Bounce back ability

Blair McPherson

The HR term for being able to cope with set backs, disappointments and failures is," Resilience ". In today's public sector individual and organisational resilience is highly valued. Managers and professionals are expected to bounce back if they are unsuccessful in applying for promotion or don't get the job they really wanted in the restructuring. Organisations and teams are expected to bounce back after a damming inspection report or being placed in special measures.

In the current climate where organisations are judge on their position in a league table managers and teams are inevitably faced with demanding performance targets, expected to deliver ambitious efficiencies, find new sources of income and make stringent budget savings. With great effort managers and teams will deliver on these demanding expectations but inevitably they will fail at some point. How will the organisation and its leadership respond ? How will managers and teams deal with these setbacks ? Will the leadership seek to identify those to blame or draw on the organisations capacity to improve. Will teams bounce back or enter a down ward spiral?

So it not surprising that organisations are looking to increase the resilience of leaders, managers and teams. Resilience training is about developing a sense of belonging and supportive environment. The opposite of a blame culture. The training should prompt insight into the effect of management behaviour. The aim is to creat an organisational culture where all staff have space to be open and honest one that gives individuals confidence to acknowledge and talk through problems.

The tone is set from the top, senior managers model the management style within the organisation. The training should prompt insight into the effect of management behaviour and look at how the organisation addresses bullying, whistleblowing, dignity at work, remuneration, and work life balance. The aim is to creat an organisational culture where all staff have space to be open and honest one that gives individuals confidence to acknowledge and talk through problems.

The training aims to help managers develop a supportive team, where team members take an interest in colleagues work, are willing to cover for each other and take their turn in doing the unpopular stuff.

The training should help individuals understand that they have transferable skills and increase their confidence in adapting to new working arrangements on the understanding that their team will be supportive and organisation will treat them fairly.

In this way leaders, managers and teams will be part of a more resilient organisation which will respond to adversity by bouncing back.

Blair McPherson former director, author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk

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