Resilience: On Shaping it and Spotting it
Resilience is a funny word. It’s squishy and nuanced, half the time we use it without knowing what it means, and it’s probably over-used in today’s world.
According to Merriam-Webster, resilience is an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. After the pandemic, I think we all would agree that resilience matters when faced with the “hard stuff” of life, but what about the hard stuff of work? And how do we better identify on the front-end if someone will be successful or not?
Resilience: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review put into words what many leaders know to be true. Despite “higher levels of freedom and flexibility, not to mention access to meaningful jobs and careers, and employers who express the intent to improve workers’ health and well-being," employees today are exhibiting chronically “low engagement and productivity levels, while stress and burnout continue to rise.”
I’m learning that the attributes of “grittiness” and “resilience” are crucial for long-term success in a high-performing organization, because stuff will go wrong.
Don’t just take it from me: the Second Law of Thermodynamics stipulates a fundamental and simple truth about the universe is that disorder always increases.
So, how do we spot resilience in a candidate?
Past History is Indicative of Future Behavior.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Ok, yes, it might be cliche, but the reality is that gritty people stay gritty. Is there a history of leaving other jobs when conditions are tough? It also doesn’t have to just be in the corporate world. Resilience can show up through dealing with difficult circumstances personally, and still having the courage and consistency to stay the course. Which leads to…
Ask the Right Questions.
Here are some of the best questions we’ve seen in terms of analyzing resilience in candidates. “When assessing resilience, what you really want to understand from an interview is how a candidate’s emotions are triggered in the workplace – and how they react,” says Sharon. “So, make sure you ask the right questions to get these answers.” Here are a few:
How do you deal with rejection?
Tell us about the biggest failure of your professional career.
How do you cope with disappointment? What remedies do you have?
How do you respond if you received negative feedback from your manager?
Tell us about a time when you had to handle a major crisis in your personal life.
What you are looking for is a willingness to take responsibility, but also an awareness that failure / mistakes / disappointment happen to everyone, and you must pick yourself up and move forward the next day.
Assess Resilience in Connection with the Role.
Not all roles need the same level of resilience. Senior leadership and other management roles need more resilience than others, because other team members will follow our lead. You can’t build resilient teams without resilient leaders. Brent Gleeson, is the founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership, and former Navy SEAL.
Look for Self-Growth and Development.
Unlike emotional intelligence, resilience is a muscle that you can develop. But you have to want it. Look for a habit of continuous learning in the people you hire. If you talk to someone, and they are constantly working on developing and growing in some way, shape or form, then there is a higher chance that they will show up with resilience. Google is your friend. Well, sometimes. But that intangible skillset of being able to “FIO” — Figure It Out” feeds into resilience.
In leadership, there are many times that you do not know what you’re doing (I speak from personal experience). But you can learn. And grow. And change.
I met with a CEO this week who called it the “sophistication tax.” What you didn’t know 10 months ago is different than what you know today. Are you willing to lean into the hard things and become better?