Transcript
Speaker: Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
Speaker: You use the link in the description to visit zencastr.com and take advantage of the built-in discount. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abyssaida and people who think outside the box about how work works.
Speaker: with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone. I'm your host, Michael Millward. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am talking to Sarah Turner about resilience at work.
Speaker: Sarah is a leadership trainer, coach and author. She's a contributor to the anthology Joy at Work. Sarah is based in Indianapolis in Indiana in the United States of America. the home of the Indianapolis 500. I have never been to Indiana, but if I ever get the chance to go, i will be sure to make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I travel at trade prices on flights, hotels, and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
Speaker: I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and just like me, travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to and probably good enough to share with your friends, family and work colleagues as well.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. to Today's Independent Mind is Sarah Turner.
Speaker: Hello Sarah. Hello Michael, such a pleasure to be on. I'm thrilled that you are on and I'm thrilled that we've had so many people have contributed chapters to The Joy at Work. It is a fascinating anthology with so many different opinions about what makes people happy at work.
Speaker: Before we get to talk about that and your chapter on resilience, I'm intrigued as to how you ended up being someone that was invited to contribute to this anthology. so What's the story behind Sarah Turner?
Speaker: Yay, I would love to share. And i I'll be succinct. I think you and I have compared notes on this before. But when you get to a certain point in your career, where the numbers are large, you just say, I've been doing this a while. I've been doing this a while. But where where my my real origination came from is when i was in college, going to university, and i had a very distinct plan that I was going to get my accounting degree and I was going to be an accountant. And that was going to be exactly where my life was going to unfold professionally. What I didn't realize was that I was also going to have this natural growing interest for teaching and training and mentoring. And so i got really lucky, or maybe it was just, it was just happenstance that a professor of mine
Speaker: tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I would be interested in being his teaching assistant. I was looking for a job at the time, so it seemed like it was the thing to say yes to, so I did. i didn't know what it was going to be I didn't know what to expect, but over the course of four years, I really leaned in and I loved it. I loved being able to help peer students unpack content and learn how to use it in a way that made it productive for their education experience. As I ended my career,
Speaker: and I got a job in mainstream accounting with my graduation behind me and my career in front of me, I instantly started looking for at my first company where I could be involved with talent, teaching, training, recruiting, anything that had to do with our people. In the five years that I worked in the public accounting arena, I ended up having a chance to migrate my career naturally to doing a lot of leadership development, internal talent work,
Speaker: And it just started the formation of where I'm at now. And so after five years, i ended up doing a couple of things that molded my formal path to becoming a leadership consultant. But for really the last two decades, I have spent time working with individuals, small teams, and then large scale cultures, trying to help them figure out how to get the most productive, ideal environments in place to leverage the talents that they all carry. And it is fascinating. And so I have had a couple of paths that I would call niches. I have emotional intelligence is a a pretty big lane that I spend a lot of time in. I'm fascinated with how our brains respond to the things that are put into our paths. And learning how to mold your EI is is just something that everybody should embrace. But as a complementary element of interest that I have taken on and gotten some additional credentials in,
Speaker: The concept of resilience has really been something that has intrigued me my whole life, but also as a coach, as a partner in helping people develop. And so I ended up years ago, getting a certification in a tool called the Hardiness Resilience Gauge, which is a designated tool that measures one of the largest components of resilience. From there, I have gotten to work with people one-on-one on really putting their hands around molding their own path of resilience. And as a handful of wonderful peers who also have great ideas about how to create joy at work, we're pulling together a concept for a book about how you can really engage and get more of that feeling of true joy at work. i raised my hand and said, you know, when people develop resilience, even the toughest stuff can feel
Speaker: good. It can feel like joy. And I said, I'd love to contribute. And they said, yes, let's do it. So that's kind of how my career evolved, but also how I got to be a partner in the anthology.
Speaker: That's great. The cynic in me, resilience is almost like one of those h r type buzzwords that I hear an awful lot about recently. But what does the word actually mean? That is a great question. And I'm glad you asked because I do think that the concept of the word itself and the association that we each make does help us unpack it and then also place it on our paths for use. There are a lot of different ways of looking at resilience, but I can give you my take, especially from the lens of of my training. If you look at the concept of resilience, I loosely like to say that it's the concept of being able to to bounce back when you are in a moment of stress or adversity. So when something's placed in your path, unexpected or expected that it is feeling a little heavy, the question really is, can you measure, do you get back in Do you lean in Do you decide to step into the moment or does your resilience go down and you end up pulling away, you step aside, you step out and you don't engage. And so when you look at the concept of resilience,
Speaker: you start looking at the depth of research that has been done and there is a ton. so if you're interested, you can do ah a chat GPT or a Google search on resilience studies. There are so many, but when you look at one of the largest, most extensive studies that was done by dr Paul Bartone in conjunction with Dr. Steven Stein, who eventually wrote a book called Hardiness, they studied some of the most stressful environments you could be in. And one of those happens to be the armed forces. So in any country, you have that representation where there's just a lot of stress and they wanted to really track and see what can create someone's ability, no matter what's thrown at them, for them to bounce back and be productive in their response. And what they found is that there are a lot of things that make us resilient.
Speaker: If you look at it as a pie, you would see multiple slices that are representing different contributing factors. I mean, as an example, Michael, you and I could likely explore our backgrounds, but our upbringing, people who were what we would call mentors of ours, the the household but that we were in, the communities we were around, that's a sliver of our known resilience.
Speaker: But when they researched it further, they found that one of the biggest pieces of our resilience pie was something that they labeled our hardiness factor. And they were able to really look underneath that and find that it had three really distinct components that make us hardy or make us lack hardiness. And they started to really see and test, can you build that? Is this something that's stagnant in our our behaviors? And once it is designed, it stays with us? Or can you mold it?
Speaker: We can mold it. That is so refreshing that we have the ability to decide and put time and energy into it. But that ended up being one of the biggest factors. And so that became something I just wanted to learn more about and have done a lot of work in. But yeah, so from a perspective of resilience, made up a lot of things, but really our hardiness is one of the biggest chunks. Yeah, I like the bit you said about the ability to bounce back. That seems to bring everything together. I like the hardiness. It's like you're can take whatever is thrown at you and bounce back is, yeah, that for me starts to make sense.
Speaker: But what happens when someone lacks this ability to bounce back? What sort of impact will it have on their employer and their colleagues, for example?
Speaker: That's another great question. And so one of the things that I will share first, as we talk about the problems when we lack it, is what the research showed goes into it. So when you look at hardiness, they found that the three components that make us hardy are what what are often referred to are the three C's of hardiness, but they are our challenge factor. The way we look at something and we decide, is this something I want to grasp onto and see it as a challenge, as intriguing, as something I want to try to overcome Or do we have a low sense of challenge and we think, oh, that's not that's scary. That's not worth it. That's a threat. Definitely don't want to do that. Because you can measure someone's level of challenge, whether it be a high application of it all the way to a low application. So challenge is one of the factors. The second factor is called control. And loosely, it's measuring your belief that you can influence the moment you're in. So as you can imagine, when you're high in the hardiness factor of control, you believe
Speaker: I can do something with that. But when we are low in that hardiness factor, we will assume, oh, I i can't do that. that that's not in my That's not in my responsibility. that Somebody else will take care of that. And we don't assume that point of control. And then the last factor is called commitment.
Speaker: And that is a measurement of whether or not we feel aligned or driven for meaning. So when we are high in the hardiness factor commitment, we believe in what we're spending time on, We believe in the outcomes that we are trying to create. But when we're low, we don't see the relevance. It doesn't seem useful. So it changes our entire demeanor. And so what you'll find is that when we show up, especially in the workplace, but also in our lives as low, we definitely have a ton of residual effects. Some of them are physical.
Speaker: You can tell it's the way we're carrying ourselves when we don't have commitment, when we don't feel a sense of challenge, And when we don't think that we can influence situations, we just sort of shrink.
Speaker: I don't know if you've ever had that, but i I can absolutely recall seeing pictures of myself where my shoulders are just slumped and I look like I'm smaller. and and so that's kind of a physical effect. Mentally, it changes our inner monologue. It changes the way we talk to ourselves, the things that we are are thinking and seeing. And then I also think it has a huge effect socially. So if I look at the workplace and the cultures that we're in,
Speaker: when we see multiple people carrying low hardiness of resilience, you'll see it almost spread. And now it seems cultural that we have this heaviness and that we feel like we're kind of muted a little bit in the way we think. And so it starts to spread. And I think to me, what you'll find is that more often than not,
Speaker: a measurement of it is we will see undesired outcomes and or more predictably lower levels of efficiency, productivity, quality, versus when you see that dial go up for the culture and the individuals in that culture, it's just unleashed. I feel like the ceiling just grows when you start to see that happen. So I think some of the biggest problems are that it can actually start to infuse or become borrowed as it is present. it's kind of like that one bad apple ruins the pie. You start to really see it seep into your culture. But I also think it stunts our our capabilities. Like what we can do and produce just gets muted is kind of the word that comes to mind for sure. You made me think about that sort of expression that someone should do something about that.
Speaker: There's something wrong and someone should do something about that. Well, I am someone and I will do something about it. That's, I suppose, like when the chips are down and that ability to bounce back and say, I don't care who is supposed to be responsible.
Speaker: No one appears to be responsible. I will make myself responsible and I will get start the ball rolling. That's high resilience. That's exactly what that is. That's high levels of the hardiness factor of control. That's a great rendition. Well, well said. All right. Thank you very much. I got a smile on the face now.
Speaker: hu Is this something that we all have naturally? Is it something that is beaten out of us at some point in life? And is it something that we can actually learn whether we have it or not, we can increase our resilience and improve our resilience?
Speaker: What sort of skill is it? Do we all have it from birth? Great question. And and what what you'll find is that in that big pie of resilience, there are some things that may be slivers, tiny slivers that may have predisposition for some of these hardiness factors to grow or kind of naturally show up. But by far, the largest pieces of the pie are things that had to have been worked on, grown, thought through. And and you're right, it is a sibling of of the arc of emotional intelligence. It requires awareness. I mean, to build it, you have to know that it's lacking.
Speaker: If you don't know something, I always say, what we are unaware of, we rarely change because we don't even know. So you have to be able to identify when it's not present. You have to know when we say things like, somebody should take care of that. It's a red you know a red flag or an alarm going,
Speaker: Yeah, that's not resilience. So where's our resilience? How do we dig into it? But you can grow it. I mean, that's probably the thing that's most intriguing to me is that we do have the ability. I always tell people if they say, hey, where would you begin?
Speaker: i would say, look into each of these three components of hardiness. and really think about what those strategies for growth might look like. And as an example, before you give us the example, just remind us of what those three factors of hardiness are. Yes. So those are your ah your concept and factor of challenge.
Speaker: So your challenge mindset, that's the first factor. The second is the view you have on your control. So that's the belief that you can influence something. And the last hardiness factor is commitment. The third factor is, do you have an understanding and a drive for the why you're doing something? And each of those factors, yes, are the core of measuring hardiness. Yeah.
Speaker: Right. So I interrupted you, but for a good purpose, how resilient are you that you can go back to what you were intended to talk about? Exactly. So as we were talking about what are some example strategies, you look for ways that you could pick one or more of those three factors and really show the ability for you to apply bounce back moment. I have two boys in my household. And right now the most common trend in parenting two boys is they have these crazy hairstyles they want to engage in. And so I often hear people talking about how both of my boys have this thing, this thing sticking off of their forehead, which is this very designed head of hair. And you know growing up, I'm looking at their hair. I have opinions about what I think their hair should look like. So in the morning for a long time, I would say, have you looked in the mirror?
Speaker: Are you going to leave with your hair like that? And that was my subtle digs that I don't know that I would. And then I realized I was being bothered by it. And the tone I was using with my sons was not ideal and it was affecting them. And I started thinking about Can I control this? Should i control this? Should I grow in how I bounce back from this? And I realized one of the strategies for growth in the vertical of control is pick your battles.
Speaker: If we want to fight every single thing, we will drain ourselves super quickly. And the version of us that shows up is not usually ideal. So I got really thoughtful and I thought, do I want to die on the hill with the hair battle?
Speaker: Is that that important to me? And I quickly realized, no, there are other things that I want to have as a battle. And I realized I could let that go. And I didn't need to control all of those things. And I started to be mindful that that is a applicable skill that if you do it regularly and you catch when you need to pick your battles, you will find the lane of control way more ideally. So for each of the three factors, there are tons of strategies. In fact, in the chapter that I wrote in the Joy at Work book,
Speaker: I ended up putting a link to a special website that I created under my webpage that is just resources, just all kinds of ideas of how do you grow your level of challenge mindset, how do you grow your control, and how do you grow your level of commitment. And that's where it starts. It really does begin by choosing some specific, absolutely feasible activity that you could apply to sort of remold the way you think and remold your resilience. So what you're talking about is deciding what to let go.
Speaker: you know, what not to make an issue of. You know, as I'm listening to that story about your two boys, I'm thinking like, leave them alone. Let them do whatever they want to do with their fringes because like there is a big chance that at some point in their lives, they won't have a fringe. So let them do whatever they want with their fringe. Right?
Speaker: Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. It's like, if you if they start piercing their ears and sort of things, then you can have an argument and fight with it. But Leave the fringe alone, mom, please. Leave the hair. But yeah, think think about how often that we do that at work, Michael. I mean, think about how many times you've decided to put your hand of control in that wasn't needed. And then you're your you're mired down in the extra work.
Speaker: It feels heavier. You feel busier. There's less of you to go around. And you're blaming the work. You're blaming your team. You're blaming the staff. when in the end you didn't realize I could have controlled that differently. I could have let go. There's a phrase that someone once used with me recently. They said so many times we end up reloading the dishwasher as leaders.
Speaker: And when we talked about it, I realized how great that analogy is. When your team member has done something And it is creating the outcome we needed, but it wasn't done exactly the way you would do it.
Speaker: Do you really need to do it over? Did you really need, it came up to the same outcome or nearly the same quality. So we, we start really using that muscle differently and we realize I could affect me. I could bounce back better and be a better example. If I just understood how to use that concept more prominently in my everyday. Right. So, so true. It's almost like the person who's doing the job, let them do the job.
Speaker: in the way that they are enjoying it, the way that they're achieving the outcomes that you want to Don't be so bound up with the way you would do it to be almost a little bit neurotic, I suppose. It's not being done the way I would do it, so it must be wrong. be able to or Being able to demonstrate resilience isn't always about bouncing back from something that isn't right.
Speaker: Sometimes it sounds as if it's about right Being able to adapt to something that isn't your ideal version of what it should be, but it works for everyone else.
Speaker: Exactly. That's exactly right. That's how broad the concept of resilience is. So it wasn't as if, okay, I can only show resilience if something was really tough and I somehow got through the stress. Sometimes we don't know these undercurrents of stress are being created by our habits that we could mold differently. And your example is exactly one of them. And that's so mainstream. And then I want you to tie that to joy at work.
Speaker: Not only do you get the benefit of not doing things that that dilute you, that really make you thinner because you have so many things you already have to do. When you add tweaking someone's work as an extra task,
Speaker: It does make it harder for you to, again, be that productive version of yourself. So you get more joy from being alleviated from that pressure. But to your point, the person who did do it, who got to an outcome that was what we generally needed, they did it their way. That was their approach. Let them have that joy. If if we take over, whether we do it prominently or behind the scenes, somehow we might might be diluting their joy too. So it is it's so true. It's all tied to then how the quality of our days plays out based on whether we use these factors.
Speaker: I suppose what you're saying then is that life throws us big curve balls, little curve balls, and three or four curve balls all at the same time.
Speaker: They don't all end up with a disaster, but they are all something. that will challenge our perception of ourselves, of other people and how the world should be.
Speaker: And it's not just our ability to bounce back our hardiness, but also our ability to adapt. It starts to become something that isn't just for those major occasions, but it's something that we need every single day.
Speaker: we do, we do. And that's why I think I love the concept because it's so holistic. It's not just about kind of our mainstream roles in a work or our profession, but it's also for every other role that you play. These concepts, they are they are alive, they are present and our ability to decide, do I want to use them?
Speaker: Do I want to create high application of control, challenge and commitment in my life? Or do they end up kind of receding to the background and they don't get brought into my days? And whether they're there or not,
Speaker: absolutely will be felt. And again, I always think of it not just physically, but also mentally and socially. So it it kind of helps in a lot of ways for our overall well-being too. It makes me think, you know, that resilience should be one of those things that we ask candidates about or assess during recruitment processes.
Speaker: Absolutely. say absolutely. It's great that you agree with me, but then we've got the challenge of like, well, how do we do it? How do we assess someone's resilience whilst they're sitting in front of us and in an interview, what sort of questions would we ask?
Speaker: Yeah. So one of the things I often get asked by the companies that I do work for is how do we, can we hire for hardiness? Right? That's a great question. Can you hire for hardiness? And I always say, yes, ask the right questions when you're in a discussion. So as an example, one of my favorite concepts of the hardiness paradigms is the vertical challenge. Can you show a challenge mindset? Because when you had a plan and then something, it gets thrown at you, that curve ball you were describing that then makes you need to pivot that plan. The question is, how do you see the pivot? How do you see the curve ball itself? What are you looking at? Do you see it as this bring it mentality? Okay. Okay. I'll unpack and repack it. No problem. Or do you see it a
Speaker: Oh my gosh, I knew it. We shouldn't have done this in the first place. Our mindset with challenge is so prominently there. So I like to have people ask questions really simply things like, can you share your lens on the impact of failure from past experiences?
Speaker: When you get those curve balls, what's normal? Like, what is an example? Get them to really describe the way that their challenge is already there. And it gives you a chance to see it on display. And they they will describe in in their own words and you'll you'll have that filter lens on that you're really absorbing kind of where their sense of of challenges. Or you can ask questions like, what's your view on the element of control as a contributor in your role? How do you see how you wield control when it comes to the things that you are given, the the responsibilities within your role? And let them talk.
Speaker: about are they the person who is the, well, you know, I always wait for my supervisor to tell me what to do and then I'll try to, you know go do it. Or, you know, I'm the person who, when I see something that needs attention, I'll look into it.
Speaker: Ah, right. I'm starting to hear where you're at in your application of control. It makes me understand that sentiment you might be carrying as this concept of hardiness is in you. Now I know I can build it. So that's also important that when you're hiring, you don't assume, well, they can never grow it.
Speaker: but it gives you a beginning and a baseline as it relates to the decision you might have to have them join your team. So I highly encourage that for sure. Yeah. And it's interesting that it's about identifying what level of skills someone has yes as your baseline and then putting in place the things which will help them develop and continue to develop more of their hardiness, more of their resilience. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, Sarah, it time flies, but it has been so very, very interesting to, it's just really one word, but the amount of work that has gone into developing it. Um, I can tell that you're someone who is, this is your thing. And I'm very grateful that we've been able to experience some of your thing today. So thank you very much. really do appreciate your time and helping me understand a little bit more about resilience. Thank you very much.
Speaker: Absolutely a pleasure to be on. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Sarah Turner, a contributor to the anthology, Joy at Work and business coach, trainer, author.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. One of the things that we need to consider when being resilient is our health and knowing the risks early is a good way to stay healthy. That is why we recommend the health test provided by York test, especially their annual health test.
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Speaker: You can access easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime via your secure personal wellness health account. There is a link and a discount code in the description.
Speaker: I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as jane sorry as much as Sarah and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
Speaker: To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You will probably also want to share your the link with your friends, family and work colleagues. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think,
Speaker: but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
