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Managing Change with Personal Resilience

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Part 1: Adapting to Change

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who are afraid. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push of into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.” -Hopi Elders of the Hopi Nation

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Part 2: Seven Facet of Resilience

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” - Confucious

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Part 3: Enhancing Resilience

“ We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle

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Key # 17: Developing Balance

Maintaining a dynamic balance among the seven resilience characteristics.

• Is it possible to enhance your personal resilience?• What can you do to develop enhanced resilience?

or• Is this session is a complete waste of time b/c you have

no intention of giving up your choice to resist change?

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Your Capacity for Resilience

• We all have a resilience baseline• People with a desire to cope better with change in

their personal and professional lives can • The key • You have to want to develop new skills• You need to commit to developing a balanced portfolio

of resilience skills to draw upon

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Balancing the Resilience Characteristics

• Odds of achieving personal and team success increase when you can balance being:– Positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive

during CHANGE– By combining these skills we develop our

“resilience edge” for adapting to change• This combination is called a “profile”

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Resilience Profile• A balanced profile indicates higher overall resilience

• Enables us to draw on our strengths according to the situation

• Application of a unique set of skills and adapt to unique personal or professional changes

• Questions to consider:– Do you want to be better at handing change?– Are you willing to invest in development of new skills? – Have you been known to say - “I’ve always been this way” or– You don’t know what all I’ve been through. I can’t change.”

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Guideline #1Your Resilience Depends on the Situation

• Each change requires specific demands

• The more resilient, the better we cope

• Develop the ability to draw automatically on resilience skills creates opportunities for greater success

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Guideline #2Consistency Is Best

• Inconsistent responses cause confusion• Self awareness allows us to draw on the right skill

time and • Not over-use our comfort skills/characteristics and• To step out of our comfort zone

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Guideline #3Guard Against Overusing Your Strengths

• Overuse of our strengths results in underuse and lack of development of others

• We lose sight of possible alternate approaches

• We stop growing

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Guideline #4Work on Strengthening Your Weaknesses

• Identify your weaknesses – we all have them• A low trait skill causes us to fall back on our

comfort zone of coping• We use old skills to resolve all issues• Resilience skills are a puzzle - we need all the

pieces for success• Use of weaker traits often reflects a lack of confidence in that skill

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Static vs. Dynamic BalanceWhitewater vs. Calm Seas

• Need the right skills to cope in a healthy way

• The recommended approach to developing change skills• Be dynamic • Become part of the process/solution• Look for opportunities

• Choose to achieve a greater sense of balance • The only stability we can expect in our global world occurs in

the form of constant change

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Static vs. Dynamic Balance

• Balance comes from a desire to grow vs remaining static• A desire to achieve a dynamic balance • A willingness to be open • Enable use to recognize opportunities

• Rather than calm waters where you’d expect equilibrium, balance is found in whitewater turmoil that we all try to avoid.

• In a dynamic forward thinking culture• The shelf life of “stability” – a constant point of balance- is always

short-lived

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Key #18: Create a Resilience Development Plan

• Developing greater resilience requires work and commitment

• “I’ve always been this way” is a choice not a trait• Developing openness to change is not easy• Requires a personal commitment • Requires an investment of energy and willingness to• Increase knowledge, deepen self-awareness, seek

feedback from others, and try new approaches. • Requires consistency, focus and discipline

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Change is a Choice

• Leave your comfort zone– Leave some old bad habits behind– Develop some new/better habits– Develop new ways of thinking– Develop new questions to ask– Develop new ways of responding

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• However the return on investment can be very high– Higher personal productivity.– Faster adaptation to changes.– More creative approaches, and an – All-around more satisfying life in the long run.

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Improve Your Self-Awareness

• Set personal development goals• Get input and feed back from others.

– Solicit opinions from others.– Others may see you differently than you see yourself

• Look for ways to contribute• Be fearless – get rid of “what will they think of me” stinking

thinking • Observe others who use a particular trait well and ask

them about it• Ask others: “How flexible or proactive do you think I was

during a recent change” – then listen to their answer without commenting.

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Resilient Teams

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Key #19The Power or Synergy – AMAZING!

• The power of synergy to leverages individual resilience characteristics

• Research proves that to be effective teams must combine many factors:– Shared goals– Clear roles– Supportive of each other– The right skill mix

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Team Resilience Foundation Factors

• The teams ability to maximize its performance during change depends on the team’s resilience: – It is the collective ability to absorb change

with minimum disruption and dysfunctional behavior

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What About Our Team?

• The team’s reliance combines 2 factors:– The individual resilience of each member – The collective synergy of the group

• Each member has a specific mix of the characteristics• These characteristics counter balance each other

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Creating the Resilient Team

• Requires several elements:– Combining a group of resilient members– Creating synergy within the team– Problem solving is a team sport of cooperative and resilient participants

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Become a Group of Resilient Members

• Ideally, every member would be extremely resilient at every level, with consistent balanced characteristic strength.

• Realistically, a resilient team needs to achieve balance by combining members of differing strengths

• Team members can draw on their peers who are stronger in certain characteristics

• The weakness of any one member can be offset by the interaction of the group• The team can be more resilient than any one of its members.• We and Us are stronger the Me and I

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Combining a Group of Resilient Members

• Barriers to Resilient Teams.• Not every group recognizes and uses its members’

strengths• Resistance to personal or professional change• Loss of power – even negative people are leaders• Inability to recognize each members’ assets• Unwilling to be conscious of how they influence each

other

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Creating Synergy

• Definition Synergy: • the creation of an outcome that is greater than the

sum of the inputs used to achieve it.

• To achieve SYNERGY requires prerequisites.– Willingness to work together– Ability to develop new skills– Shared common goals– Ability to work collaboratively

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Synergy

• After prerequisites are met, synergy can begin

• Four steps:1. Identify team diversity and member specific strengths 2. Value and appreciate different view points3. Combine the team’s resources to create powerful ideas4. Effectively put the team’s plan into action.

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Team Resilience Characteristics Refresher

• Positive – The capability of each member to contribute to the team’s ability to

influence others during change.

• Focus – Focused on the team’s shared goals during change.

• Flexible – Incorporates a wide range of diverse perspectives into its approach during

change. – It can elicit the open participation of all team members.

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Refresher

• Organized – Translates confusion around change in meaningful ways by setting priorities

and developing workable solutions to problems.

• Proactive – Engages action in the face of ambiguity, even when risk is involved, rather

than waiting for “stability”.

A resilient and synergistic team can create a combined resilience capability that allows it to significantly enhance its performance during change.

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Your Challenge in a Team

• Develop your own personal resilience to bring greater value to the team

• Take responsibility for helping your team work together

• Solve problems together outside of your comfort zone

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Key # 20Working in a Nimble Team

• Work in a nimble team • Make yourself more nimble

• All teams feel stress and pressure of ongoing change – New products (Exchange products)– New information systems (or lack of)– Mergers (Highmark)– Reorganizations – Clinical Operations– New leadership – Nearly every leadership position– Culture changes – No gossip/No rumors

Thriving amidst constant turbulence is challenging and rewarding.

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Nimble Teams

• Continuous change is draining.– Doing more with less– Burn out– Drop out– Give up

• But the pace of change will go on regardless of whether you are on board or not

• Change is the new norm.

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Nimble Teams

• How do you know if you are working in a nimble team?– People are flexible– Staff roles shift on periodic basis– The team is cross-functional– The leadership makes decisions quickly– Shifting priorities are normal– Management is accountable for their decisions – Staff are welcomed to respectfully contribute to problem

resolution – You feel valued for your contribution vs. how long you’ve

been at the company

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Why is Nimbleness Important?

• People are more resilient• Employees are:– More resourceful– Multi skilled– Highly motivated– Have a high tolerance for ambiguity– Have a desire to experiment– Willing to appropriately challenge leadership– Willing to focus on the success of the entire enterprise

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Resilience Strategies for Leaders

• Clearly communicate strategy and rationale around change• Lead by example• Master the change process effectively• Promote resilience in your teams• Build resilience into your teams through job descriptions,

hiring, coaching and rewarding resilient performers

A nimble culture is built slowly over time through the accumulation of a thousand smaller decisions and actions

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Resilience Strategies for the Individual

• Practice personal resilience on a daily basis

• Develop a good relationship with your manager in which you are seen as valued and influential • Use your influence to promote effective approaches

to change

• Support resilience in your teams

• Become an advocate of resilience

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Key #21Take Resilience With You Wherever You Go

• Change at home or at work affects your life and spills over to others

• Your ability to manage the demands of change in one piece of your life determines to a great extent, your overall quality of life

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Take Resilience With You

• Living in Balance is important

• Develop your own balanced portfolio of the resilient characteristics

• Maintain a dynamic balance among constantly shifting priorities

You are the architect of your own life

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Health

• Emotionally and physically healthy people are more likely to show better resilience and psychological health.

• Healthy people tend to feel better; tend to be more positive• Improving physical fitness increases energy, reduces stress• Improves your ability to be positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive

• Healthy diet. Regular exercise. Maintain appropriate weight

• Get enough sleep

• Stay active

• Make these things your daily habits

Take resilience with you wherever you go

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The 21 Keys

• Change is here to stay.• Understand loss of control is the heart of

change.• Understand the importance of resilience

in adapting to change.• Know your quota for change.• Become more conscious of your own

response to change.• Expect the unexpected.• Be ready for resistance whether change is

positive or negative.• Know your orientation toward change –

opportunity or danger.• Know your capabilities for the

competencies of resilience.• Look for opportunities in changing

situations.

• Develop a can do attitude.• Hold your focus on long term

goals/priorities.• Generate possibilities to creatively address

uncertainty.• Reach out to others for resources and

perspective and support.• Organize information into structured

approaches.• Be proactive and try out new solutions.• Maintain a dynamic balance by developing

a balanced resilience portfolio.• Create a resilience development plan• Work in teams to leverage individual

resilience with synergy.• Working in nimble teams if you can, or help

you team to become more nimble.• Take resilience with you wherever you go.

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Conclusion

• By developing resilience we will be better able to handle the changes in our life gracefully and maybe even be happier

• Remember, it is not what happens to you, it’s how you respond that matters

• You are in control of your emotions, expectations, perceptions and responses

• Master the art of change• Learn how to adapt as a core life skill

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Now What?

• Pick 1-2 resilience traits that you want to improve• Notice how your colleagues, spouse, children,

friends and peers are deal with change• Form small groups to work together.• Engage in life long learning for ongoing growth• Choose dynamic behavior over static behavior

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It’s Your Move!

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Aristotle

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Questions?