Building a Resilient Workplace Culture in the Age of Disruption
OK, even if you aren’t experiencing or creating massive disruption in your industry, chances are you are still wrestling with more change at work then ever before. The pace of change has never been faster. Never be bigger. Which means you need to be extra intentional when it comes to creating a culture of resiliency in the face of change at work. You need to make sure employee have the support they need to embrace the change that is happening around them. And you need to foster a resilient workplace culture that can rise to the challenge in the face of change. Here are 8 tips to help you build a more resilient workplace culture.
Full Transcript: Building Resiliency in the Age of Disruption
Somebody recently said, “We are in the age of disruption.” In fact, it was me who recently said it. I just said it now. That was me who said it. Now maybe you’re not completely disrupting everything within your industry or being disrupted totally within your industry, but we are, without question, undergoing a massive amount of change like never before. The pace of change has never been greater. The magnitude of change has never been greater. And as I tell my audiences and clients everywhere, if the pace of change on the outside of your organization exceeds the pace of change on the inside, it’s just a matter of time before you’re going to be in trouble. So in the age of disruption, in this age of massive change, it has never been more important to build a culture of resiliency. I’ve got eight tips on how to do just that.
#1. We know that open and honest communication, transparent communication, builds resiliency. It builds trust. It makes people feel involved and connected even when you’re talking about challenging serious issues. It doesn’t do anyone any good to hide people from the truth, to shield people from uncomfortable truths or challenges your company, your industry, might be experiencing. And in fact, we know that people are less resilient in organizations where communication tends to be closed off and not shared because people don’t trust what’s going on. Rumors love a communication vacuum, so people start gossiping and making stuff up, and that contributes to people feeling less resilient at work. So you need to invest like never before in open and honest communication, which means you need to trust your employees like never before in the age of disruption.
And it doesn’t mean just talking about everything within your organization in an open and honest way and investing in communication, so everyone feels involved and connected. It also means talking about the topic of resiliency openly and why it matters and making sure people feel comfortable bringing up the topic. It means talking openly about the pace of change and the need to change within your organization.
#2. You need to create a culture of support where everybody feels like they are supported at an emotional level. It’s never been more important, which means employees need to know even what training, what resources, what options they have when they are experiencing a lot of stress. When they are experiencing serious mental health issues, especially they need to know what resources are available within your organization. They need to know who they can talk to. And they need to have that psychologically safe environment where they can open up and talk about how they’re feeling about things. That is absolutely critical.
Creating a culture of support means encouraging all of your employees to just check in with one another. A Deloitte study found that the number one way employees feel they have a sense of belonging at work is just when another employee checks in with them. But you need to encourage all of your employees to do that. And do know that there is a difference between checking up on somebody and checking in on somebody. One of those things destroys trust. And one of those things build trust. So you want to build trust to build resiliency in your workplace by checking in with one another in a genuine way and asking the dirt simple question. Is there anything I can do to support you? And when it comes to building a culture of support, simple little practices, simple little rituals, can make a huge difference.
For example, I’ve got one client, they do this great ritual in the morning where everyone in their team, there’s about 14 of them, and once they’ve arrived in the office, everybody yells out, on a scale of one to 10, just how they’re feeling, how their attitude is that morning. And because there’s some engineers, yes, they use decimal points. And the reason they do this is one to remind everybody to just check their attitude, that they can choose their attitude at the start of the day here. But too, and more importantly, they do that to find out where the lowest number people are. So who’s the person who’s going to yell out 1.2 so that they can rally around and support that person. It’s dirt simple, but it’s incredibly effective.
#3. Share best resiliency practices on a regular basis with your team. So take the time every now and then to talk about what is working for people in terms of them managing their stress effectively. What stress reducing practices are working for them? What sleep practices are working for them to help them get a good night’s sleep? Because we know that has a huge role in terms of us feeling more resilient. What are people doing to make sure they eat properly and get some physical exercise? All of this stuff ties together to contribute towards us feeling more resilient at an individual level and a team level. And it’s another way of showing support to one another. So share best practices on a regular basis.
#4. More and more organizations are investing in meditation and mindfulness practices. Whether it’s training, whether it’s just creating a physical space where people can go away and have a quiet space where they can de-stress and meditate, or at least practice a few minutes of mindfulness, is incredibly important. There is so much research that has gone into how powerful mindfulness practices and meditation are when it comes to people feeling less stressed out and being more resilient in the face of change.
So just taking five minutes throughout your day to practice your breathing and slow down, where you just take slow, deep breaths through your nose, out through your mouth, can do wonders where you just take a few moments with a cup of hot tea or coffee in your hand to truly savor and be in that moment and think about the texture, the taste, the feel of that coffee, to put yourself in the present. Mindfulness practices are incredibly powerful when it comes to building resiliency in any situation in any workplace.
#5. Create a culture that supports a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. People who have a fixed mindset tend to believe that everyone is just born with natural gifts, natural talents, innate abilities. So either you’re good at math, or you’re not good at math. You’re born a natural leader or not. You’re good at being more resilient and managing your stress, or, “I just didn’t get the resilient gene. I just didn’t get that gene.
Whereas people with a growth mindset believe that, well, it’s right in the term. They can grow, that they can learn new things. They can adapt to new situations, no matter what age they are, no matter what position they are in. They believe that they can learn new things. And people who have a growth mindset tend to view obstacles in a very different way than people who have a fixed mindset. So people who have a fixed mindset, when they encounter an obstacle, a challenge, at work. They tend to take it more personally, and they tend to believe that can’t get around that obstacle. Whereas people with a growth mindset don’t take it personally. They view it as a challenge, and they view it as something that they can learn to adapt to or get around onto the other side from an experience from.
So obviously people who have a growth mindset, in all the research, have been shown to be far more resilient in the face of stress, in the face of challenges. So encourage a growth mindset. Talk about what that means. Offer training in how to adopt a growth mindset. And make sure you are recognizing and praising your employees for having a growth mindset. In other words, don’t praise them. Don’t recognize them for their innate talent because that does them a disservice. “Oh Susan, you’re just so good with numbers. You always just rock it.” Instead say, “Susan, thank you so much for all that extra effort you put in, all that work you put in, for making those numbers work for us, for bringing this report together.” So recognize people’s effort and not their innate abilities. It’s really important that we do that.
#6. Train and coach employees on how to reframe the three Ps of pessimism to be more optimistic in the face of challenges and a lot of change.
Martin Seligman, who’s known as the father of positive psychology talks about how pessimists tend to view setbacks, challenges, through a lens of three words that all start with the letter P. Hence the three Ps. So when something bad happens, it’s personal because the universal evolves around me. It’s pervasive. In other words, my entire life is ruined. And it’s permanent. The rest of my life is ruined. If you have teenagers at home, you probably have some experience with this mindset. Martin Seligman has shown in his research that we can train our brains, that we can actually counter argue, debate the voices in our head. When those negative pessimistic thoughts arise, we can debate those voices to remind ourselves that no, this isn’t permanent. It’s not going to affect the rest of our lives. No, it’s not pervasive. There’s still all of this good stuff that’s happening. It hasn’t affected our entire company, our entire business, our entire world. And no it’s not personal.
So train and coach your employees on how to reframe those three Ps to have a more realistic, positive outlook.
#7. Celebrate the small wins and small milestones. It’s never been more important, when you’re experiencing a lot of change, to make sure you are building momentum by celebrating the small steps, by celebrating those small wins. That is so important in terms of people feeling more resilient, and all sorts of research shows that even though they’re just small wins, celebrating them has a disproportionate impact in terms of what that win actually represents. So make sure you do recognize that you note the progress that is being made and that you celebrate it.
#8. Create daily intentions. So many inspiring leaders I’ve interviewed around the world talk about how daily intentions have changed their life. And there’s simply this. You write down a few things you want to work with. And every morning you look at those daily intentions. You review them. You take a few moments quietly at your desk or sitting in your car before you go into the office. And we’re talking about resiliency here, so setting some daily intentions around more resilient. What are you going to do today for your mental health. What are you going to do to laugh today? What are you going to do to make sure you get outside today? Who are you going to check in with today? So set a few that you want to work on.
Now here’s the key though. What you have to do is at the end of the day, review the list and track your progress, and make sure you did commit to those intentions so that you’re turning those good intentions into daily habits, into daily practice. And so what about you? What are you doing to be more resilient in your life, in your work? What are you doing in your culture to create a culture of resiliency?
#9. A critical bonus strategy: Infuse your culture with humor! Practice the #Rs of humor to relax, reward employees for having to deal with common stressors, and reframe common challenges. To find out why and how humor can help you build a more resilient workplace be sure to watch my video Leading and Laughing During Turbulent Times!
Drop a comment in the comment box. Let us know, so we can all learn from each other’s experience about what’s working for you. And as always, if you liked the video, be sure you like the video. And if you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the Inspiring Workplaces channel. Join our growing community as we continue to talk about workplaces that rock.
Michael Kerr, February 2021. Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame business speaker who speakers on inspiring workplace cultures. His most recent books include The Jerk-Free Workplace and The Humor Advantage.
