How Organizations Get Resilience Wrong

By Susan David

Life—especially our work life—demands resilience and rewards adaptability. In order to thrive, we need to find ways to move on from our defeats and adjust to changing circumstances. This is one of the central ideas in my book Emotional Agility: the fact that the pace of the 21st century world requires us to be agile. However, many organizations adhere to outdated and inaccurate perspectives on resilience that assume it is solely the responsibility of the individual.

Instead, organizations should be looking at organizational cultures, systems, and processes that may be negatively impacting the wellbeing of their people. 

The line between “challenging, but manageable” and “completely untenable” can be a blurry one and varies from person to person. You may be ready to put in the extra hours leading up to a big deadline, but maintaining a crushing workload indefinitely would push you past the breaking point. You might appreciate direct feedback, even if it is uncomfortable at times, but there’s a difference between constructive criticism and an incivility.

Increasing demands for flexible, hybrid schedules suggests that people are no longer willing to shoulder the burden of workplace expectations that don’t meet key human needs. The fact that these developments have taken many employers by surprise points toward the low value that our society has placed on emotional wellbeing.  It also speaks to a larger issue that plagues many organizations:  a failure to recognize that thriving people are integral to thriving organizations, impacting culture, engagement, customer experience, talent retention and so much more.  

The personal skills that I’ve devoted my life’s work to—things like flexibility, openness, and an awareness of one’s feelings—are foundational to our ability to thrive, and yet so are effective cultures, systems, and processes in our organizations.

Resilience is a two-way street. We cannot simply ask people to keep adapting to untenable circumstances. Sometimes it is the circumstances themselves that need to change.

Wellbeing is everyone’s business. Whether you’re a leader or a team member, it’s worth taking a moment to appraise the expectations your workplace is foisting on people.

Consider the following areas: 

  • How big of a work load is each member of your team responsible for (think about both hours and depth of work)?
  • What is the emotional climate of your workplace? Is there a sense of psychological safety within your team?
  • Are there other ways you could reevaluate workplace practices to make them more sustainable for all?

Be honest with yourself, check in with your team, and use that clarity to help you create change moving forward. When we ask the right questions instead of blindly adhering to old systems and processes, we create the potential for meaningful, positive change.

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Susan David

Susan David, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. Her TED Talk on the topic of emotional agility has been seen by more than 10 million people. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal and often appears on national radio and television. Learn more.

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