Leading People
Gerry Murray talks to leading people about leading people. Get insights and tips from thought leaders about how to bring out the best in yourself and others.
Leading People
Discover Resilience Strategies for Leaders and High Achievers
Please subscribe and follow Leading People via the Podcast links
Dr Marie-Hélène Pelletier, a renowned psychologist, leadership coach and author of the highly acclaimed book - The Resilience Plan - shares her groundbreaking approach to resilience in this thought-provoking episode of Leading People.
Discover how resilience can be cultivated as a skill rather than just an inherent personality trait. Marie-Hélène explains why resilience is not a trait.
We promise you'll gain valuable insights into building a personalized resilience plan to ward off burnout, especially for high achievers who often miss the early warning signs.
Marie-Hélène's journey from psychology to pioneering resilience research provides a unique backdrop for these strategies, blending psychological insights with business acumen to enhance both work performance and mental health.
Listeners will uncover common misconceptions about resilience and recognize burnout indicators that typically go unnoticed. We emphasize the importance of psychological safety in the workplace, which can nurture open conversations about mental health.
By understanding Marie-Hélène's BEAR thinking model you'll be better equipped to navigate the biases that distort our perceptions. Marie-Hélène's analogy of "don't feed the bears" serves as a memorable guide for avoiding unhelpful thoughts and embracing constructive thinking.
The discussion extends to leadership, where we explore how strategic resilience planning transforms both personal and professional life. High-performing professionals will learn to accurately assess the demands on their energy and align their tasks with personal values for more satisfying outcomes.
We also delve into the vital role leaders play in fostering a resilient organization, particularly by sharing personal strategies to build team trust and psychological safety.
Whether you're a leader or an HR decision-maker, this episode offers essential strategies for you and your team to thrive in today's high-pressure environment.
Curious?
Listen now to learn more!
Connect with Marie-Hélène on LinkedIn
Visit Marie-Hélène's Website
Buy The Reslience Plan
Follow
Leading People on LinkedIn
Leading People on FaceBook
Connect with Gerry
Website
LinkedIn
Wide Circle
Welcome to Leading People with me, Gerry Marais. This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision makers who want to bring out the best in themselves and others Every other week I sit down with leading authors researchers and practitioners for deep dive conversations about the strategies, insights and tools that drive personal and organizational success and in between.
Speaker 2:I bring you one simple thing short episodes that deliver practical insights and tips for immediate use.
Speaker 1:Whether you're here for useful tools or thought thought-provoking ideas, Leading People is your guide to better leadership.
Speaker 2:What does it take to build resilience in today's high-pressure world? Marie-hélène Pelletier, psychologist, leadership coach and author of the Resilience Plan, joins me on Leading People to share her strategic approach to thriving through challenges. In this episode, you'll discover, among other things, why resilience isn't a personality trait and how to cultivate your own resilience. The common burnout warning signs that high achievers often ignore, and how to create your own personalized resilience plan. So get ready to gain actionable insights and rethink what it means to lead with strength and clarity. Marie-hélène Pelletier welcome to Leading People.
Speaker 3:Ah, Jerry Murray, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lovely to meet you, and you're coming in from the west coast of Canada, so that's pretty exotic for me anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, belgium sounds exotic to me, so there you go.
Speaker 2:There we go. So you published a new book early in 2024 and we're going to get to that shortly, because I think it's a very interesting topic. But first, just so our listeners can get to know you better, how did you get here? Was there a person, place or event that stands out in your journey to where you are today, or were there any epiphany moments? And why did you choose a career that's sort of focused around mental health and resilience and that type of thing? So tell us who you are.
Speaker 3:Yes, I got here mostly by following my nose, following my interests and seeing where it takes me. So for me that started with training as a psychologist. Then love of mountains made me move to the West Coast of Canada in a secondary way, the programs here at the University of British Columbia, to continue my training. Then because I did my doctoral study in telehealth at the time, about 20 years ago. So how can we provide psychotherapy via video conferencing, which turns out? Yeah, I know, at the time internet was not fast enough. I had to use six telephone lines to transfer video and audio data.
Speaker 3:It was seen as pre-embryonic, not even like we're interested in that school pioneer, as pre-embryonic, not even like we're interested in that school pioneer, pre-embryonic, not useful. But it was a great area of research for me. But this required a lot of research and leadership of people I had to work with with very limited funds. That then made me realize I was interested in leadership in management. That then made me realize I was interested in leadership in management. So then continued my training in that area. This took me in various roles in junior, middle management, senior leadership. After all this in various areas started my own work, which is now what I do mostly public speaking, keynotes and all executive coaching and small practice as a psychologist, mostly working with professionals and leaders in all of these areas. So that's how I got here in probably under a minute.
Speaker 2:That was pretty fast to get from Quebec to British Columbia in under a minute, Because you are French speaking, native in that sense, in the Canadian sense. So okay, so you've got this blend of psychology and the MBA stuff and the leadership experience and you brought all that together and let's just get to the book now. Just tell our listeners what's it called.
Speaker 3:Yes. So the book is called the Resilience Plan A Strategic Approach to Optimizing your Work Performance and Mental Health. So that's the book, and what I'm doing at a high level in this book is bringing what we know from psychology and resilience. So what's going to actually increase it? Because sometimes in the sea of information, it's hard to know. And then I'm bringing tools we use in business, in management, specifically in strategy, to create that plan.
Speaker 3:Because what I was learning, listening, hearing from everyone I worked with was look, we're accomplishing so much all day. Every day, we get to a point where we need something to give us an edge and we hear all these things that we should do. It doesn't work. We can't seem to find the time in our very full lives. And what I realized in my work with people and at some point, people telling me, oh, I wish I knew this sooner. In my work with people, and at some point, people telling me, oh, I wish I knew this sooner was that it was not an issue of knowing what to do a little bit, but not mostly. Mostly, it was how do we implement it here? And what was missing is taking into account our individual context, which hence brought me to being strategic.
Speaker 2:And so you were inspired by the work you're doing and and your clients, etc. And just I'm curious, why now? Why bring out the book now? Is there any significance why you would bring a book out called the resilience plan?
Speaker 3:in this moment right on leading people.
Speaker 1:the goal is to bring you cutting edge thought leadership from many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in leadership today. Each guest shares their insights, wisdom and practical advice so we can all get better at bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share a link with friends, family and colleagues, and stay informed by joining our Leading People LinkedIn community of HR leaders and talent professionals.
Speaker 3:Initially I was. You know how some people know all their lives that at some point they will write a book. Nope, was not on my list necessarily. It truly just came because of hearing, and then the frequency of hearing this increased.
Speaker 3:People that I worked with or at conferences that I would give and people saying this is so helpful, I'm so glad I have this now. I wish I knew this sooner. That was that comment. I wish I knew this sooner. And and then me realizing wait a second, if I write it in a book, someone's going to get it sooner. So that will be a good thing, and so that's what brought that book.
Speaker 3:But also, in the broader context, we know we're seeing higher burnout rates. We're seeing even more demands and changes happening around us, if nothing else, even just AI in our professional lives, but our personal lives as well, with the changes it's already brought and the others that it will bring. So if we think of resilience as our ability to go through adversity and come out even stronger, adversity being either something very acute and punctual and also things that are more chronic, so present over a long period of time, like AI, for example, or like the pandemic Well then the more we can front load, so to speak, and approach this from a strategic perspective, we'll be in a much better position.
Speaker 2:So kind of this segues into the question I was going to ask you which is what is resilience and what is it not, and what are some of the myths around resilience that you've probably busted in this book?
Speaker 3:Yes, love the what it is not. That's an important, crucial point, because we use the word so much. Sometimes people even call it a buzzword. It's not. It actually is a technical term, but we use buzzword when we start feeling like the word. We don't know what it means anymore kind of thing.
Speaker 3:And in this particular case, there are actually many definitions of resilience. The one that most are using, the one I'm using in the book, is what I was mentioning sooner, so I'll repeat it, just so we can start from there. So our ability to go through adversity come out even stronger. Okay, so with this part of, what's important is that sometimes we associate being resilient with being persistent at all costs, and no, it isn't that's. Our ability to go through adversity come out even stronger. So what this means is that there may be times when, given the challenge that is in front of me, I will make the decision to pull out, to not take on that particular situation, and that, yes, could be an absolutely resilient thing to do.
Speaker 3:Another key misconception that people have about resilience is we act and I say we because to some degree, I've been like this earlier in my career as well that we think it's a personality trait. We think that, look, I've gone through all these things, I've managed through all these demanding phases, I've led large teams through this, whatever I've done, therefore, it's who I am, it's part of my personality. And here's the trap because I'm thinking it's part of my personality, inherent to me. Of course I don't need to take any action about it because that's who I am. And that's a trap. It's not a personality trait, and so what it means is that it will vary in time across our lives, but it also means we can, and my argument is we should influence it.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you state in the book that professionals and leaders can find themselves on the path to burnout, anxiety and workplace mental health, disability, absences. So what are some of the typical symptoms, particularly that high achievers tend to ignore, of the typical symptoms, particularly that high achievers tend to ignore.
Speaker 3:Again, really good angle here, because we all know burnout exists, right, and as high-level professionals and leaders, what we will tend to think to ourselves is yeah, yeah, it exists, it's out there, no one's immune to it. But then, secretly, we're thinking it cannot be me. No one's immune to it. But then, secretly, we're thinking it cannot be me, it's not going to be me ever. Now I can tell you 100% of the people I've ever worked with who were burnt out said I never thought this could happen to me. No one came in and said you know, I thought it was a candidate for that kind of thing, nope, and so part of what happens. So really important to realize it can happen to anyone If you're human, therefore you're on the continuum. Yes, it could. Are there things you can do to prevent? Yes, and are there signs? Yes, there are. The problem is we ignore these signs. And so, because burnout is not something that sets up instantly, it builds over time. So if we actually listen to early signs, we'll see it. So first let me go to the actual definition of burnout. So there is a definition. It comes from the World Health Organization.
Speaker 3:It is an occupational phenomenon. Three main characteristics One is we're exhausted, one is we're cynical, so nothing's ever going to change. And number three, it's impacting our performance. And that's important because if we think we can override this and the reality, we cannot. If you don't do this for your health, think of it for the brand that you've been building for the past, whatever five years, couple of decades, it's worth paying attention to.
Speaker 3:But here's the thing with these three signs before we get fully exhausted, we were just having less energy. Before we got fully cynical, we started feeling less engaged and before it was impacting our performance, we started seeing more things fall through the cracks. But what happened? As we were seeing these earlier signs and there are others, like concentrations, not as good, we may be more impatient, for example in our interactions, but what happens is we have some degree of self-awareness. We see it, but we tell ourselves but it's normal, given how busy I am. Or we tell ourselves, it doesn't matter, I'm just going to put my head down and keep going. Or the solution to this is to finish whatever I need to finish, so I'll just plow through and keep going. So, in effect, we ignore the signs and so if we ignore these signs. They keep going.
Speaker 2:And I guess there's a peer social pressure there as well, which is not to think well, you know, I don't want to express this to other people, so maybe we don't even talk about it to others because we think, well, everybody's kind of working hard or, you know, can have a bad day, right kind of working hard or, you know, can have a bad day, right, yes, yes, that will happen.
Speaker 3:And if right now your environment is a bit like this, then I would say early, ideally find your person. Is this your coach? Is this one of your peers that you two have a good, trusting relationship together? Is this a spiritual leader that's part of your life and, for you, is a good person to speak to? Whoever you want to find that person If you are in a work environment where you can contribute to building a culture of. We hear a lot the words of psychological safety. It is a valid concept. It's what it means is can we create an environment where, yeah, we can actually truly share with each other how we're feeling? We can. When we ask someone how they're doing, we can expect an honest, actually authentic response which may have, oh yeah, some positives. Some challenging moments, because if we do this again, we're being more real. Some challenging moments Because if we do this again, we're being more real, which then allows us to deal with the situation much better.
Speaker 2:So if I'm just putting myself now in the shoes of the listeners out there, some people might be already going. Oh, I'm experiencing some of this and, at the same time, like going back to what you said earlier on a lot of people are aware of what you know do because you can get, are aware of what you know do because you can get this stuff in book. You get this stuff out there. It's out there, you know. Here's some of the things you should do, but I think what you've really focused in on and this is what I wanted to get to here is you advocate for everyone to have their own personal strategic resilience plan. So what is a strategic resilience plan and why is it so important?
Speaker 3:Yes. So I'll tell you how an analogy that came out of my mouth one day when working with someone who was asking me literally a question fairly similar to this, and I said well, so, and your listeners some of them may be in a business setting, but even if we're not, you'll understand the situation. If we're in an organization and we now have a new idea for a new product or a new service, are we going to say, okay, I've got this great idea, let's launch it. Or are we going to say idea, let's launch it. Or are we going to say I have this great idea, all right, let's look at who else is selling this exact same thing. How much are they selling it for? Who's buying it? Which forces in the near or far future may impact the demand for it? We would do all this right. In effect, we're looking at the context for this launch, and that will lead to a strategic plan and a more successful launch, which is great. So here for our resilience, we actually need to do the same thing. If all we do is say, yeah, we know the things and we just say I should do the things, we don't do the things, and it doesn't work If, instead, we say, all right, we know some of the key things that would have an impact on our resilience.
Speaker 3:I can cover them in a second if we want, and I'm going to actually look at and that's what I bring people through in the book. It's a concise book. If you're flying for four hours, you can get through it and get your plan when you get out. So it's very doable. And we'll share some worksheets as well which can be used even without the book. You can use them without or with the book.
Speaker 3:But I bring people through a reflection on okay, let's step back. What are your values? Let's start with this. This is what's going to make your plan unique to you. I also bring people through an exercise of realistically looking at your sources of demand, which we tend to underestimate, and your actual sources of supply of energy, which we tend to overestimate. We can talk about that too. Third piece is I bring people through the equivalent of a SWOT analysis, right, when, in business, we would look at what are the internal sources of strengths and weaknesses to this particular project, the external opportunities and threats. So we can do this for ourselves in our context, and then we can write a plan.
Speaker 3:So see, this is the difference between someone saying, oh yeah, I should exercise five times a week and well, I'm not To okay, I value health. In my current context, I'm not investing any time on this value. I'm working all the time and I thought I would go for a walk once in a while. I'm not. My context means that I cannot actually go for walks. I live in a place where it's not easy for me to get out of the door or whatever. So then the plan might have a pillar that will be called health. That may have an action that is simply to focus on deep breathing five times each time I wash my hands. So now I've not added more time to my day. It's not requiring anything that right now is not possible or harder, but I've got an action that I can implement and that we know from research will lead to positive outcomes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I teach some stuff like this myself, a little bit related to habit stacking. So you know you want to build a new habit stack. Add it on to something you're already just doing habitually. It often is easier just to slot it in and before you know it it becomes an extension of what you're already doing. That's a little bit what I'm hearing there.
Speaker 2:Um, fantastic, fantastic, uh, technique and and um always goes down incredibly well with audiences because they go huh, huh, I can do that. You know, it's one of these things like I've. There was a great British medical doctor TV doctor who unfortunately passed away in 2024, but he wrote a great book called Just One Thing, michael Mosley, and so it's full of all these little tips. But one of the fascinating things I do is stand on one leg whilst you're brushing your teeth. So one leg for the top row, one leg for the bottom row, and it strengthens your core. It's giving you some exercise.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of little things you can do, but I wanted to get to some of the things you just mentioned. They're on my list to get to in a minute or so, but before we get to digging deeper into supply and demand and values and and context and things. Um, I want you to just talk a little bit about the intersection of thoughts, moods, physical reactions and behaviors, because for me this is a real leverage point, and so maybe you can elaborate on thoughts, moods, physical reactions and behaviors and the interplay between those four factors.
Speaker 3:This is a great question, and it is, in fact, a chapter in the book where I talk about cognitive behavior therapy and theory, and basically at a very high level. One of the things that's critical for us to keep in mind is that as humans, yes, we have thoughts, feelings, behaviors. They are related, of course, and most of the time it works, thankfully. However, there are times when our thinking is actually not going to be so helpful. It will perhaps be more on the negative side, more negative than it needs to be, and often, when that's the case, it's our thinking that will just become a bit. We call this biased, and a very obvious one that we can notice more easily. Most of us is the all or nothing thinking. This is never gonna work. There's no way I can go through this change. I'm always failing. You know those sort of extreme all or nothing, but there are many others as well, and we could talk about this for a long time, but, in a nutshell, the main direction with this is to be aware of our self-talk and to not necessarily take it as fact. So being efficient professionals and leaders a lot of the time, the way we think is, in fact, very helpful. We want to take action based on it and it works. But it's not because most of the time it's like this that all of the time it's like this.
Speaker 3:So it's about keeping in mind that sometimes the thinking is not going to be helpful and we may want to put it aside and consider a different approach instead.
Speaker 3:For example, a lot of highly performing individuals will have a bit of an anxious side to themselves, like you'll be outside and you'll somehow catch your brain wanting you to not walk on the cracks on the sidewalk or something like this or other ways. So if we start buying into this, then it becomes a bigger deal. If we just say, oh yeah, this is me sometimes being a bit more anxious deal, if we just say, oh yeah, this is me sometimes being a bit more anxious, you can let it go and move on to the next thing. So it's a small example. And if it gets harder, of course that's when we want to work with, say, a psychologist, for example. But the point is the way we think influences how we feel, how we behave all of our self, our experience, and so paying attention to how we think is worth it, keeping in mind sometimes it's not going to be helpful and then bringing it back to just more realistic thinking.
Speaker 2:You mentioned a concept. I guess it's a model you've developed yourself. You call it bear thinking. Is this just because you're out in the wild all the time I know you like to be out in nature and you've just thought, okay, those guys will be good for a model, or was it? Is it what is bear thinking?
Speaker 3:oh, the way I came to this, um so. So, like I said, there are many ways in which we can bias our own thinking and there are. Seriously, it's as if researchers have loved finding all the ways and we probably have a hundred categories. Right, we could be personalizing things, we could be catastrophizing, minimizing, maximizing. You know, there's a number of them and part of what I'm saying is we don't want to feed this thinking.
Speaker 3:Now, yes, I happen to be someone who's often in the wilderness with both black bears and grizzly bears, which I tried to stay away from. But one of the key things I ran into once on a campground was this sign that said you know, don't feed the bears, which, of course, no, you don't want to feed the bears, any bears. But then I thought, well, that's a very interesting, because that's exactly the same thing we don't want to do with unhelpful thoughts. And then I thought, well, that's a very interesting, because that's exactly the same thing we don't want to do with unhelpful thoughts. And then I figured wait, a second BEAR.
Speaker 3:That could be an acronym for sort of black and white thinking, b or R or nothing that I was mentioning earlier, and then E could be emotional reasoning. So when we start thinking, oh, I feel incompetent, so I am, for example, that's just unhelpful, not true? Right A was for anchoring. Sometimes that tendency to it's always been like this, so it's going to be like this again. Not necessarily the case. And R? Wait a second, I'm having a blank. I've had a blank on that letter once before. Do you have it in front of you by chance?
Speaker 3:Not directly in front of me, but we could we could brainstorm it like reactive or whatever it is Reading people's mind. It came back Reading people's mind. There you go. Otherwise I would have had to say, oh, you're going to have to buy the book to find out, but no, no, you read you read my mind or I read your mind.
Speaker 3:Oh, who knows? But but that's another bias, right? Um, that can you know. We can start thinking oh my god, everyone in the room is thinking that I'm incompetent, for example. Therefore, I am again. No, we cannot read people's mind. Not helpful, stay with your game and keep carry on.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's how the bear analogy came so, so so they the the term that you borrowed for economics around supply and demand. Could you maybe unpack that a little bit with some examples for our listeners? You know this idea because you talk about in the book and you you really talk about. I think you use that kind of principle of supply and demand from economics to try and illustrate it. So unpack it for our listeners.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I'm using it differently for how we mean it in economics. So, but here, but it is the terms that often were used to using, so it was a bit of a way to catch people's attention.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Leading People with me, gerry Murray, and my guest this week is author and resilience expert, marie-hélène Pauletier. In the next part of our conversation, marie-hélène dives deep into her strategic resilience plan, explains why values matter and how leaders can build resilience in their teams and organizations. So stay tuned to explore these powerful tools to help you thrive.
Speaker 3:I have to say it turns out this particular worksheet I mentioned. We will have the link for people, but this particular worksheet is the one that most people have gotten back to me saying this was the biggest shift in their approach in feeding their own strategic resilience plan. So one pager, two columns, demands on one side, supply on the other. And in this here I'm just saying part of what happens to very perform, highly performing professionals and leaders is that we will tend to minimize the demands we're facing. So I'll ask so you know. So, list your the demands you have in your life. People will usually list two or three things at work that they would rather not have, that are sort of irritating. That's it. They'll stop there. Then I'll say, okay, well, we don't just have a professional life, we have a personal life, so let's list a few there. So they'll list a couple of things, same thing, that they would rather not have, and then I'll say, well, okay, now let's list even more. And as they start paying attention they realize, oh yeah, well, I'm also, you know, filling in for this colleague who needs to be away, and then they'll realize there are positive demands. I also got this new, really big client that I've been hoping to work with for a long time. But oh, now that means more pressure on me too, or on the personal side. Very happy, we're just moving to this new place, but it's a move, and a move is demanding. So you see, just talking about it for one more minute makes us realize no, it's not two or three things, it's 15. Okay, let's have a more realistic look there.
Speaker 3:And same thing on the supply side. So what brings you energy? Then I'll say to people, okay, what do you have there? And then they'll say, oh, yeah, I like to go for a walk three times a week with my partner after dinner. Great, how many times did you go in the past two weeks? And then they'll say, uh, well, in the past couple of months I've been very busy. So, no, it did not happen there. Well, okay, it doesn't go on the list then. And then they realize there's not much on the list. And so that's moving us from what I call an optimistic bias oh I don't have that many demands, oh I have lots of supply to a more realistic perspective. Because without that realistic perspective again we think we don't need to take any action on our resilience.
Speaker 2:Not true, and, of course, the another byproduct of having lots of demands is when, when things don't get closed or finished off, it's like having a bucket with holes in it. This energy is just leaking out because all these things are running in the background that you haven't actually finished off and and and. Then, as you say, if the supply isn't there because a lot of it's downtime, how much energy do we have to actually do the things? And reminding ourselves that they need to be done has also got negative impacts on us, because we just keep going oh, oh, my God, I'm never going to get to that. So what do people do with their supply and demand inventory then, when you've done it with them?
Speaker 3:Yes, Well, it's one of the pieces of information we need to inform the strategic plan. So one of the ways it becomes helpful is even that example. You know that example we were just talking about. Okay, so let's say we we now just did this realize we have a list of 15 demands and not much on the supply side. Okay, and we've also done, say, our review of our values, what's most important for me in life? Let's say relationship, health, um, power, finances, whatever is on your list here. So you start seeing the disconnect between, okay, I've got these values and really all I'm doing is working, or getting things done. Okay, and then we're going to look at your context, that SWOT analysis. But then it may lead to someone deciding on their strategic plan, Maybe pillar number one.
Speaker 3:I often recommend three pillars so that it's manageable. Maybe one pillar for this person will be prioritize, where I put my energy. And so now and I've had one person I worked with who was reflecting on exactly that she said she went from having an endless list of things to do and constantly feeling dissatisfied with it because it's endless, to having a clear list of the few things she has to do and that's it. Immensely more focused, satisfying and time to do the other things she wanted to get to that were aligned with her values.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've tried out quite a few of these um approaches, and less is certainly more um, because, in getting back to the values, one of the nicest things I ever came across was, in order to be able to say no to something or somebody, you need to be able to say yes to yourself, and that means knowing what you're important to you and then saying, okay, I'm just going to have to say no to those things because they don't fit with what's important to me now. And when you get the context again, what's important to me to now and maybe for three, six months, that might change because some other things may become more important later on. But if you're not aware of these things, you don't know how to shift. Isn't that right?
Speaker 3:Exactly, and you see the parallel with exactly what, the way in which a strategic plan is so helpful in business. Same thing right, as a business, quite potentially you could offer additional services, additional products, all kinds of other things. You've got the resources, potentially, but you've decided where you're going, based on the values of this organization, where you're going to play your overall context, and that's exactly what a strategy does. Here as well. In a business, a new opportunity comes. We carry it through the lens of our strategic plan and if it fits, it fits. Maybe the strategic plan needs to evolve. That's also an option, but we're not just jumping on it because it's there. So same thing here having that clarity which sometimes people think, oh, it's going to take me 10 hours to get there. No, it will not. You could just use the worksheets, not even get the book, and that will still put you in that position, but it puts so much more power. People say they feel grounded and they have clarity, and who doesn't love that?
Speaker 2:right, there's lots of people out there going where can I get these worksheets? But we'll get there. We're going to get to that part, so just be patient, because strategy requires patience anyway. So just we'll get there. Okay, and you make this important link in the book between strategy and actions as a plan in constant evolution. What do you mean by?
Speaker 3:that Same as in business. So in business, here, we will create a strategy in this moment in time that will have a duration. Right, it will be valid. Sometimes it's for two months, sometimes six months, sometimes a year, and sometimes, whatever duration we thought it would be, we may decide that it needs to be revised sooner because the context has changed. And so same thing here for our resilience plan.
Speaker 3:Say me, for example, when I knew that my book was going to launch three months down the road, so the last, you know, the three months prior to the launching of the book, then I thought, oh wait, a second, using my own medicine, my own book. That means my context is going to change when that happens. So how do I plan for this? And there were various pillars in my strategy, but one of them was that I was not going to approach the various demands in a similar way. I was going to protect more time, even though I didn't know exactly what was going to happen. I knew it was going to be more demanding.
Speaker 3:Everyone was telling me I felt like not listening, but I did, thankfully. And so that's what I did. And I'm so thankful I did because now, and having not gone through this experience. Before, all I could do was listen to other people. Creating a strategy for that period that was going to be very unique allowed me to be in that phase do all the things, but also, which I learned after, actually enjoy it, as opposed to doing all the things and running after all the other things I'm trying to also accomplish, because I made no change, because I kept the same plan. No, the plan evolved because the context was changing, and that's the point of the book.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with a concept called all meaning? Is context dependent? Yeah, right exactly because I think sometimes people miss that if the context starts changing a lot of what you, whatever something meant, let's say, a couple of weeks ago, it may not mean the same thing, because the context has changed again and we often have to see things in the context to know what to do. And actually ignoring context is something you do at your peril, because I know, but we do that all the time.
Speaker 3:People will make assumptions about oh yeah, I can do this, I can do that. This is going to take me two hours, one hour. This is based on old data. This is you 10 years ago. This is you last time you did this. Your context is different. I mean, our brain is different also as we age and time keeps going. So, yeah, know the context.
Speaker 2:So how does technology affect our ability to be resilient, and could technologies actually help us treat in inverted commas our burnout, anxiety and other mental health tendencies?
Speaker 3:Well, technology is a broad term, and at this point I mean there's a broad term and at this point I mean there's advantages, disadvantages, no-transcript.
Speaker 3:If I go high level in answering your question, I would say consider technology, so overall AI, machine learning, all of these consider this as more as a source of demand.
Speaker 3:Now, keep in mind, demands can be negative, can be also positive, but for us right now, technology is still a change from not having it to having it. So therefore, I would say, first and foremost, let's consider it the demand that it is, because then, if we do, in effect, we're looking at the context in a more realistic way and we'll build our resilience more proactively. If we go in the more granular and there are some for some people there will be advantages of having more information, for example, from what your wrist is telling you in the morning about how well you slept, for example, things like that. And then for many right now, there's also the possibly even bigger challenge of taking a break for your phone from your phone right, and so, overall, just that's a, that's considerate the demand mostly that we want to proactively build resilience for, so that we can navigate it as best as we can as as a human partner right.
Speaker 2:So it comes back again to your worksheets, and, and, and you know technology doesn't sit as a separate thing. It's part of our lives, so it's, it's factored into looking at supply, demand values, context and yeah yes, yes, yes, and it for some people.
Speaker 3:Right now it feels like it's already there. For most people, we know it's around, and then for some others it's very, very present.
Speaker 2:So back to the leading people theme and I have one kind of big last question here. You say the individual, team and organization resilience are all related. Could you maybe provide some examples for our listeners of how this plays out and really the impact that leaders have on the relationship between these factors? So the individual, the team and the organization.
Speaker 3:Leaders have a large impact and sometimes the best leaders have this humble side to them that makes them think that they are as no more or less important than anybody else, and that is true. At the same time, if you are in a leadership role I mean, I would even say anyone whether we're in a leadership role or not are influencing the team. We're in, the organization we're in. That being said, if we are in a leadership role, we are having more of an impact. If nothing else, just because you have this role, more people are looking at how you're handling things, what you're saying, what you're noticing is positive or challenging. So it is an important responsibility, it's a fabulous opportunity and, even if we are in our humble self in a number of ways, it's much better to recognize this than to pretend it's not there and therefore we're actually going to miss opportunities. So I would say important role.
Speaker 3:Now, yes, workplace is a system. There's the individual, the team, the organization. At a broader level, there is the country we're in the moment in time it is. You know, it is a very contextualized, again, concept, but in a workplace, this is extremely important because what it means is that, whether we're talking about burnout, psychological safety, resilience as individuals, teams or organizations. It is within that system. It is a shared responsibility, shared opportunity, shared responsibility as well.
Speaker 3:So, for example, if you're a leader and you're saying, okay, how can I contribute to my team's resilience, for example, maybe and it brings us back to our earlier part of this conversation where you were saying, well, what if I don't feel comfortable sharing with others that I'm struggling?
Speaker 3:For example, be that leader, start, for example, start small. Instead of if someone asks you how your weekend was and you went for a great walk or hike or a bike ride, whatever, instead of just saying you know, good weekend went for my bike ride, how about you say great weekend went for my bike ride, especially important for me, given how busy we're going to be this week, how demanding the current pressures are. See, it's not a big addition. You didn't put your heart on the table in a massive way, but what you did do is share a bit more of you personally, of how, yeah, you're protecting your resilience, how we can talk about resilience here, and these are the kinds of comments, responses, that start building even more of that trust, that psychological safety which allows us to have conversations, including those about resilience, yeah because there's so much out there today about the manager and the leader.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know it's all about leadership and it's all about you know. Obviously we talk about contagion, you know, and role modeling. You know, if leaders don't role model and their behaviors and uh, moods and that can be contagious and affect other people. And yet there's so much. I mean managers are so essential to an organization, whether you call them managers or leaders, depending on where they may be, what the type of roles they have, they're so essential to an organization because people still look to others for guidance, to maybe I don't know set direction. And yet a lot of the statistics are showing that the poor managers are suffering more than anybody else out there. You know, we're always saying, well, the manager is not engaging their people, but often those people feel they're not being engaged by maybe somebody else or some other managers and I've seen rates of up to 60 percent of managers feeling close to burnout. I mean Gallup's doing research on this.
Speaker 2:Mckinsey's written a book about the importance recently of middle managers and how they're so vital. And what would you say to that person out there now listening who says, well, it's all very well, everybody's saying the manager the manager, or the leader the leader. But I'm suffering, I'm the person who's having to, I'm getting. You know. They often say middle managers, they're getting squeezed, they're like in the middle of a sandwich. The people underneath them are pushing at them, the people above them are pushing at them. Maybe this is a way of coming to the end of this particular conversation. I mean, I would normally look for maybe a couple of insights that you would share with our audience. Maybe you could at least share one insight with managers who may feel totally beaten up and that's not going to help them be resilient, I think, if they feel they've got nowhere to go.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it is a very challenging role which for many years was considered oh, it's a easier role, it's a role, it's a well-paid role, whatever right To tough it out or you don't need any support, that kind of thing. Seriously, even in the academic literature, it's only in the recent years that we've started seeing information about the challenges of leaders, for example, specifically when there is massive layoff, for example. It's actually not that easy. So, and being in this position of lower management type role is the toughest. I have been in it. I know exactly what you're describing.
Speaker 3:The pressure is coming from both sides. You're protecting your team and you're trying to just receive whatever you're receiving from your upper management Get support, get support. Do not keep this just in you Even. Don't keep it also just in building your own plan on your own. Your pillars here, your strategic pillars, yes, might involve things that will build your own resilience individually, like your exercise, nutrition, sleep, all these things, yes, and you've got to have in your other pillars your relationships with others and possibly getting professional support. So, and literally, I would make it a pillar because if it may mean seeing if you can engage further your own leader here in the organization Sometimes possible, sometimes not, but it's worth a shot. Sometimes it's gathering additional professional development support in the form of a coach, in the form of other training.
Speaker 3:Get out. The tendency will be to retreat in, to think it's something in you that you need to fix or do on your own, or that there is something wrong with you. And no, no, no. You want to get out and get those resources, for two reasons. One, get additional support in making it potentially, or having additional reflection on is this the right place for me to be right now? Maybe this is this role, but somewhere else. Maybe it's a different role. Maybe it's this role differently, but if it's not going in the good directions, change something sooner rather than later. It's not going to get better. The trend is there, so you want to do something to change that trend.
Speaker 2:Right. So that's just listening to that. I think that's precious advice. I'm just going to ask you for one more little contribution to that thought process.
Speaker 2:Many of our listeners are working in HR and you know the challenge with coaching is, as a friend of mine, who went through a very tough time and became a real example of resilience, once said to me.
Speaker 2:She said the problem with coaching is you only actually know that it's very valuable when you've gone through it. But then you have to be prepared to either pay for it or go through it to find out how useful and valuable it is. So in an organizational context because I know when I worked in a big organization I didn't spend any money on my own personal development. I expected the organization. It was like well, I'm here, you know, you guys send me on trainings, but only when I left I began to invest in my own stuff and go to courses, looking at the stats, looking at people, maybe having people come to them. Maybe HR sometimes is that first confidant that a person can have. What would you say to them in terms of you know, from your research and your experience and writing this book, what would you say they could do maybe to help people in their organizations who might be struggling.
Speaker 3:It's a great question because it makes me think of two aspects to this. Number one, I would say you, as HR person, do all these things for you, because the HR role is a challenging one too. Right, because you get people from the organization coming to you, sometimes thinking they can be that confident person and there are between the employees and their responsibilities to the organization as well, right. So it's a challenging role to navigate with authenticity and it's fairly demanding. So I'd say, make sure you do your own thing here In terms of sharing with others. I would say take a step back to look at your own, the organization's, mental health strategy. So I'm calling it that because more and more organizations have a mental health strategy, some do not. Yet They'll have more of a health strategy general, which potentially traditionally will be more physical health focused.
Speaker 3:But maybe what we need to do if we're hearing see, we are on HR we're hearing more and more people bringing up these challenges let's step back and think about is it time to evolve our health strategy?
Speaker 3:Do we need a specific mental health strategy? Because then, if you do that, the reality is that if trying to just support the individuals here in a bit of a granular way is something. However, we're dealing with an organization, so we need to think about it in that broader sense, and having that mental health strategy here for the organization will be good. It will involve looking at the kinds of resources you have right now, the kinds of whatever metrics you have about the engagement, overall mental health of your employee population and what other resources perhaps we need right, and so then you're able to support this. This, I mean some of that belongs to the individuals themselves, but as an organization, yeah, I mean some of that belongs to the individuals themselves, but as an organization, yeah, sometimes that's where you're going to be able to map out the ways you can support the overall employee population in a way that makes sense to them, given what you're hearing.
Speaker 2:Those are great insights and thank you for sharing. So what's next for you?
Speaker 3:and thank you for sharing. So what's next for you? Ah well, there's still a lot of conversations to be had about the book, the Resilience Plan. The book is getting translated in German next year and hopefully many other languages, continuing to, of course, do talks on anything and many different aspects related to resilience, like AI and resilience, for example, and then building online courses as well. So lots to do.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like you're going to be very busy. So how do people get in touch with you? And let's get to some of this special offer that we talked about earlier. But first, how do people get in contact with you, and then what? You have an offer for people, our listeners out there, if they want to take advantage of it.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. Thank you for asking. So LinkedIn is one of the places. I'm in other places as well, but that's the one where I'm most active. So find me on LinkedIn, connect there so we can see each other's comments. I always love that. Otherwise comments, I always love that. Um, otherwise, the resilience plancom will bring you to everything that I do the book, the worksheets, a book free first chapter if you you're interested in doing this.
Speaker 2:It brings you to everything I do yeah, and so I will put some links in the show notes and I would encourage everybody to check out the book. It's available at all good bookstores, amazon, etc. So, as ever, thanks, marie-hélène, for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with me and my listeners here today.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Gerry.
Speaker 1:Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 4:But then, of course, the question is and that brings us to the second part how do you define a strong culture? How do you define a great place to work? And the good thing there is that it's really a very rigid methodology. It has been developed over those 40 years, but over those 40 years and it's kind of normative model, you could say, where we believe that there's a few important elements that define a great place to work, and one of them is the high trust leadership. You already mentioned the importance of leadership. I can go a little bit deeper into what it really means, into what it really means, but one part is high trust leadership, which is how do employees appreciate the connection between them and their leadership and management in the organization?
Speaker 2:Next time, on Leading People, we're joined by Koen Duetink, ceo of Great Place to Work Belgium and Professor of Human Resources at Vleric Business School. Kuhn reveals what truly makes an organisation a great place to work and why listening to employees' voices is at the heart of it all. Discover how evidence-based culture management can transform workplaces and create environments where people thrive. This insightful conversation is packed with useful advice about how you can create and lead a great place to work. You won't want to miss it. And remember, before our next full episode, there's another One Simple Thing episode waiting for you, a quick and actionable tip to help you lead and live better. Keep an eye out for it wherever you listen to this podcast Until next time.
