We have been hearing a lot about resilience in these recent times and many of us have had to face the challenges of isolation, home schooling, work pressures, personal loss and our own wellbeing, to mention just a few.
But what does resilience mean? The ability to bounce back, to keep going? Is it about endurance? Is it the ability to adapt and respond? It is probably all of these things and more.
At ibex gale limited we have been working with a company called The Wellbeing Project who specialise in employee wellbeing and resilience in the workplace to explore what it means to be resilient and how we can support one another as a team to maximise our resilience.
The sessions with The Wellbeing Project helped us not only to look at our own personal resilience but at our resilience as a team; focusing on what they call the 5 pillars: Energy, Focus, Inner Drive, Flexible Thinking and Strong Relationships.
We have challenging roles and we recognise that people deal with pressure differently. Some are quite vocal when they are feeling the pressure, others retreat and go quiet, but there aren’t always obvious signs. We have resolved to find ways to ensure that we check in on one another to maintain that crucial network and to have ways to identify when people might need a bit of extra support, or just someone to talk to.
We don’t have all of the answers and to be completely honest, since attending the Resilience Training, we have all been so busy we haven’t had the space to progress the action plan as far as we would like. But we are committed to this as we can all see the benefits, and this means making the time to have these conversations.
One thing we have been trying to do is, rather than starting our weekly team meeting by launching into the business as usual discussions, we are kicking off with a quick check in on how people are feeling using a ‘traffic light +’ approach:
- Gold – everything is amazing!
- Green – things are ticking along really well
- Blue – things are okay generally
- Amber – I am okay but under some pressure
- Red – I’m not in a good place
It’s a simple step but it’s a good habit to get in to. We are a small team and so it doesn’t take up much time; it’s not about going into solution mode for people then and there, nor it is about turning our team meeting into a counselling session, but it helps us take a quick temperature check and then we can reach out and help one another outside of the meeting.
In time we will develop our plans further and continue to build on the great work we have started with The Wellbeing Project. What is clear is that there is no one quick and easy fix or answer to the question of how you build resilience and there are many factors that can influence it, but what I took away from this was the importance of maintaining those relationships and connections, whatever yours might look like, and appreciating and nurturing them.
