With the implications of the financial crisis still playing out, many organisations have been engaging in development programmes that focus on cultivating emotional resilience. This comes from a recognition that everyday challenges will only continue and that individuals need to operate at their full potential.
M&As are back on the agenda and corporate governance is still very much front of mind, so there is no longer much certainty about where one’s organisation will end up in terms of scale, scope of business activities and reach in the face of ambitious growth plans.
Negotiating this environment requires a certain agility and ability to tune into emotional input and response.
This article examines what emotional resilience is and how treasury professionals can use an understanding of this topic to not only survive, but to thrive.
The term emotional resilience has become more familiar in the workplace, but what does it mean and how does one become emotionally resilient?
I define emotional resilience as the ability to choose thoughts, actions and feelings that enable you to function at your best at individual, team and organisational levels. This is critical for finance and treasury professionals, who often carry governance responsibility for a business operating both profitably and ethically.
In addition to being technically strong in specialist knowledge and technical skill, treasury professionals need to master the emotional dimension of their interactions – that is, they need to understand the role emotions play in themselves and in others when working in teams. They also need a good sense of the emotional states in teams that support high performance and how they can be generated.
More and more organisations and their leaders are grasping the positive effect emotional resilience can have not only on their teams, but also on their own overall effectiveness as leaders, and the success of their organisations as businesses.
Emotionally resilient people have the flexibility and know-how to deal with ongoing situations rather than one-off problems or crises and are the most consistently productive professionals.
Research has shown that by developing these skills, individuals are able to manage themselves and be resilient when working in teams, resulting in higher performance. They are more likely to be visible as good work colleagues, effective managers and skilled personnel.
Organisations that ignore this vital ingredient will fail to get the best out of their employees and their teams, which in turn has a negative effect on their bottom line.
To become emotionally resilient requires a combination of self-understanding and action. These are to be used not only in times of stress, but every day, to boost productivity and performance.
It is not enough to just be ‘resilient’ and to bounce back, as many daily issues at work involve emotion, and many people do not have the strategies for overcoming more intractable problems. It is not solely about working on yourself – but understanding and building relationships with others.
The approach to developing and sustaining emotional resilience relies on developing an awareness of how we operate and cultivating the skills needed to negotiate difficult and emotionally charged situations.
There are six aspects of emotion-related self-awareness that I believe influence what you think about and focus on, how you handle your emotions and those of others, and how you operate when working in a team.
By understanding these six essentials and reflecting on our approach to each of them, we can start to focus on the skills needed to build results in personal and team resilience.
There are a number of practical skills that can be developed to enable us to take action, no matter what challenges are faced:
Once you have learnt how to identify the situation and actively apply your understanding of emotional resilience, you are able to start fine-tuning the key result areas: connection, influence, energy and thriving (for more on those, see the case study below).
It is time to bring the skills and practices of emotional resilience into a much wider arena to influence changes in the workplace. As Charles Darwin discovered: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Those who understand the role that emotional resilience plays in the workplace also understand that by embracing it and learning how to continually harness it to their advantage, they can operate successfully with those who are well-equipped to work towards their organisation’s goals.
Context
In the period after a merger, an outgoing CFO finds she needs to apply the framework of emotional resilience to manage herself through a difficult transition, as she works alongside an incoming CFO.
Reflecting on the essentials
In this example, the concept of high self-worth could be counterproductive, as it might distract the outgoing CFO’s attention away from the task of establishing a new role for herself.
She might instead find herself becoming unproductively competitive with the incoming CFO, for instance. She might also find that low self-control inclines her to react impulsively to unwelcome actions from the incoming CFO. Low mood could make her appear less than constructive in terms of assisting with the integration of the two finance teams. She might also find herself low on empathy, which is also a natural reaction.
In this kind of situation, feelings of low self-worth, low self-confidence and a sense of being disengaged from work are entirely natural. In an ideal situation, the outgoing CFO would conduct a self-assessment against the emotional resilience framework to identify valuable self-management strategies.
Actively applying emotional resilience: mindset and skill set
Important here is the skill of shifting – moving away from feeling annoyed and rejected, towards building the necessary confidence to deal with the immediate situation and beyond. The ideal scenario would be to use this time to reflect on her own values and aspirations and affirm what will be most important her in her next role.
When it comes to helping others, facilitating group dialogue is a useful means of supporting other team members. Expressing innermost feelings about the changes, on the other hand, may not be useful in this scenario; it is important the outgoing CFO remains very conscious of what she is communicating.
Using emotional resilience to deliver results
Now is the time to optimise personal and business connections to identify opportunities for herself and to make sure she is using her influence in a way that inclines others to refer her within their networks. Understanding and maintaining energy levels and focus, meanwhile, will help her to move on.
Geetu Bharwaney is director of Ei World, a company that offers emotion-based development programmes for leaders
