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Snap Out of It! (Part 1)As an older and much wiser colleague always used to say, “Nobody goes through life unscathed.” If you live long enough, sooner or later
“stuff happens.” Why do some people snap back, while others snap under the stress of unanticipated occurrences? The quality of resilience is very often the determinant of success in work, as well as in life. Studies show that resilience matters more to sustained high performance than education, experience, or training. In this issue of my newsletter, I’ll explore how you as an individual leader
can build your resilience and improve both your performance and your outlook. There are two other aspects of resilience – workforce resilience and organizational resilience – that you’ll want to learn more about if you want to bolster your company to withstand the ups and downs of our 21st century milieu. I’ll devote two upcoming newsletter articles to those topics.
Here’s the dictionary definition of “resilience”: 1.) The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy. 2.) The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity. The important thing to note here is that we are not talking about being unaffected by events and forces in our world, but rather about the
capacity to move with them and then reestablish a working balance. According to experts, the main building blocks of resilience are the capacity to accept reality and stand up to it; the ability to find meaning in life; and the ability to improvise. Other important factors are a strong sense of self; the belief that you are the author of your own life; and the ability to be flexible. It’s an interesting mix of mental, emotional,
physical, and spiritual qualities, all of which can be cultivated. My own experience in coaching leaders in a variety of organizational settings confirms the observation. In a newly-published book, The Power of Full Engagement, authors
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz build their recommended “Corporate Athlete” personal growth program around those four dimensions. Loehr and Schwartz have researched how winning athletes train for high performance, and they translate their findings into practical strategies for the rest of us. Fundamental to this approach is the idea that you can’t manage time – you only have a fixed quantity -- but you can manage the
energy available to you, and the quantity and quality of that is not fixed. We build mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity in the same way we build physical capacity – by expending energy beyond our usual limits and then recovering. So, effective energy management in all domains requires cycles of expenditure (stress) and renewal (recovery) of energy. Building your own resilience means mastering the practice of these
rhythmic cycles. Resilient people have developed rituals that help promote cycling – going to the gym at the same time every day, for example, or sitting down to dinner with the family every night. It’s interesting – hopefully not discouraging – to note, as the authors do, that the demands on today’s executives dwarf the challenges faced by professional athletes. Executives must sustain peak performance while
athletes play in relatively short bursts of energy. Athletes spend most of their time training and very little performing – executives just the opposite. Athletes have off-seasons, most executives are lucky to get three or four weeks of vacation. An athlete’s career averages five to seven years, while most executives will work for 40-50 years. All the more reason to build your capacity to bounce back from the
inevitable setbacks, so you can go the distance. Next month: Part 2 -- Workforce Resilience Learn more about how executive coaching can help you build resilience. Visit our website and call or email us for a sample coaching session. |
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Recent studies reveal that the average corporate employee spends 25 to 35 percent of his productive time searching for information to do his day-to-day job. "Our ability to create information has substantially outpaced our ability to retrieve relevant information," claims a recent Delphi Group report. According to a survey by an industry group, a majority of insurance
brokers say that fewer than 10% of their small commercial property clients and under 20% of medium-sized accounts have purchased terrorism coverage since federal legislation required insurers to start offering it last November. Even in New York, one of four cities rated by the insurance industry for the highest risk of another terrorist attack, only about one in eight commercial clients are adding terrorism coverage to
their policies. About one in three or four New York City businesses are placing initial orders for terrorism coverage, but about half of those decide to cancel “when they see the bill.” A recent survey of corporate executives and managers from 70 countries found that, on average, companies used 16.1 management tools in 2002, up from an average of 10.4 tools in 2000. Strategic planning, defined in the survey as a comprehensive process for determining what a business
should become and how to allocate resources to that end, rates as the number-one tool. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they use it. Strategic planning also rated at the top in 2000. 
Typo-piracy Any scheme that, according to e-business market intelligence firm
Cyveillance, "capitalizes upon common misspellings and typographical mistakes when the user is entering a domain name, sending the individual to unintended sites and thereby diverting traffic and revenue." 
 The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters, by Peter Block. What I like about it: This latest work from one of my favorite organizational thinkers reframes the notion of leadership in terms of what he calls “social architecture”. He writes about how our cultural obsession with tools and
techniques has distracted us from acting on our deepest values.
Beth Bloomfield
Executive Coach, Strategy Consultant
Principal, Bloomfield Associates  Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, by David Whyte. What I like about it: I love this
provocative book because I can turn to any page and find inspiration for consciously, creatively shaping our work life to be a powerful expression of our authentic selves and an opportunity to bring our best gifts forward in service of ourselves, our community, the world.
Bette George
Leadership Coaching, Organization
Development, and Training
Bette George and Associates, Inc.
703-734-0101 email: bmgpri@aol.com Share what you’re into — books, articles, movies, music, websites — with others on
the list! Send us the title and author or other pertinent information, along with a sentence or two on what you like about it, and if we use it in A Different Optic we’ll not only quote you, we’ll provide a link to your website. |
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The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.
— Anthony Jay
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If you wish to subscribe to
A Different Optic, please click here to send an email request or visit the newsletter section of our website. 
Beth Bloomfield
and colleague Randy Chittumare available to present their popular half-day leadership workshop: “How To Stay Alive When You’re Getting Eaten Alive!” at your next executive retreat or association meeting. This fast-paced interactive workshop covers the crucial elements of reframing the situation, communicating with power to make things happen, and the fundamental competencies of leaders today. Beth and Randy also present their “Wisdom Toolkit” gleaned from their combined
experience in coaching leaders in all kinds of settings. For more information, email info@bloomfieldassociates.com or call 410-626-6008. Beth has also added a new one-hour presentation on “How to Hire A Consultant and Get the Results You Want” to her offerings for business groups. Designed
under the auspices of the Institute of Management Consultants, this seminar will help executives identify what they need and want from a consultant, choose from the hundreds of consultants out there, and ensure positive results. This talk is packed with practical advice and real-world experience to assist you in developing the savvy to get sound advice that improves your business. Perfect for your next program! Email info@bloomfieldassociates.com or call 410-626-6008. | | |
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