Resilience - thriving or surviving

I notice the same in my coaching practice that clients will frequently use ‘resilient’ as a way of describing their strengths or essential personal qualities which has helped them create great results in the workplace. 

And indeed, within an educational setting, we spend quite a bit of time exploring with the students how resilient they are and how they can improve their resilience both within their academic career but also ready for the workplace. It is interesting to note that the World Economic Forum through its Future of Jobs Report 2020 cite resilience and Emotional Intelligence as emerging skills in high demand within an organisation. Does this mean that these skills are competing against each other? Or complementing each other? 

To help us think about how resilience and Emotional Intelligence can co-exist, Singh (2022) offers an interpretation and suggests that ‘resilience is not about gritting our teeth and suffering quietly, and it is more than simply developing thick skin. Resilience is about our ability to find hope and agency amid difficulty’. 

This made me wonder if we have skewed our priorities in a less than favourable way when individuals, organisations and places of study offer resilience training or talk about drawing on resilience to get us through tough times? The focus here seems to be on the individual who somehow have had to resort to digging deep and ploughing through to get things done – perhaps at some considerable cost in terms of mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing? 

So, rather than focusing on resilience, what if we offered groups and teams the possibility to explore together how they can create kinder, more equal, and compassionate working environments?  What amazing things might happen if we drew on empathy, or as Goleman (2020) refers to ‘our social radar’, where we leave aside our assumptions and judgements of others and allow ourselves to see things from the other person’s point of view and appreciate different perspectives. 

Maybe this is the sort of training and awareness raising we should be aiming for to help people thrive and not just survive. 

References and acknowledgements
Goleman, D. (2020). Emotional Intelligence. Bloomsbury
Sing, S.J (2020) The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.
World Economic Forum – Future of Work Report 2020.