Build Up Your Resilience By Asking Yourself Two Simple Questions

You may surprise yourself and find good in the bad.

- Srikumar Rao

In an era where business keeps moving faster, it is no small wonder that resilience has become the new must-have executive skill. While executives have always known about the personal benefits of being resilient, they haven’t always recognised that it is also needed for the sake of their teams and organisational health.

Take Susan, the CEO of a small telecommunications firm. She was enrolled in my MBA course when she received some bad news. A major contract, one that her firm had spent months preparing for, had gone to a competitor. She had worked hard on it. Her team had found ingenious ways to shave costs and innovative ways to add value for the client.

It would have been a profitable project and, more important, successful completion would have proved a new product concept.

Her face fell and she deflated visibly. She regained her balance in days, but the damage was done. One of her engineers, a key employee and the only one who understood how a critical software component worked, left the firm. Other employees, jittery of business failure, were ready to bolt. She had to spend endless hours reassuring them about the viability of the company.

She soon discovered that how the boss feels affects the entire team. It was not enough for her to regain her keel swiftly; she had to remain visibly unruffled and strong in front of her team.

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