Over the past month, we have looked at the positioning of resilience within organisational wellbeing and resilience diagnostics. In the last article in this series, I will look at interventions to improve resilience.
We can separate the resilience interventions into three significant clusters aligned to the taxonomy of resilience discussed previously. The first cluster is cognitive interventions that focus on developing thinking patterns aligned to resilience type behaviours. The interventions challenge unhealthy thinking patterns and give people the skills to develop resilience thinking.
The second cluster of interventions is grounded in motivational theory and in particular goal setting. Psychology has well-developed literature on goal setting. Practical goal setting is central to the maintenance of the dopaminergic system, resilience and general mental wellbeing.
The final cluster of interventions is behavioural. These interventions require an individual to proactively engage in behavioural change to build resilience.
The first of the resilience factors in the Talogy resilience model is the development of self-belief. One of the best models for developing one’s belief in oneself and capability is Nathaniel Branden’s six pillars of self-esteem (Branden, 1995). The six pillars programme takes a person through six key stages in developing the belief with the use of exercises such as sentence stem completion. Together with coaching, the six pillars programme is a cornerstone for developing self-belief.
Another aspect of resilience grounded in the psychological literature is the development of optimism. A key text in this field is Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman (1995) and the application of cognitive behavioural work such as Healthy Thinking. Developing optimism requires a person to challenge faulty belief systems such as over personalising, making something too pervasive or permanent and instead adopting a more balanced and rational mindset to events.
Moving on from cognitive strategies, a cluster of interventions related to resilience focuses on goal setting. The science of goal setting in the psychological literature is now well developed (Locke & Latham, 2006). Good goal setting practice helps with the establishment of purposeful direction and, with additional aids such as a growth mindset (Dweck, 2016), also helps develop adaptability, ingenuity, and challenge orientation. Reasonable goals scaffold one’s sense of purpose such that complex, hard-to-achieve goals break down into small proximal goals. Well constructed goals are what is known as SMART. They will be specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic, and have a timeframe for completion.
The final cluster of resilience interventions includes emotional regulation and social support. For the article, I cluster these into behavioural interventions. This cluster focuses on proactive behavioural measures that a person can put in place to become more resilient and handle stress more effectively.
At Talogy, we not only provide the diagnostics for the assessment but also help implement interventions to develop resilience. The interventions can be individualised, focused on a team or organisational wide. We are thus one of the few providers able to offer an end-to-end resilience solution. We hope that you enjoyed this short series on building organisational resilience and look forward to helping you build a more resilient workforce in your organisation.
References
Branden, N. (1995). The six pillars of self-esteem. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Incorporated.
Dweck, C. (2016). What having a “growth mindset” actually means. Harvard Business Review, 13,
213-226.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 15(5), 265–268.
Seligman, M. E. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. Vintage.
Paul Englert, Director, Talogy
For further information please email Paul here.
