Ep 98 Best bits series: Resilience is more than just coping

What does resilience really look like when pressure keeps building?

In this Best Bits episode, Angela Malik and Kristian Lees-Bell revisit some of our most memorable conversations about resilience, stress and recovery.

Featuring insights from Dr Amanda Potter of BeTalent by Zircon; Martin Hewitt, founder of Adaptive Grand Slam; Figen Murray OBE, campaigner behind Martyn’s Law; John N Cooper, Chief Connection Officer at Thomas International; Lucy Becque, Group Chief People Officer at Coventry Building Society; and Professor Jo Yarker of Birkbeck, University of London and Affinity Health at Work.

Together, they explore why resilience is more than simply coping or pushing through. The episode covers the neuroscience of stress, the difference between persistence and resilience, why high resilience scores do not always create stronger teams, and how relationships, leadership and working environments shape our ability to recover and adapt.

From personal adversity to sustained organisational change, these conversations challenge us to think differently about who is responsible for resilience and what people really need when the pressure does not let up.

Go deeper and listen to the original conversations:

• Martin Hewitt in Ep. 5
• Lucy Becque in Ep. 78
• Figen Murray in Ep. 86
• Professor Jo Yarker in Ep. 93
• John Cooper in Ep. 94

Episodes are available here https://www.thecpo.co.uk/

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To access the research white papers mentioned in this and other podcasts, please go to: https://www.betalent.com/research
 
For more information about the BeTalent suite of tools and platform please contact: Hello@BeTalent.com

Transcript

Welcome And Why Resilience Matters

Dr Amanda Potter 0:04

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Chief Psychology Officer Podcast. I'm Dr. Amanda Potter, and I've had a break this summer, so I haven't been recording, and I passed the recording over to my three colleagues, Caitlin, Angela, and Christian. They have been pulling together all the best bits of a number of different episodes into a series, and today's episode is all about resilience. In our resilience episode, what we're doing is we're taking all of the insights, the practical tips and ideas that really resonated and were really helpful, and we're putting it all in one place for you. We're hoping that by doing so, it will reignite your thinking around resilience, and it may encourage you to go to some of those original episodes. I hope that this collection of perspectives and ideas can really challenge your thinking. It certainly has mine. I'm looking forward to working with you again in the autumn. Until then, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode and thank you so much for continuing to support the podcast. I hope you enjoy. That was a nice introduction from Amanda.

Kristian 1:09

It was, wasn't it? As she said, let's get into it. This particular topic on resilience is close to my heart. I'm one of the resilient leads at BeTalent, and for a good part of my professional life, I have trained and delivered workshops in this topic itself. So really passionate about well-being, resilience, and how it can unlock performance in teams.

Angela Malik 1:32

And for those of you who don't know, I'm Angela Malik. I'm a leadership development partner at BeTalent by Zircon, and I've been a longstanding podcast host. But I leave the expertise to my lovely colleagues like Christian and of course Amanda, who have all the knowledge.

Kristian 1:49

I think you're being a bit modest there, Angelo. After an almost a hundred podcasts, you've become almost a psychologist yourself.

Angela Malik 1:55

I have learned a lot along the way for sure.

Kristian 1:57

Yeah, let's uh let's get to it. Um,

What Resilience Is Made Of

Kristian 2:00

first of all, in episode 48, we discussed the neuroscience of resilience. Um we covered some of the basics. So I think it's a great one to start off with. We talked about what is resilience itself and why does it change day to day? So this is from episode 48, the neuroscience of resilience.

Dr Amanda Potter 2:19

Resilience comes from three places. It comes from our attitude or our traits and preference. It comes from how we control our physiology and how we control the autonomic nervous system, and also from the social interaction that we have with friends, colleagues, family.

Kristian 2:37

That's really interesting. So, in that respect, if our resilience is dependent on things like traits, physiology, social support, then it must be different for everybody, right?

Dr Amanda Potter 2:47

Completely. So each of us have very different personality traits. We know that from all of the research over many years, or strengths. And as a result, we have a a differing propensity to experience positive and negative emotions, which can really impact our emotional intelligence, our social intelligence, but as we're talking about today, our resilience. So depending on our physiology and depending on our responsiveness to stresses, each of us have a different access level to the positive neurotransmitters that we experience when we're happy and the negative ones that we experience when we're stressed or angry, which help us with a fight or flight response. So how we feel is really what impacts our resilience, and that's really the heart of the matter.

Kristian 3:35

So resilience is something which is a lot less stable by it sounds like compared to personality or traits, it could be quite changeable daily or weekly.

Dr Amanda Potter 3:43

That's such a good point you brought up there, Christian, because what we're talking about is state or trait, and we know from the research that emotional intelligence, social intelligence, resilience are states. In other words, our experience of our situation impacts how we feel. Whereas our personality is much more stable in enduring over time. Our resilience, emotional and social intelligence can vary depending on the experience of life and what's happening in our world.

Kristian 4:12

So, Angela, I really like that snippet. I think it was a really good overview of resilience and uh the different dimensions as well, that it's not just about grit or just persevering, right? I don't know what uh you took from that.

Angela Malik 4:24

Yeah, I mean, a lot of times I think obviously personality comes into play a little bit there because, as she said, there's natural tendencies, aren't there, to lean more positive or lean more hesitant or something like that. But yeah, it's nice to know that resilience is something that can be built.

Kristian 4:41

Absolutely. It makes me think of the concept of um self-efficacy.

Angela Malik 4:46

Oh.

Kristian 4:46

A psychologist called Albert Bandura did a lot of uh research on self-efficacy, being that belief that I can achieve, you know, I can do something. So that's that feeling of competence. So a big part of that self-efficacy is experience. So just like what you've been through is some of through through adversity, through stress, and people changing roles or undergoing big transitions at work, you know, it builds experience, doesn't it? It builds a new bank or inventory in our minds in terms of what we can do, what we've achieved in the past. And that adds to our resilience muscle. So yeah, there's there's definitely a link between self-efficacy and resilience. And I think we'll see this as we go through and play some of the snippets with some really amazing stories of people overcoming adversity.

Angela Malik 5:37

Well, let's hear some stories. What have you got next?

Kristian 5:40

Well, actually, this is another clip for with the same episode, but it goes a little bit deeper into the neuroscience and the biology.

Amygdala Alerts And Stress Autopilot

Dr Amanda Potter 5:47

So our brains are very much wired to be aware of safety risks, and that risk awareness system in the brain is fast, it's responsive, it's attentive, it's aware, and it remains alert in order to keep us safe. And this is driven by the amygdala. And the amygdala is responsible for the fight or flight response. It's very efficient, it's very attentive, and it continues to operate without us knowing. So if you were to feel threatened, Christian, if I was to say something disparaging about you or unkind about you, this would put you on high alert and you'd be looking for additional evidence that I might be unkind. As I say, quite a lot of it is subconscious.

Kristian 6:29

So there's that priming aspect that you talked about before, making associations.

Dr Amanda Potter 6:33

Yeah, it is. I wouldn't necessarily use priming in this instance, but it is about making associations, looking looking for patterns, looking for risks, and seeing how big the problem is.

Kristian 6:44

Which I suppose makes a lot of sense in terms of keeping us safe, doesn't it? And that sort of our brain's way of uh keeping us out of danger and looking for potential threats. So I suppose that's something that we have to be able to do.

Dr Amanda Potter 6:55

Absolutely.

Kristian 6:56

So if I get this straight, the amygdala is responsible for so many different things. So we've talked about memory, decision making, emotional responses, flagging that fear and anxiety and aggression response. So it sounds like it's a whole lot of responsibility for one apparently rather small brain part. It must be absolutely exhausted.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:15

It must be, particularly if we're stressed. I mean, that's the point, isn't it? If we are particularly stressed, the amygdala is going to be constantly on high alert. And what's fascinating is that when we're completely stressed, because the amygdala is on high alert, it's like a muscle. It will grow and strengthen and physically grow in size when we're stressed. And we don't even realize that's happening because our brains are mostly on autopilot. And most of the time we all deal with 11 million pieces of information per second. I mean, that's completely bonkers. And 99% of it is automatic. Well, some people say 97, some people say 99%, but I can't imagine being attentive to that many pieces of information. But when we're stressed and anxious, it means that we're really, I suppose, in your words, then priming that amygdala to be on high alert.

Kristian 8:04

So it actually grows over time the more stress we experience, particularly chronic stress. Is that is that right?

Angela Malik 8:10

Totally. That bit about it growing over time. When I was going through a particularly challenging resilience time, that used to play on my mind a lot. That I've got to find ways to find positive outlets for the stress because I'm concerned that my brain chemistry is actually changing and morphing into something else. So yeah, that actually that bit of that podcast stuck with me. It set me to looking for really positive channels for my stress in order to not have an altered brain.

Kristian 8:47

Uh changing brain, yeah. It's a bit of a scary thought, isn't it? One part of your brain just getting bigger and bigger. What have you found works then? You mentioned a positive channel for stress. So, what are some of the things that have helped you, Angela, when um life is frustrating or when you're tested?

Angela Malik 9:06

Um,

Control Versus Acceptance Under Pressure

Angela Malik 9:07

I think it depends. So, one of the major things that it would depend on for me as to what route I take to be more constructive in my approach to stress is what's within my control and what's not. And for the most part, I believe a lot of things are within my control. But there are just some things that's, you know, some stressors, they either don't have a very quick fix or they're just wholly out of your control anyway. So I think about some certain life stressors that are related to, I don't know, economic circumstances, for example.

Kristian 9:42

Yeah.

Angela Malik 9:43

Prices are going up in the supermarket and you can't control that. So then you need to focus on things that you can control that are going to kind of help alleviate that stress, right?

Kristian 9:54

Absolutely. So easy to do, isn't it? Yeah. And to control the control levels.

Angela Malik 9:57

It sounds uh yeah, it just and and also just be able to set aside in your mind the bits that you can't control and stop worrying about them, which sometimes is easier said than done. But um, I think for the things that I well, in a situation like economic hardship, for example, where that's out of your control but heavily impacting how stressed you feel, what has helped me personally is to look into things like volunteering, actually just sort of stepping outside of your own circle and getting some new perspective on how others are experiencing life. You're kind of finding new ways to think and digest what's going on around you. And things where it is within my control. Sometimes I struggle with that more, actually, because stressors for me anyway tend to be around workload because I overestimate how much I can get done or say yes to too many things, or I have lots of competing priorities. And I do that. And I often personally struggle to find the point where I should have said, here's the limit. I need to kind of put some brakes on now until I'm way past the limit. So yeah, I've maybe I struggle a little bit more when it's within my control.

Kristian 11:06

I liked that explanation from Amanda because it went into the fact that actually negativity bias um shapes our perception and it's something which we don't have too much control over. And for me, you know, resilience isn't about getting rid of this bias, it's about actually preventing it from just dominating our thinker and behavior, you know, when we can sometimes get into that negative loop or spiral of thinking. And I know I've experienced this in my life where you get into that spiral and it takes ages and ages for to get out of it.

Angela Malik 11:37

For me, generally, those tend to be very brief kind of episodes, and I can come out of them almost when I don't want to. Sometimes you just want to kind of stay where you are in that little negative bubble. Absolutely. And I can't a lot of times, even if I would want to. But I do struggle when I see others kind of in that spiral. And I wonder if you happen to know what you can do as the person who's not experiencing that to help someone who might be in the midst of a spiral.

Kristian 12:09

I think to answer your question, I think step one is to understand that some people do have a different response to stress. So is to understand that their way of resilience and dealing with emotions might be to sit with those emotions, negative or unhelpful, and actually process them. So it might take them more time to process. It can be a very positive thing in itself, I think, because resilience isn't just about positive thinking, is it? I think in many ways is acknowledging the risks and those emotions without being consumed by them. So sometimes people take different times to process those emotions.

Angela Malik 12:48

So what you're saying, Krishnan, is that I need to practice more patience and adjust myself in a very roundabout way.

Kristian 12:56

Maybe some meditation.

Angela Malik 12:58

Noted. So have we got any guest episodes? Might be interesting to hear some other voices too.

Kristian 13:05

We definitely do, yeah. The next clip was from episode five, where we actually had a guest politely and constructively and really interestingly challenge Amanda's own theory and some ideas and resilience live and mid-interview. And that guest was Martin Hewitt, who is the founder and chief exec of Adaptive Grand Slam, which is a charity that takes disabled veterans and civilians on expedition challenges. So it's like climbing the seven continents, highest peaks, for example, walking to the North and South Poles, absolutely amazing. He's a former British Army officer in the parachute regiment who was shot in Helburn Province in Afghanistan and later raced for Great Britain on the disabled ski team. So an amazing individual. And this episode centered on his South Pole expedition with Lou Rudd, which is where the persistence versus resilience debate is really relevant.

When Persistence Helps Or Harms

Dr Amanda Potter 13:58

I've always believed and suggested that persistence is the enemy of resilience, that if we push and push and push, that actually what will happen is we will undermine our resilience and our ability to cope with difficulty. And that actually what's more important is agility and learning. But it sounds to me in your example, Martin, that you did nothing but persist. You were dogged, you were determined, and you fought through those three months and getting to the South Pole. Uh do you have any perspective on that? Do you think I'm wrong?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Uh no, I think it it's uh like all these things, I think it's down to context. Uh and I think persistence in that environment, uh well, the outside is you've got no choice but to persist in that environment because you could there's no one coming, you know. You you you're you're in the environment and you're on unsupported expedition, so you carry on. But I think from from the perspective of psychology, there's a big difference in whether or not persistence is complementary towards resilience or not. In that so, for example, when I was in the military, uh, the the powers has got a reputation for for you know for what they are, and there's a very robust selection process that people go through in order to get in. When I was uh a young officer in that organisation, our physical training was all about maximising soldiers' ability to be able to perform under pressure, carrying kit in hostile environments, and a lot of that was around endurance training, but there were specific tasks and specific distances carried specific weights every time that we had to hit. And so you kind of that becomes your comfort zone. And that's that's the that's the physical standard that we then train to. When I got onto the GB team for ski racing, I went from doing you know two mile two mile marches with Kate on the you know, whatever time you could do it in ten miles, twenty miles plus to suddenly ski racing on a mountain for no more than three and a half minutes a completely different physical experience. You know, we refer to it in the military, the military's chains are not allowed, but we used to kind of refer to our training as beasting sessions. You know, every session was 100%. And that was part of the mindset, it was part of you know part of the way in which we decided to deliver the training ourselves as two commanders. Um whereas when I hit Paralympic sport, I had to completely change my attitude around what training was. Persistently doing the same thing wasn't going to achieve performance level sport. Um what I mean by that is that we had to change the way in which we trained in order to get the performance in the ski racing gates, and that changed everything. It was a complete world apart from the physical training and preparation for alpine sport. So everything completely shifted. And I think had I just continued, had I have entered performance sport with a persistent mindset of just doing the same old fizz that I've always done, I wouldn't have got anywhere near as far as I did.

Angela Malik 16:45

Hmm. Do you think, Christian, that there's any situation in the standard sort of office workplace where persistence is the answer, and rather than sort of changing tact and being agile?

Kristian 16:59

I mean, absolutely. I think it's very contextual. I think there are times where if you are in the thick of it, you know what the plan is, if everybody's pulling together, if they're using each other's strengths and they're collaborating, but there's a deadline, there's a target, and people understand that target and deadline, then absolutely without that persistence and that focus on the goal, you're going to second guess yourself or struggle. So there are times where that persistence and relentlessness can be essential or really effective. I think the caveat is if you're doing that over long periods of time and the risk that I see with teams and organizations, maybe you've seen the same. And we talked about this before on our other podcasts where there are relentless expectations and over time, without the people having chance or space to celebrate success or take a breather after a project and then before you go on to the next thing. So I think that's the resilient risk there is when teams and individuals are just having to be persistent over long periods of time without the opportunity to take a breather.

Angela Malik 18:09

Yeah, good point. I don't know why, but I had in my mind hospital teams during the height of COVID, where their persistence is the only approach because you know it's a life or death kind of situation. But then we saw lots of burnout, lots and lots of burnout because it was sustained and it was just there was no cause for pause. So yeah.

Kristian 18:31

Compassion fatigue as well.

Angela Malik 18:33

Yeah, exactly. Compassion fatigue as well. Well, speaking of fatigue, I believe the next clip you've got is around change fatigue.

Kristian 18:40

That's a nice segue. Yeah, this was a clip from episode 72. So when we talked about managing change fatigue, I wanted to zoom out from the individual brain and what's going on personally when in terms of resilience to the environment. So why is change so taxing on our brains? What's going on in the brain,

Change Fatigue And Decision Overload

Kristian 18:59

Amanda?

Dr Amanda Potter 18:59

It's all about the CEO of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which handles decision making, problem solving, and is heavily involved in that processing of change and deciding whether to or not to change. And when we're required to adapt constantly, the prefrontal cortex is continuously activated and it's using up all the energy. And that's what researchers call the prefrontal prefrontal cortex overload. My goodness, come on, Amanda. I can say this stuff honestly. And there was a really good study actually that looked at the overstimulation of this brain region and how it can impair cognitive function. It can make it harder to concentrate, to make decisions, to regulate emotions, so we have these flighty emotions. They're all the classic symptoms of change fatigue.

Kristian 19:51

Yeah, so Amanda talks about that CUO of the brain, so the prefrontal cortex being overloaded by sort of constant change. It got me to wondering whether these signals and symptoms are kind of the responsibility of that person. Is it a matter of that person needing to be more resilient? Or is it about how that change is actually managed and how that person experiences change and how they're supported? It kind of got me thinking about the role and responsibility of the organization in resilience. I think there's a place for personal resilience and for strategies to deal with that. But at the same time, um, are we doing enough in our organizations to reduce the need for people to be relentlessly resilient all the time?

Angela Malik 20:38

Yeah, it's definitely a fine balance, isn't it?

Kristian 20:41

Yeah, and we'll revisit, I suppose, that debate around the responsibility of the organization a little bit later.

Forgiveness As A Resilience Choice

Kristian 20:48

But for our next clip, I really wanted to share this because I think it's so powerful. A story of somebody who has undergone the hardest of adversities, um, a kind of adversity that most of us have never experienced and wouldn't wish to. So we had in episode 86 the privilege to talk to Fegan Murray, whose son actually died in the Manchester Arena bombing. So, along with that personal tragedy, Fegin has also had to deal with a lot of adversities since that time. So her words and her experiences, I think, give us some great insights in terms of what we can learn from adversity and challenge.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

My values are really important to me, and forgiveness is part of my value base, and that picture had such the Imam had such a massive impact on me that I felt really compelled to forgive Salman Abidi. And that's what I did. And I did it to be honest, also because I still needed to function as a mum, as a wife, as a grandmother, etc. All the other roles I play. I also felt I had to become aware. I think the police mentioned that Islamophobia. Risen by 300% in Manchester. I also thought that day, well, if I can go on national TV as the mother of somebody who was killed by a terrorist, maybe in Manchester that'll break the cycle of hate a little bit. So these are all reasons I forgave, but also I am so glad I did because I never allowed anger and hate to hijack my soul and my heart.

Dr Amanda Potter 22:27

You said the most amazing quote to me, which was a sour mind makes a sour body, and the impact of hate, if we carry that with us.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Absolutely. So I do read a lot of textbooks, and in one of the textbooks of one of my favorite authors, Andrew Matthews, he said in that one chapter on forgiveness, and I always remember that sentence, a sour mind creates a sour body. And I really do feel that that is true because the mind and body are so closely connected. And it it literally freed me from not being so affected simply by forgiving. I am so glad I was able to do it.

Angela Malik 23:09

What do you think, Christian? Sometimes you hear people say, forgive but don't forget, or lots of people have different views on forgiveness and whether it's a worthy pursuit or not. What about you?

Kristian 23:22

I'd never heard of that phrase that um Fegan shared towards the end of that clip. But listening to her, it was clear that forgiveness was something that she made a strategic choice of. So it wasn't a passive feeling, but it was that act of deciding to forgive, something that she decided would help her to do some good out of that, to make some meaning and to give her probably a sense of control in some way. So every knockback made her more resilient and more determined. Should we go to another clip now, actually, on that same episode, Angela?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah, let's do it.

Knockbacks Licking Wounds Then Rising

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Even even the knockbacks, um, they hurt, of course, when you have a knockback, when you have ministers and baronesses challenge the legislation, saying that I don't need pity. Of course, I don't need pity, but I felt very much that uh it hurt, and when things hurt, you need to go away and lick your wounds. That is so important, and that's what I did. Those comments hurt, and I went home and I did sulk. I felt pathetic, I felt sorry for myself, and all of that was really necessary. And the key was not to stay there too long and to get too comfortable. And I got up, dusted myself off, and became even more determined every time I had a knockback. I thought, no, you're not doing this to me. I am stronger than that. I am not backing down, and every knockback made me even more resilient, more determined and stronger.

Angela Malik 24:58

I think that really resonates with me because I also tend to approach sort of knockbacks like that. There's a moment where you need to sit there and kind of just sit with the feeling, or one of the approaches that I tend to take, if something has happened and the outcome of that thing has been really bad, and the same if it's been really good, I in that moment will sort of just sit with that feeling, really, really feel it, whether it's the high or the low, and ask myself what actions or choices did I make that contributed to this so that I can do more of that if it was a positive thing, or so that I can avoid this awful, awful feeling now. And even if things are sort of out of my control and the outcome wasn't necessarily something I contributed so much to, it does tend to manifest itself with me at least in more persistence at the end, coming up and saying, Well, now I've sat there and felt that feeling and sat with it for that long. I'm not gonna make that for not.

Kristian 26:00

It sounds as though that strategy works for you, and I think it works for a lot of other people as well. So we talked already about the importance of social connection. You know, you talked about how volunteer, for example, helped you feel good and positive and gave you some meaning, even in times of trouble. So in this episode, we talk about the importance of human connection and resilience. So the fact that high resilience actually is around understanding and empathy. This was from episode 94 with John Cooper.

Empathy Connection And Resilience Scores

Dr Amanda Potter 26:34

Our research around resilience, because it's an affect model. So our model of resilience is all about nine aspects of affect. So they're positive and negative affect. And what we found is people who get a sten 10 on any of the scales are people who experience extreme positive emotions and rarely experience extreme negative emotions. But what we have found with some of those people who get really high scores is that they are very dismissive and discounting of people who experience low affect and they just do these throwaway, just cheer up. Don't have the turn your frown upside down, stop being so grumpy. And they can't understand or acknowledge actually what it feels like to be low. And therefore, that human connection is broken because they can't empathize with what the experience is. Where we found people who score quite low on the questionnaire, arguably, if you took it at face value, you could say they're low on resilience. Actually, often they're the opposite. They're people who have learned incredible techniques for coping. The neuroplasticities come into place because they know how to face into challenging moments, challenging feelings, and they're really attentive and thoughtful and considerate of those who also struggle. But high score on our resilience questioner is not necessarily a good thing.

Kristian 27:49

Yeah, I think that was an interesting one, wasn't it?

Angela Malik 27:51

Yeah, it's really interesting, Christian. I actually was reading an observation that you made on a sample resilience profile. This particular sample had fairly low scores across all nine dimensions. And there was that observation that this can indicate a person who actually understands very well how to sit with their emotions and what pace they need to take in order to overcome challenges.

Kristian 28:16

Yeah.

Angela Malik 28:17

I mean, the other bit in that clip around high resilience scores not necessarily indicating very high empathy. I don't actually find that that surprising. And if you are someone who maybe you've sort of dealt with depression anxiety throughout your life or had kind of episodes more occasionally than not, you've already built up some coping skills for how to deal with those and some empathy when someone else is going through that. But I think the point there too is that it's not necessarily high resilience scores mean low empathy. There's an intellectual part of you that sort of understands the empathetic side of it, but the actual feeling the empathy sometimes can only come from a place of experience.

Kristian 29:02

No, but I think it's just an interesting point, isn't it? Because it's often people completing a resilience questionnaire, for example. You know, they might want 10 out of 10s or top scores and then just then put it on the shelf and think that there's nothing else to do. But um, yeah, it's not just a case of high scores. Everything is not able to change or to improve.

Angela Malik 29:24

So that was around moving on from resilience in the individual and moving into sort of relational aspects of resilience. I think you're taking us on a journey, aren't you, Christian? So, what's the next step?

Kristian 29:36

Um, the next step of the journey is where we hear from Lucy Beck, who's the group chief people officer at Coventry Building Society. And in this episode, so episode 78, she talks about what resilience and some of the strategies that she uses to support resilience actually looks like in practice. At the time of the recording, she'd been in the group role for about a month, having just taken on the combined Coventry Building Society and the Cooperative Bank remit. So she'd been with the society about 10 years before that. And so this episode is her walking through and sharing some of the strategies that helped keep 6,300 people composed and steady and well through a merger that literally doubled the workforce overnight. So uh not a small challenge.

Fire Breaks Trust And Fun At Work

SPEAKER_06 30:25

Certainly, my learning having been through this very intense last year was the reason why I got through that was because of the people around me. So there were definitely times where frankly I was full up, literally full up, and you know, that that emotional overflow needed to happen in order for me to be able to move on. There are absolutely people in my team, be it the exec team or my people team, that I trusted to have that emotional overflow with. There were also times when I was able to support them with theirs. So almost that little circle of, you know, there's times when I'm feeling more resilient and I've got some in the tank to give, and there's times where I need I'm not, and I really need you. I need you. Yeah. So I think all of us have seen how much we've relied on each other through the course of the last year. So you very much hope that that gets magnified. The other piece for me that has proven to be so valuable time and time again is creating a little bit of space, creating a little fire break. And going back to some of the interventions that we did with you, Amanda, last year, content's so important. Actually, just creating time for people to get off the treadmill, to spend time together, talking about this is how it's been for me, this is what's on my mind, this is what I'm wrestling with. There's such value in just creating that bit of space for people to come together. I talked a bit about the work that we're now doing on culture, which is about bringing colleagues together. So some of it needs to be infrastructure, the frameworks that we've built, the tools, the products. Some of it will just be about how we create those fire breaks, how we create spaces in which people can come together, support each other, and find answers together, which maybe isn't very scientific. I think it really helps.

Kristian 32:05

I think that touches on quite a few of the things we've been talking about, doesn't it, Angela? Lucy mentions there in terms of the importance of social support and connection. You know, I love the way that she talked about her exec team actually her feeling comfortable to express emotion and when it seemed as though they had a language for when they were struggling, whether you call that sort of my battery is a bit flat or is a bit empty. And so at the moment I feel resilient and I can support you and give some energy and be energizing. But then there are times when I need my battery filled as well, and I need some help from other people. So it seems as if there was psychological safety and trust there, which enabled Lucy and her inner team to express emotions and therefore stay resilient.

Angela Malik 32:50

Yeah, definitely.

Kristian 32:52

What about fun, Angela, as well? Because I know in that podcast, uh Lucy also talks about the place for fun and for laughing, for joy, and actually found that fun at work correlated with the high trust scores that they'd experienced. So it's something which is kind of measurable and not just fluffy. So is there a place for happiness and fun at work, Angela?

Angela Malik 33:14

I think so. I am not surprised that fun and humor would correlate with high trust because it just makes sense, doesn't it? If you can't laugh with someone, then you're probably on guard a little bit. I mean, you probably can't relax. And if you really can't relax, then there's a little bit of masking that's going on anyway. And so it kind of just snowballs into we're here and we're performing a certain role, and there's not a lot of space in that to be able to like relieve pressure in an authentic way. And so you end up just taking it home to your partner or whatever and releasing it on them.

Kristian 33:52

Yeah. That's right. Yeah, to sort of be involved in a team where you are using humor, it demonstrates trust, doesn't it? It demonstrates a psychological safety to partake in that in the first place, and as well as getting the benefit of humour itself in terms of our neurotransmitters and actually making us feel or relieving stress. It also is a shared language as well, isn't it? Yeah. You know, through that humour, it's a shared language that can help people feel connected. And you know we talked about connection sort of running through this whole podcast. Let's go on to the next episode that I wanted to share. Again, the theme here is around the role of organization, of team, and also society in supporting resilience and encouraging resilience. So this was episode 93, and it was called Stop Fixing People, Start Fixing Work with Joe Jacker. And it's the episode in the many ways we've been building towards. Professor Joe Yaker is an occupational psychologist. She's professor at Burtbeck University, which is actually where I did my master's, and she's managing partner at Affinity Health at Work. Angela, you hosted this one, so I'm sure you'll have your own insights. And Joe's work spans chronic health conditions at work, manager behaviour. She does a lot of research on, and um creation of the IGLU framework, which we'll listen to in the snippet.

Stop Fixing People Start Fixing Work

Jo Yarker 35:14

Over the years, what we've been doing is trying to understand the experience of managing health at work and the impact that work has on health and your ability to sustain your health, regardless of what health looks like for you. And I think what we've realized is the first part in our journey was recognising it can't all be on the individual, and the managers really need to get involved and support that individual in staying well at work. And then over the last 20 years, we've really been looking at each of those different levels of a system to work out what plays a role. And that's where our IGLU framework has come into play. So, really thinking about what is it across the individual, the group level, the leader level, the organizational policies, practices, and then what goes on outside and how do we interplay between organizations and our local systems, our national systems, to really think about what supports people to stay well and thrive. And that IgLU framework really gives a multi-layered view of that. And from a practical level, you can think, well, an individual staying inside their IGLI when it's cold outside, they can stay safe and well. But when any of those building blocks are not there, then we're going to experience challenges. And that's certainly something that we see when we're doing our research, when we're looking across the system, but also when we're looking at individual challenges at either the individual experience or the line manager experience or policy level. When there are challenges, we know that many people really don't thrive. So, how do we put all those building blocks together is really where the research is sitting.

Angela Malik 36:50

I remember this conversation with Jo and her igloo framework really stuck with me. I found myself talking about it again and again after we'd finished recording that. Um, because she's not wrong, is she? It's never, ever just one thing, which is why, you know, when it comes down to whose responsibility is resilience? Is it the individual or is it the organization? Well, the answer is yes and yes, right?

Kristian 37:15

Yeah, I think so.

Angela Malik 37:16

Yes and yes, and also what's going on outside.

Kristian 37:21

What did you take from the podcast yourself? Obviously, I know you were a co-host there.

Angela Malik 37:25

Well, I think by the time we're talking to clients at BTalent, there's already some sort of challenge that's come up. There's already been an engagement survey that's just had some pretty telling results, or there's something going on, and you know, some decision maker along the way in the organization has already identified this is an issue here, or sometimes they misidentify maybe what the issue is, and then that's where sometimes our diagnostic team can really go in and look at it more holistically. But the point is that we're already coming in at intervention point. And what I really liked expanding on with Joe was this idea of sort of fireproofing rather than fighting the fires, right? Kind of preparing and relaying that foundation so that you aren't having such dire engagement results a couple of years down the line. And yeah, I think it's very interesting to think about resilience holistically. So we've gone on a bit of a journey today, Christian, haven't we? We've gone from the neuroscience of resilience in the individual and individual resilience challenges and coping situations. We've talked about kind of change fatigue and dealing with tragedy. Then we've moved into then relational aspects of resilience and and how human connection really is a key part of that. And then onto organizational aspects and now straight on to something even broader than just the organization. So now we've taken that journey, Christian. Where did you want to land?

Kristian 39:10

I think all of these clips and that's bizarre discussion reinforce a message for me that resilience is in many ways a shared responsibility. So individual, so we can control to a point or own our responses to things and some of the strategies that are out there to learn, I think can be really important in helping people understand and then to manage sort of those emotions that can sometimes grip them a little bit too long. So if we can understand, we can process and then manage our emotions more effectively. I think that's good for us, but also for others. I think organizations, though, I think own the conditions in which those responses take place. So I think for me personally, sustainable resilience comes from actually looking at both of these things.

Angela Malik 40:02

Yeah, I agree. And also sort of looking at low resilience being a failing, just like we shouldn't look at high resilience as some sort of now, there's nothing to work on. We've sort of made it.

Kristian 40:15

Absolutely.

Shared Responsibility And Closing Ask

Angela Malik 40:16

Well, that has been a really great trip down memory lane.

Kristian 40:20

Yeah. So I hope our listeners have found that enlightening and hopefully also practical. We'll be looking forward to sharing another Best Bits episode very soon.

Angela Malik 40:30

Absolutely. If you liked this episode or you found it useful, please do like it, share it, give us a rating on whatever streaming platform you're listening on. Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful and successful day.