Profs.Arun Kumar and N.Meenakshi discuss how RISILIENCE can prove to be the best tool to deal with and overcome adversities of life...

An excerpt from the book "Organizational Behavior: A Modern Approach" by Arun kumar and N. Meenakshi,read on:

RESILIENCE

Some people suffer severe tragedies and hardships. Their children die in accidents, they are terminally ill, they get fired, they are divorced. Their lives should have been in disarray, but they go about their lives as if everything is just fine with them. They look forward to what future holds for them. They are resilient people. Lesser mortals face minor tragedies and hardships, and yet get depressed. They dread future. They are fragile people. A person’s education, experience, and training are important, but his level of resilience will determine whether he will fail or succeed.

 Resilience is the skill and the capacity to be robust under conditions of enormous stress and change. It is a reflex, a way of facing and understanding the world that is deeply entrenched into a person’s mind and soul. Resilient people and companies face reality with staunchness. They make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair. They are constantly improvising to save themselves.

Reality

It is believed that resilience stems from a person’s optimistic nature. It is true but only as long as such optimism does not distort his sense of reality. In extremely adverse situations, an optimistic outlook can result in disaster. Resilient people have very sober and down-to-earth views of those parts of the reality that matter for survival. An optimistic outlook is helpful in getting over a moderately difficult problem, but a cool, almost pessimistic, sense of reality is more important for more daunting challenges.

It is important that the person or the organization understands and accepts the painful reality of the situation because most people and organizations slip into denial mode as a coping mechanism. It is unpleasant and emotionally wrenching to face painful reality, and people avoid facing painful reality for as long as they can. When a person acknowledges the impending hardship, he prepares himself to act in ways that allow him to endure and survive the hardship i.e. he trains himself to survive before he faces the hardship. He prepares himself to use every means to save himself for the next day.

Meaning

When a person goes through hardships and tragedies, he sees himself as a victim. He asks himself as to why he has to go through all this pain. Living through hardship carries no lesson for him. The resilient person makes meaning of the hardships and tragedies he is going through because he possesses a strong value system. His value system enables him to interpret his hardships and tragedies in ways that makes him believe that they are inevitable and they are destined to go through them. Such an interpretation helps him to rise above the sufferings of the moment and look forward to a better future. The meaning helps him to connect to the future.

Companies that survive crisis also have strong value systems which do not change over the years. They find purposes beyond making money. The values shape the company’s decisions during the crisis. The values shape the reactions of the employees to the crisis. The employees live the value of the company during the crisis.

Rituals

The resilient person has the ability to make do with whatever is at hand. He is inventive. He has the ability to improvise a solution to a problem without proper tools. He makes the most of whatever he has. He puts objects to unfamiliar uses. In concentration camps, resilient inmates keep pieces of string or wire, believing that they might need them sometime. He always keeps tinkering and tries every possible solutions when ordinary mortals are paralyzed by the gravity of the situation. The resilient person keeps pegging with the hope that one of the things that he is trying will eventually work.

Companies which survive crisis are full of improvisers. The employees do not wait for orders from the top. They do whatever they think will help them to retrieve the situation. These companies and people who survive crisis live on rules and rituals. These companies understand that the employees cannot be creative under stressful situations and they can respond only in their habituated ways. Rules and rituals enable employees to keep doing what they are supposed to do. Employees feel less distracted by the crisis and they sure are inching out of the crisis because the rules and rituals ensure that there is some action taking place to retrieve the situation. Employees who know what they have to do in what situation are not paralyzed when a painful situation strikes them. The rituals guide their actions and keep them moving ahead.

The authors can be contacted on nmeenakshi@niilm.com and akumar@niilm.com