{"id":2493,"date":"2014-09-19T04:32:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T04:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=2493"},"modified":"2014-09-19T04:32:37","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T04:32:37","slug":"great-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/great-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/daisy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2494\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/daisy-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"daisy\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/daisy-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/daisy-150x93.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/daisy.jpg 528w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our Skills &#8211; cognitive, emotional, social, vocational<\/li>\n<li>Our Experiences &#8211; both good and bad, and opportunities to learn<\/li>\n<li>Our Relationships or Connections &#8211; to individuals, groups and places; the place where we find belonging and where others believe in us<\/li>\n<li>Our Values or Beliefs \u2013 the things that we believe, that give us hope, meaning and purpose<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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\u2026 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019 (and his many co-researchers) book, <em>Good to Great,<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><strong>[i]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> 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.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0<em>A good to great leader is resilient<\/em>. What Collins and company call a Level 5 leader<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[ii]<\/a>, I see as resilience. They are humble, persistent, responsible for their actions, honoring of others, and maintain a balanced life.<\/li>\n<li><em>Good to great businesses build the resilience of their members<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<li><em>Good to great businesses have faith (values)<\/em>. They recognize their reality and they don\u2019t sugar coat it, but they believe that they will persist until the end.<\/li>\n<li><em>Good to great businesses build on the every day<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Reading Collins\u2019 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).<\/p>\n<p>The new consideration that I walked away with came from the <em>Good to Great and the Social Sectors<\/em> monograph<a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\">[iii]<\/a>. 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 \u201cget the right people in the right seat on the bus\u201d statement in the back of my head. I might suggest that some of my social service peers don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>That said, I would love to see more social service agencies strive to be great. I have always taught my students that I don\u2019t 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 \u2013 His children \u2013 deeply and passionately. I want my service to Him to reflect who He is. It should be great.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[i]<\/a> Jim Collins, <em>Good to Great,<\/em> New York: Harper Collins, 2001.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[ii]<\/a> Ibid, 20.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[iii]<\/a> Jim Collins, <em>Good to Great and the Social Sectors<\/em>,<em> A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap&#8211;and Others Don&#8217;t<\/em>. Boulder, CO: J. Collins, 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[267],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-collins","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2495,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/2495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}