This #TeamTalkTuesday was written by Antoine Borromeo and edited by Elizha Corpus, with panels constructed with and by Aimary Rubio, all of Elizha Corpus Consulting.
*Clippings of headlines from rappler.com
In the wake of recent typhoons and in the face of everyday and/or work-related complications brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, resiliency has again emerged as a buzzword.
The imagery that comes to mind is that of smiling Filipinos against the backdrop of the aftermath of such tragedies. However, this understanding of "resiliency" fails to take into account the multidimensionality of the concept. In dismissing this, we fail to acknowledge the applicability of resiliency in individual, team, and organizational contexts.
In today's installment of #TeamTalkTuesday (the last for 2020!), we explore the concept of resiliency and why it is important – what are we missing and what can we do to apply this towards strengthening ourselves, our teams, our organizations, and even our society?
What is resiliency?
Resiliency, that is, the ability to maintain [in the face of adversity] relatively stable levels of psychological and physical functioning (Bonnanno, 2004, as cited in Hechanova et al., 2018), is dependent on an individual's or organization's investment on different types of capital.
There are 4 different types of capital - human, economic, social, and political (Abramson et al., 2015, as cited in Hechanova et al., 2018). These make up your resiliency portfolio. Think of how investment portfolios work in finance. Similar to how we diversify to manage financial risk, we also diversify our investment in our resiliency portfolio by paying attention to these 4 types of capital. Investing across the different types of capital would work towards managing adversity and, ultimately towards greater chances for resiliency.
The investment and diversification across the 4 types of capital must run across different levels of intervention. This pyramid shows these levels of intervention, starting from the most basic to the more specialized (IASC, 2007, as cited in Hechanova et al., 2018). These are aligned to strengthening the belief in one's personal-life-rebuilding resources (control), enhancing meaning and direction for structure in one's life (coherence), and connecting with other people for increasing social capital (connection) (Reich, 2006, as cited in Hechanova et al., 2018).
Maria Regina Hechanova, Pierce S. Docena, Liane Peña Alampay, Avegale Acosta, Emma E. Porio, Isabel E. Melgar, Rony Berger, (2018) "Evaluation of a resilience intervention for Filipino displaced survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan", Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 27 Issue: 3, pp.346-359, https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-01-2018-0001
So, what do all these tell us?
Given what we've covered so far, we see now that there is a deeper meaning of resiliency. It is more nuanced than just smiles in the face of adversity. It is the diversification of one's resiliency portfolio through investing in the 4 types of capital, guided by principles of control, coherence, and connection across gradiated levels of intervention.
In other words, it is not just defined by short-term responses, rather it is an organized movement towards regaining what was lost and putting up safeguards to prevent further loss in the future.
How do we do this?
Beyond thoughts and prayers are actionable steps.
Knowing what we know now about resiliency, we must go beyond thoughts and prayers and take action. More importantly, it is not just the doing that counts. The intentionality behind our actions matters. Everything we do towards contributing to resiliency is valid, no matter how big or small. However, as we do these, we must constantly think about the short and long-term implications.
For instance, donating relief goods certainly helps communities in need. It is a short-term solution though and would be most effective if coupled with something that is more long-term. A long-term action could then be defining for yourself what leadership standards and accountabilities you value. What should people in power have done in the first place to prevent the need for private citizens handling relief efforts? With this greater understanding, you can then use it to evaluate leaders, systems, organizations, and even yourself.
You might be asking at this point, where do I start to work towards this more intentional understanding of my contributions to resiliency?
To get started on crafting your own actionable steps, here are some points to prompt reflection. To take it a step further, we encourage you to find time to talk about these with your team. Now that we are going into a new year, resiliency is needed more than ever. As a team and as an organization, you will have to be even more resilient as more uncertainty and more challenges come your way. But with this nuanced understanding of resiliency, we hope you can support each other as you invest in your individual resiliency portfolios. Let's work together towards strengthening teams, organizations, and our society as a whole.
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