Resilience and Curve of Change
The world has changed more in the last 15 years than in the last 5 centuries.
And over the next few years the world will continue to change, ever faster, in all areas: economic, social, cultural, technological…
Faced with this tide of change, many people react with fear and apprehension: change imposes its demand for extra capacities of flexibility, adaptability, renewal, creativity, confidence in oneself and in the future, perseverance and self-motivation; capabilities that can very well be grouped into the meta-competence called Resilience.
According to some studies (Maddi & Khoshaba, 2005), if we randomly chose a sufficiently large sample of workers in any organization, the proportion of people with a resilient profile vs. people with a vulnerable profile to changes would be 1: 3, that is,, for each resilient person we would find 2 vulnerable people.
According to the aforementioned studies, we know that, after change, people with resilience thrive, whether in the same organization, in others, or in projects or personal businesses.
Vulnerable people, on the other hand, accumulate high levels of stress during the process, which can end up affecting their health, professional performance and emotional stability, increasing the probability of major "personal crises": separations, divorces, illnesses, financial and legal problems., etc.
Given this reality, it is useful to consider what type of interventions can be implemented in organizations to increase their resilience to minimize the negative impact of the change processes that will affect them in the coming years.
Can resilience be built? Can a person, with a vulnerable profile, become more resilient to change?
To answer these questions, it is useful to use the model called «The Curve of Change»
This model exposes which are the different emotions through which we pass in our process of adaptation to change.
As can be seen, the first emotion that appears is "Shock" - If the change is sudden, unforeseen and perceived as potentially threatening, this first "shock" response is logical: in this emotional state we are not yet processing or elaborating the information concerning change; we suffer a kind of paralysis or stupor, we ask ourselves «What ?! And again…
After this initial shock, there is usually a response of "Resistance": wanting to deny the change or to flee from it: in this phase, we can protest, complain and curse and it is usually accompanied by strong emotions of anger, anger or frustration.
However, despite our resistance, change has come to stay, little by little our resistance will turn into "Worry" - Here we go from complaining, angry, to worrying, scared. In this phase we really begin to process, to elaborate all the information that the change brings with it: we accept, worried, that we will have to live with this change, we ask ourselves how we can cope with it, what will its consequences be, if we will be able…
These three emotional phases of change - shock, resistance, and worry - are absolutely normal and in one way or another, we all experience them.
The critical difference between resilient and vulnerable people lies in emotional self-management in the "Worry" phase. While the resilient person worries about "fairness", in the sense of asking useful questions about the strategies they will have to deploy to cope with change; the vulnerable person worries much more intensely and for a long time and not in the form of helpful questions about what he will need to accomplish to deal with change positively, but in the form of negative self-messages about all the difficulties that change poses: "It will be very difficult", "I don't think I can", "this raises many serious problems", and so on.
Furthermore, the resilient person consciously and rapidly moves from the "Worry" phase with stress to the "Exploration" phase without stress, literally skipping the "Loss of Control" and "Depression" phases.
The exploration phase is critical for overcoming and successfully adapting to change. In this phase, the resilient person, already aware of the challenges posed by change and of the strategies necessary to face it positively, goes directly to an exploratory action in search of viable alternatives and solutions: they draw up specific action plans to Starting from the outlined strategies, he seeks support from other people, influentially communicates and "sells" his ideas to other people, inside or outside the organization, with knowledge or decision-making capacity to help him carry out his action plans…
And that attitude, that action of intelligent exploration of alternatives and possibilities, eventually leads him to the "Discovery" phase, that is, to a phase where, in effect, he discovers viable alternatives and ideas to carry out his action plans.
From the "Discovery" phase, the resilient person begins a new phase of "Adjustment" to the new situation, which requires significant doses of work and perseverance to make their action plans come true. In this phase, the person works more adaptively with respect to the new situation: the positive changes in her own attitude and behavior, along with the efforts to develop the new capacities that she will need to complete this adjustment to the new situation, begin to.
The situation that initially “shocked” you is now accepted, understandable, manageable, and even rich in new opportunities. From this situation, the resilient person confidently redeploys all her efforts and resources, self-motivated and oriented to new achievements.
For their part, the vulnerable person, who was "caught" by the "Worry" phase and did not come out of it, sees their worst fears confirmed: they do not know how to act, they do not feel capable of coping with the change: the situation seems insurmountable and the person does not have any sense of personal control over the situation - they have not explored alternatives and therefore they have not discovered them - The feeling of "Loss of Control", of not getting out of it, may lead to a feeling even deeper of helplessness, loss of hope and helplessness: You will find yourself at the bottom of the curve of change: the "Depression." At this point, a vast majority of vulnerable people throw in the towel.
Depression, on the other hand, also comes out. To do this, it is necessary to begin to «Explore» possible alternatives, «Discover» viable solutions and start a new process of «Adjustment» to the new situation.
In reality, what the resilient person has done is, quite literally, skip the "Loss of Control" and "Depression" phases and go directly from "Worry" to "Exploration."
Pathways to Developing Resilience at the Organizational Level
Therefore, we are presented with two possible ways to manage resilience in an organization:
A Proactive Way, aimed at training people to go from their "Worry" phase to the "Exploration" phase, adequately managing their stress and displaying all their positive personal strengths and resources.
A Reactive Path, aimed at helping people who may have reached the "Depression" phase to come out of it and positively face their new future challenges.
Of these two routes, the Proactive Route is certainly the smartest and the one that also yields the best results.
The Reactive Way is much more expensive and difficult and a large majority of organizations are not prepared to face it. Often people in the "Depression" phase will need specialized psychological and perhaps medical and social assistance; the recovery process may be long. On many occasions, such situations end with some kind of agreement between the person and the organization to leave it.
In addition, the reactive route ends up being much more expensive for the organization, which over a long period of time will be accumulating costs due to loss of productivity, sick leave, errors, accidents, labor disputes, specialized assistance, operating expenses for replacement and staff training, etc.
The Proactive Way: Training to Increase Organizational Resilience
To help people move from their "Worry" phase to an "Exploration" phase, the first thing that is necessary is training that makes it possible to reduce their current stress levels. Therefore, a good "Stress Management" training program will allow people to lower their current levels of worry and find themselves more confident and determined to face their challenges.
This training, to be effective, will require putting into practice the skills developed during it for a minimum period of three months. For this, it will be convenient that the person participating in the program can have a weekly monitoring of the activities carried out. The ideal therefore is to combine group training with individualized sessions of expert coaching in stress management.
Once the person has learned to self-regulate their stress levels, it is essential to reinforce their self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as their positive attitude towards future challenges, for which an expert training aimed at re- Cognitively structuring some negative and limiting beliefs that the person may be holding, both about himself and the possible future.
For this, some Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Non-Directive Hypnosis techniques can be very useful.
In any case, standard training in "management or interpersonal skills" will not suffice here; we need training, not only directed at behaviors, if not, and fundamentally, at beliefs and attitudes.
Again, the most advisable format is a combination of group training sessions with individual specialized coaching sessions.
In my experience, I have not found many experts in this type of training.
It is relatively easy to find separate clinical psychologists specializing in stress reduction programs, neuro-linguistic programming practitioners, and hypnosis professionals; But finding an integrated training program that intelligently combines these three areas - stress management, neuro-linguistic programming, and non-directive hypnosis - aimed specifically at organizational resilience training is something that, as I say, I have only found in the United States. or United Kingdom.
For this reason, I myself have developed a training program specialized in resilience in organizations adapted to the Hispanic business culture and that I have been teaching, in a modular format, in important organizations, both national and international, established in Spain.
