Resilience

1. Resilience Developing the Characteristics of Resilience Dr. John E. Deasy, Superintendent

2. Definition • Resilience is defined as the ability to absorb high levels of disruptive change while displaying minimal dysfunctional behavior.

3. The individual and the Organization • Unless individuals are able to change their behavior and thoughts quickly, effectively, and with minimal levels of problems, the organization will find itself failing to achieve the hoped-for-benefits of an initiative.

4. The Cycle of Resilience • Think of a sine wave chart with high amplitude • Upper end of chart is dysfunction, lower end is dysfunction, and balance of the middle is function • Enter a disruption, the the wave length magnifies to high upper end and lower end with great frequency • End the disruption (the recovery) and the wave length returns to the functional middle.

6. Although resilient people face no less of a challenge than others when they engage in change, they are not immune to the dysfunctional behavior that accompanies the disruption of change

7. resilient People • More often than not they: • Regain their equilibrium faster • Maintain a higher level of productivity • Are physically and emotionally healthier • Achieve more of their objectives than people who experience future shock • Tend to rebound from the demands of change even stronger than before

8. Baseline Resilience • Everyone has a baseline level of resilience that is a result of their innate characteristics as well as their conscious and unconscious learning about how to best respond to change.

9. Baseline Resilience • Baseline resilience reflects the amount of change a person can adequately adapt to before any special effort is made to bolster this capacity during a particular change • The degree to which baseline levels can be raised is dependent to a great extent on • The beginning level of resilience • The teaching abilities of people serving as resilience coaches • The willingness of the individual to learn and apply resilience concepts

10. resilience Characteristics • Positive • Display a security and self-awareness that is based on their view of life as complex but filled with opportunity • Focused • Have a clear vision of what they want to achieve • Flexible • Demonstrate a special pliability when responding to uncertainty

11. Resilience Characteristics • Organized • Develop structured approaches to managing ambiguity • Proactive • Engage change rather than defend against it

12. The characteristics • Work as a system • No one of them alone is sufficient to produce resilience • They all play a role in either increasing the adaptation resources available to address a situation or • Protecting adaptation resources from being drained away in ways that are not productive

13. Self-Assessment of Resilience • Please take the self assessment, without talking to friends or colleagues • Time for that later • 10 minutes

14. Aspects of the characteristics • Lets walk through the handout • Now, please read the handout on increasing resilience • Table or elbow-partner talk • What does this say about me, my team/school? • What are the implications for my leadership? • What might be next steps for my growth and leadership?