Have you ever wondered where the responsibility for mental resilience lies in your organisation?
Join John Humphreys, who has 25 years’ experience in the British Army, and Jenni as they discuss how to recognise the chaos that occurs when resilience levels are low, plus learn six great tips to build resilience in your team.
Mental resilience is a topic that comes up often for communicators and organisations. John has worked with Jenni to develop and deliver workshops to communication teams and global organisations to help them explore how they can build resilience. John also works with the team to help clients with any learning and development plans to make sure learning outcomes are clear and the activities will achieve them. With one of our most-read blogs on our website, here you can read more about mental resilience What is Mental Resilience?
Things that will help you go from chaos to calm:
Comms Reboot – the communication unconference by Redefining Communications
Season 7, Episode 2 podcast Take control of your life – Calm Edged Rebels
Get in touch with John via our Get in touch – Redefining Communications
What is Mental Resilience? blog by John Humphreys
You can continue the conversation with Jenni on Twitter and LinkedIn
Transcript for this podcast
Welcome to this episode of Redefining Comms with me, Jenni Field. Today, I’m going to be joined by John Humphries, who is part of our collective team and helping us deliver mental resilience workshops for our clients. Now, John is a former warrant officer in the Court of Royal Engineers, and during his 25 years in the British Army, he was responsible for training and development in high-risk explosive clearance and explosive search and disposal. And John and I have worked together for, I’m going to say, a couple of years now, helping people build their resilience. And it’s something we’ve talked about at our Comms Reboot event and various other things as well.
So, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. So, we’re going to talk about mental resilience in organisations. And the reason I wanted to include it in this podcast season is because I think it’s still a topic that comes up again and again. And it was something we first started working on when it was around the sort of COVID pandemic 2020, I think was when we really started. Yeah, it started the lockdown, wasn’t it?
Yeah. And that’s where people started to get really interested in it. And our conversations and discussions have gone on and on and on. And even before we started recording today, we went down a rabbit hole of conversation about this, which we’ll try and record. Because it was a really interesting discussion about where the responsibility lies for resilience. So, in this episode, we’re going to look at the chaos that comes in organisations, if they are or aren’t investing in this, and also looking at the individuals. So, this is sort of looking at both sides of this from the individual and the organisation.
But to really kick us off, I think it’s probably best to define what mental resilience is for people that are listening.
In your words, what is resilience?
The easiest way to describe it is, well, resilience is bounce back, isn’t it? So it’s the brain’s bounce back ability. It’s how we recover from a hardship. But we can utilise that recovery to prepare for hardships and things like that. So, it’s building that resilience piece that’s key. But broad brush terms, it’s bouncing back or able to process and move on from hardship.
And in your career in the British Army, when we were talking before we started recording, we were talking about the differences to more civilian organisations where there’s more choice and people have, you know, people are asked to do things And there’s maybe a conversation. But for you, there’s maybe more resilience built because you have to do the things because of the command and control. Is that fair?
Yeah, I would say that’s fair because, I mean, there are still options in the army. But there are times when no is not the answer. It’s not, you know, you just can’t say no. So, therefore, you’ve got to do whatever’s in front of you, whether it’s good or bad. So, you then need to prepare yourself for that. How am I going to deal with this? What are the consequences? So you have to process quite a lot of information. But ultimately, you’ve got to get the job done. So, internally, you’re working out how to make that as easy as possible for you psychologically and also to achieve the task as well.
And for organisations, we’ve talked a lot about the fact that organisations seem very focused on employee well-being and mental resilience. And when we did comms reboot in October, and I’ll pop a link in the show notes for our comms reboot event, which is an unconference event where attendees set the agenda and then have discussions around those topics. And they’re facilitated by the team. I mean, you were facilitating a session about well-being and wellness and resilience. And it sort of prompted a bit of a discussion around who’s responsible for this. And this is where I think some of the chaos might come from.
In your view, who is responsible for your mental resilience? Is it an organisation’s job or the individual’s or is it a mixture or where does that sit?
Bottom line is it’s the individual’s responsibility, in my opinion. But there is a mixture as well. So, if an organisation has highlighted the need for it, then it can have benefits for the individual and for the organisation as well. So, if they take that on board and start the process, then they’ll have to take some of the burden of responsibility as well. But bottom line, it’s down to the individual.
So, do you think there is something, if an organisation comes out and says, right, we’re going to run mental resilience workshops for our team and, you know, we’ve done this with global clients online and we’ve done things in person.
Do you think that there is then a concern from an individual that all things are going to get rocky here if they’re suddenly investing in resilience? Or do you think people see it as, oh, this is really helpful and this is really good?
I think both cases will apply there. If the organisation are going through a transition and the employees are aware that a transition is coming up, then they could perceive it as they’re trying to prepare us for something. It depends on the culture as well. So, if it’s quite an open culture, they’ll understand what’s going on anyway and then they’ll be able to decide whether something bad is going to happen or potentially. Or if it’s just for their well-being. If it’s quite a closed culture, then it’s going to have that uncertainty, which is going to just exacerbate the situation.
Is there any risk of investing too much in this space and that leading to some elements of chaos in an organisation?
From an organisational point of view? Yeah, possibly. Because there’s a lot of other things that you need to do. You can’t just focus on, sort of, well-being, mental resilience. And it does take manpower to run it. So there’s the admin issues as well. I think once you’ve taken control of the fact that you want to deliver this as a piece and signposted, but allocated who’s responsible within the workflow. Once you’ve shown people how to do resilience, then it’s down to them to build it themselves and practice building it.
You can’t, it’s a long process and it’s through experiential learning. So, you can’t force it down somebody’s throat. So, if it’s been highlighted, then you need to manage it. But I don’t think you need to continuously push it. Perhaps on annual training, don’t forget managers especially, you need, you’re responsible for your staff. If they’ve got any issues, you need to know where to signpost them or what options we’ve got available to us and things like that. So, yeah, there is a danger of overdoing it, I think. Yeah.
And it’s interesting where you talk about it there in terms of the overdoing it and the importance of it being experiential. Because I think sometimes we think, “Oh, we’ll do a mental resilience workshop, tick that box, done. Everyone’s now resilient.” Yeah. And it doesn’t work like that, does it?
No, it doesn’t. I mean, what you can do in a community or in a workshop is, so the basic tenant for the mental resilience piece is coping strategies. In this scenario, I mean, you can go on. But thinking of coping strategies, because that’s where people are going to struggle in the workplace, my workload’s increased, or I’m uncertain of my future, or I’ve taken a pay, anything that’s going to affect them emotionally, then they will want a coping strategy. Everyone’s got coping strategies, but not everyone’s aware that they’ve got coping strategies. So when you do these workshops and they’re interactive, that allows people to draw on other people’s coping strategies.
That’s a really good idea. I like that. I never thought of that. So that kind of approach is really good for the workshops. But that’s just little starting points for people to go, “Oh, yeah, such and such at that.” They did. But it’s not going to happen overnight. Yeah. It’s not going to happen overnight.
And it feels like the managers are a missing piece. And I’ve talked about this on some other episodes in this season about the importance of managers in the employee experience, for example. It feels like if it’s about the experience and it’s about the individual, if an organisation takes that approach of sort of ticking a box, but doesn’t help managers help people build resilience or doesn’t help managers learn maybe coaching techniques or things like that. That’s where it could fall down.
Yeah, absolutely. The key to making something like this work is once it’s been identified is the management. You’ve got to train the management. And it doesn’t have to be weeks and weeks of training. It’s just what am I looking for? If someone approaches me, how do I deal with it? If I notice an issue, how do I approach them? Where do I signpost them to? How can we train them?
And that’s got to be sort of annual training kind of thing. Make sure that your managers are on side with it. But if there’s no training for the management and no support for the management, then the whole thing will fall apart.
Yeah. And it’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because the relationships piece is something I talk about all the time. And I think for me, resilience and relationships almost go hand in hand. That my resilience is better because of the relationships that I have and the people around me, which I know is part of building resilience.
But in organisations, we don’t always talk about relationships very much. We just expect people to come in and do a job. And even more since COVID, we expect you to do a job maybe remotely where you don’t have anybody around you, which I think does have an impact on how you feel about work and maybe impacts your resilience a little bit. Well, yeah, not for everybody because some people thrive in that kind of environment. They want to be left alone. They’re quite grumpy.
Why are you laughing?
Thinking about people that I might know.
Yeah. So some people might thrive in that kind of environment, where others need that network, that social interaction. So it could be quite damaging for people that are working remotely all the time post-COVID. But don’t forget, in a work environment, if you’re in the office, you might not think you’re in a relationship, but you’ve got some common interests and you’re sharing experience as you go. So they might not be your best mate. You might stand next to them while they have a coffee or whatever. So people notice things about people and you may not feel comfortable approaching somebody, but somebody may come to you and say, you’ve not been yourself recently. And that’s still a social connection that can be helpful. Yeah.
And that’s something I learned when I did my mental health first aid training was identifying something that’s not the norm for that individual. So, rather than just making an assumption that somebody is very quiet and is everything okay, it’s knowing that person well enough to know John’s being quiet today and John’s never normally quiet and therefore something might be wrong. And I think that is something that’s really important in the workplace when you’re looking at resilience, well-being, all of those things all together. Yeah, I agree with that.
However, there will be workspaces where there isn’t quite that connection. And there’s a call centre, for example, where everyone’s on it, on it, on it. They’ve still got a manager. And you’re not just there to manage the end product, you’re there to manage the staff as well. And their well-being is part of the management function. So, then it would revert up. It doesn’t really help the social aspects of it, but you’ve still got an element of somebody keeping an eye out on you. Yeah, very important.
What are the things people should be looking for to build their resilience?
If people are looking at this in their organisations or for them as an individual, how or what would your advice be? What are the tips, I suppose, for people that are looking to build their resilience or help, you know, if they’re a manager and thinking, God, I need to look at this for my team, like what are the things people should be looking at?
1. Take responsibility
So you take responsibility for your own mental resilience. If you’re a manager, then you need to assume some responsibility of observation, if you like, to make sure people are good to go. So taking responsibility is massive.
2. Understand and accept that you haven’t got influence on everything
And that’s a massive stressor for people because they can’t influence something. They can’t control it. And they don’t understand why that can send people a little bit down a rabbit hole to make people super anxious or stressed. And we’re not talking stress as an illness, just environmental stress, if you like.
3. Get comfortable with failure
Another thing that a lot of people struggle with is failure. But I really try and get people to not be worried about failure. Failure is probably the most valuable learning tool we’ve got. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. Nobody likes rejection. Nobody likes to get things wrong. But if you get things right all the time, you know, well, you will learn, but not as quickly as you do when you fail.
Once you touch a hot oven, yes, you know you’re very, very foolish if you keep going back and doing it. So it’s that kind of experiential learning that really drives us forward. And that comes with interviews and things like that. So if you’re going for a promotion, I shouldn’t go for it. I might fail.
What’s the worst that can happen?You still got a job. Yeah. Potentially. You don’t get the promotion, but you’ve learned, where did I go wrong? How did I feel?
4. Remain flexible
You know, nothing, no plan survives. You have this, the world’s best plan. It never, ever, ever survives. Within 10 minutes, you know, it’s gone belly up. So, remain flexible. I like to use sort of the water analogy with that. So, if a river’s flowing, someone puts a rock in the middle of it. It doesn’t just stop and go, oh, there’s a rock there. It just goes around it, doesn’t it? So you just have to be a little bit more flexible with your approach.
5. Be aware of your own struggles and anxieties
I’d say this one’s quite important, actually. I would say expect and accept that certain situations elicit an emotional response for you. So if you’re aware prior to the event that you’re going to be nervous, you’re going to be anxious, for example, then you can start preparing for that and you can use coping strategies well in advance of just feeling anxious, feeling anxious, feeling anxious, and then five minutes before going into a flat spin. Because that feeling anxious, it’s not pleasant, but we can learn to deal with it.
And you can use coping strategies such as distraction techniques, listening to music or something like that. Or reframing is a good one as well. So, I’m going for an interview. I’m really nervous. Well, the body doesn’t know the difference, the physical symptoms between nerves and excitement. So, you then need to tell yourself, actually, I’m excited. This is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for promotion or it’s an opportunity to learn something. So, reframing is super powerful as well.
6. Utilise social networks
If you’ve got one, speak to people, ask them how they cope, asking for advice, or just go around and have a cup of tea and a chat and, you know, social network.
Yeah, it’s making, that last one is, is really sticking with me because it’s making time for people. And I think somewhere, whether it’s linked to the pandemic, whatever it is, it’s making time for people. And on a recent Calm Edged Rebels podcast, we were talking about the importance of moments and being present. And I’ll pop a link in the show notes for that. But it’s, it’s that having the time to not rush and not hurry and make the time to have a cup of tea with someone and, and, and being part of your own community, which is, I think, is important.
Yeah, I would agree with that. Years ago, it was common, wasn’t it? Everyone knew the next door neighbour when I was a kid. Yeah. Now it’s like, who’s your next door neighbour? Don’t know, but they always park in front of my drive. Yeah, yeah. We’re always angry about it, aren’t we? Yeah, always, yeah. So I think, I think we should be taking more time and going, right, should we go for a coffee or?
Nice. Good tips.
Thank you for listening!
Well, thank you very much for coming along today. And I know we spoke earlier about if people want to find out more about the work you do, we’re going to direct them through Redefining Comms. So, I’ll pop a link in the show notes for our email address and our contact form so you can get in touch with us if you want to explore any more around mental resilience.
So, in the next episode, I’m going to be talking about internal communication with Katie Marlow, who’s been part of the collective team with Redefining Comms for the six years, really, we’ve been going. So, we’re going to explore the chaos that comes when you don’t focus on communication and how to make sure you’re using it to help you go from chaos to calm.
Thank you for listening. I’d love to continue this conversation. So please do join our community and mailing list from the link in the show notes.
