaptive and maintain their motivation and morale.

Positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry

We find that both these approaches, with their emphasis on identifying strengths and actively managing mood offer practical approaches for boosting personal and organisational resilience. They also increase resourcefulness and confidence in the face of the challenges. Appreciative Inquiry also builds social capital in organizations, and creates a positive pull motivation to help energise movement through the period of disruption. They also both offer powerful processes for creating hope.

I have received lots of positive feedback from colleagues, and hopefully the team will be able to reflect on the session over the coming weeks, during these particularly challenging times.

Headmistress of school following our ‘Boosting your resilience and wellbeing in the face of change and uncertainty’ workshop

Further resources about resilience

Download Sarah’s article about boosting your resilience and adaptability

See below a video of a conversation between Sarah and Dr Ilona Boniwell about resilience.