In my coaching work with senior members of the Australian Public Service (APS) of late I have found a number of coachees struggling to cope with rapid change, increasing workload demands exacerbated by shrinking resources and uncertainty in terms of the direction of Ministerial expectations in a turbulent political landscape.  These pressures are sometimes added to by factors such as staff looking to their leaders/managers to be protectors from unreasonable work demands or by family demands such as caring for children or dealing with the ill-health of aging parents.  In dealing with these issues coachees are typically well aware of the requirement under the APS Senior Executive Leadership capability framework for them to “Display Resilience” in the face of all these challenges.

The Macquarie Dictionary cites the meaning of resilience as  “resilient power; elasticity;  [or the] power of ready recovery from sickness, depression, or the like; buoyancy; cheerfulness”.  So what are some of the things we can do to be resilient in the face of seemingly unrelenting pressure and uncertainty? There are a number of things that can help and some of these can be found in an article titled ‘The Healthy Mind Platter’ by David Rock, Daniel J. Siegel, Steven A. Y. Poelmans and Jessica Payne published in Issue Four of the NeuroLeadership Journal from the NeuroLeadership Institute 2012.

The Healthy Mind Platter identifies seven neuro-cognitive activities that nurture the mind and help deal with stress.  These are:

• Sleep Time
• Play Time
• Downtime
• Time-in
• Connecting Time
• Physical Time
• Focus Time

My purpose here is not to reproduce The Healthy Mind Platter article or attempt to summarise it and its science.  For those enthusiastic to learn more the Journal can be purchased from the NeuroLeadership Institute through their website at www.NeuroLeadership.org.  Drawing on The Healthy Mind Platter, however, I thought it may be of value to share some observations from recent coaching conversations.  These observations go beyond what is in The Healthy Mind Platter but that is a good place to start.  My intent is therefore, to provide a menu of ideas leaders can draw on to manage stress and thereby build greater resilience.

Sleep time is critical to resilience and proper functioning and yet many people in senior roles burn the candle at both ends to get their work done.  I hear this a lot.  I heard it from a Partner in a major accounting firm only today.  In 1997 Drew Dawson and Kathryn Reid published an article titled ‘Fatigue, Alcohol and Performance Impairment’ in the scientific journal Nature (Nature 388, 235 17 July 1997).  The article presented the outcome of research which showed that “relatively moderate levels of fatigue impair performance to an extent equivalent to or greater than is currently acceptable for alcohol intoxication”. So fatigue, through lack of sleep, will impair performance and as other studies have shown it also leads to long term health risks.  Getting enough sleep is essential to our physical well being and performance.

There is scientific support for the importance of Play Time to long term well being and our state of mental health.  Even without the detailed science we can all relate to old truism that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.  Making time for play is essential to maintaining a healthy state of mind.

Downtime relates to what might be colloquially referred to as “zoning out”.  Just doing nothing.  How challenging a concept is that!  Can we give ourselves permission to do that in this busy life?

Time-in relates to practices of reflection and mindfulness.  I have two coaches who are currently exploring the use of mindfulness to help cope with stress and it is an area that is increasingly being recognised as an important area of investment in staff welfare by big private sector companies here in Australia and overseas.

Connecting time goes to the importance and power of social relationships.  There is a large body of research that provides proof of the importance of relationships to a healthy mind and our ability to deal with stress.  This applies whether we are introverts or extroverts, its just that we may engage with relationships differently depending whether we are more introvert or more extrovert.  While the research typically focuses on the importance and power of social and close personal relationships I suggest that we also need to be mindful of establishing and drawing on strong workplace relationships.  This has been emphasised for me twice in recent times.  On each occasion I have been working with a coachee who has been really anxious about the demands placed on them and their staff.  In each case they have not wanted to talk to others about the issue, either their direct supervisor or peers, for fear they would be seen as ‘unable to cope’.  They have been feeling particularly vulnerable because nobody else is ‘complaining’. In each case they have, following our conversations, found it in them to be open about how they are feeling with others in the workplace.  In each case they have found they are not alone and this has been a tremendous relief from anxiety for both of them, even though the workload pressures have not diminished.

The importance of maintaining a good level of physical well being through physical exercise and a good diet is probably obvious enough.  What is perhaps less well recognised is that there is ample scientific research which demonstrates that exercise is also essential to maintaining good mental health.

The final element of The Healthy Mind Platter is Focus Time, which relates to our capacity to create and spend time focussed on the tasks necessary to deliver good performance outcomes.  Without this capacity there is a tendency to be easily distracted by various stimuli and so not progress the agenda we are responsible for.  It can take real effort to find time and space to do this well in a hectic work environment.

In addition to the areas covered by The Healthy Mind Platter there are three other areas that I often see as stumbling blocks in my coaching conversations.  These are:

• being realistic
• being open and nimble
• delegating responsibility (and thereby empowering people)

I frequently find that people in senior roles are their own worse enemies.  It is the devil within.  They want to succeed at what they do and be seen to succeed.  Setting ambitious goals and stretch goals is admirable as long as they are also realistic in the context of the current environment, something to be particularly mindful of in times of constrained resources. Be careful not to set the hurdle too high so that it creates unreasonable stress for you and those who work with you. Better for you and everyone to have an ambitious but realistic goal and succeed than set sights too high and fail.

Being open and nimble.  We operate in a world of often rapid and sometimes unpredictable change.  We need to be open to and ready to accept change and work with it when it is inevitable rather than to fight against it.  Fighting against change in direction can often be a protective mechanism, eg “I have been working so hard on this approach or solution that I cant bear the thought of changing tack”, or “I’ll have to rethink everything we have been doing!”  Resisting when change is inevitable saps energy that could be used far more productively.

Delegating is always important in managing workload stress.  A mistake I have seen many times is the leader who at a time of pressure thinks they must absorb the extra workload or contain bad news to themselves to protect their staff.  Inevitably this simply generates more pressure and stress to you as the leader and this in turn means you become less effective in leading your teams, becoming more fatigued and potentially more irritable.

These then are some thoughts on areas to work on in managing stress and building resilience.  For readers wanting to explore any of these areas more please get in touch using my contact link.

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