Great Resilience
People often describe resilience as the ability to bounce back after hardship. I disagree. Resilience is made evident in the bounce back, but it is hardly formed in the bounce back. In order for a ball to bounce, it already has to be inflated. And how is the resilience ball inflated? Resilience is the convergence of four key aspects of our lives:
- Our Skills – cognitive, emotional, social, vocational
- Our Experiences – both good and bad, and opportunities to learn
- Our Relationships or Connections – to individuals, groups and places; the place where we find belonging and where others believe in us
- Our Values or Beliefs – the things that we believe, that give us hope, meaning and purpose
These four aspects are not learned in an instant, but rather developed in the every day and over a lifetime. It is in the every day that I practice my skills, develop relationships, experience life, and form my beliefs. It comes through the slow and steady pace. It is common, unexciting, perhaps even mundane… but beautiful. It comes in the random act of kindness or the intentional note of appreciation; through the casual exchange of ideas; through the daily disappointments as well as the new opportunities.
I have spent the past twenty years researching resilience as an aspect of my approach to serving others. I hold to a strengths based, resilience oriented approach to my work as an educator, social worker and organizational leader. Thus, as I read Jim Collins’ (and his many co-researchers) book, Good to Great,[i] I experienced many moments in which the findings of the good to great business research resonated with my own understanding of resilience. I thought I would share some of the overlaps as I saw them.
- A good to great leader is resilient. What Collins and company call a Level 5 leader[ii], I see as resilience. They are humble, persistent, responsible for their actions, honoring of others, and maintain a balanced life.
- Good to great businesses build the resilience of their members. Collins writes about putting the right people in the right seat on the bus. Great businesses encourage their members to do what they are best at and what they care about. This allows them to thrive, provides a sense of belonging and connection, and encourages creativity and skill development.
- Good to great businesses have faith (values). They recognize their reality and they don’t sugar coat it, but they believe that they will persist until the end.
- Good to great businesses build on the every day. They are not flashy. They simply identify the goal (the hedgehog concept), put their heads down, and pursue that goal, one step at a time, with diligence. They persist. They are not sidetracked. They invest in developing a strong foundation in the every day and are often surprised when they see the cumulative effects of one step at a time, day after day, year after year.
Reading Collins’ book I was encouraged, and frustrated. My own employer is re-vamping its strategic plan and in comparison to the good to great businesses, our approach is disheartening. There is no focus; no hedgehog concept. Even so, I know what I can teach my students (as I waved the book in front of my grant writing class and told them to read it).
The new consideration that I walked away with came from the Good to Great and the Social Sectors monograph[iii]. Collins notes that non-profits and other social service organizations often are encouraged to think and act more like businesses. He counters with the idea that they should not act more like businesses, but like great organizations. I agree, with a caveat. Far too many non-profits that I have worked with over the years have floundered and failed because they did lack the basic commitment to sound business practices, namely financial strategies. Perhaps Collins would state that this is as part of understanding your economic engines. But I would suggest that some folks go into the social service world with a great passion, but lacking skills to build an organization. Again, I can hear the “get the right people in the right seat on the bus” statement in the back of my head. I might suggest that some of my social service peers don’t see the necessity of the strong organization. I think they might need a couple of steps of organizational development/business understanding before they can really pursue their great idea.
That said, I would love to see more social service agencies strive to be great. I have always taught my students that I don’t want to just do good stuff. An organization should make a difference in the lives of its clients or participants in a way that matters and lasts. I think we have an obligation to be phenomenal. Far too often, social service providers have great passion, but get by with good enough work. We should be great. In life and in mission, I am called to honor and glorify the God of the heavens, who loves His creation – His children – deeply and passionately. I want my service to Him to reflect who He is. It should be great.
[i] Jim Collins, Good to Great, New York: Harper Collins, 2001.
[ii] Ibid, 20.
[iii] Jim Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap–and Others Don’t. Boulder, CO: J. Collins, 2005.
About the Author
Julie Dodge
Julie loves coffee and warm summer days. She is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Concordia University, Portland, a consultant for non-profit organizations, and a leader at The Trinity Project.5 responses to “Great Resilience”
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Julie, thanks for your very insightful post. I am fascinated by your concept of resilience and the factors that are necessary to develop resilience in an individual. I have never heard this stated, but can appreciate very much the key aspects of life that are necessary to be resilient. I would like to hear more, as what you suggest I find true from my own experience, especially that such qualities are indeed learned in slow cooking stew of everyday life. I also can relate to your frustration with my own employer, whose approach to planning is what I call the squirrel method, which comes from the movie UP, where the dog is forever distracted by squirrels. Our ministry tends to see a need, no matter how far off from what we are doing, and views it as a legitimate consideration…and so we are already overburdened with ten different areas of focus…so why not one more? I think how much more we could accomplish and how better we could be for those we serve if we could decide what our focus as a ministry should be – if we were clear on our Hedgehog Principle – rather than running everyone ragged by chasing squirrels. We have a lot of “resilient staff” who are able to go with the flow, but I would much rather they practice resilience in the service to others rather than having to spend their capital on trying to figure where our leader is taking us! It really important to get focused if any organization hopes to be great. Again, thanks for your insights – I really am captivated by your resilience ideas. Talk to you more about this in S. Africa.
Thanks for the feedback, John. And I assure you, I am always ready to talk resilience!
Julie, what an unbelievable post. I’ve read it three times now. I am thinking of those who have shown resilience over time. I am thinking of the skills, the experiences, the relationships, the values that have shaped my resilience over my lifetime. I am thinking of those times where my resilience was tested. I wonder, can you teach resilience? Oh, the great conversations we will have soon!
Julie, Great wisdom here! Thanks for sharing. I loved it!
I love your word “resilience”; it speaks volumes. As I study Native-American leadership and spirituality, I see this term embodied in these leaders time and time again. These leaders were out-manned, out-gunned, and out-technologized, but they were not out-smarted. They were resilient, time and time again. So where are they now? Many are waiting patiently, for the right moment, the right opportunity. No, they will not defeat the White Man. But already, many are beginning to acknowledge that there is something special about tribal peoples and practices. Many are beginning to see that what the colonialists did to these peoples over the centuries was wrong. But how can the wrongs be righted? That is too big a question for me. But suffice it to say here that American tribal peoples have not given up, they have not quit, and they are very much still with us. They are resilient. My hope is that others may start listening and learning from these who have wisdom on their side.
Hey Julie,
I like your analogy you made for resilience. I will have to steal that from you. 🙂
So good that the making of one’s resilience is an amalgamation of one’s everyday events, not just a one time class or seminar. But than again, good leaders are made the same way bad leaders are made, i.e., through the relationships, life experiences, and how those form one’s beliefs. As Collins points out level 5 leaders are humble. How did they get that one characteristic to be so developed and resilient in them? And how did the opposite of humility get developed in the bad level 1 leaders?
Amen to your statement “In life and in mission, I am called to honor and glorify the God of the heavens, who loves His creation – His children – deeply and passionately. I want my service to Him to reflect who He is. It should be great.” Radical, Dr. Julie! But so true and so needed in our social and religious sectors.
Enjoyed the resilience work!!
Mitch