RESILIENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS

Resilience comes to mind as month eight of the COVID-19 pandemic looms. How are we doing? Will our families, our communities, our schools, our businesses and our art and culture bounce back, even with dramatic changes? How will we adapt and what intentional evolution must occur in the wake of COVID-19, institutional racial injustice and a deeply scarred economy? What role does communications play in how resilient we are individually and as a society?

Resiliency is the ability to adapt well after adversity, trauma, tragedy and high stress. Many times, our resiliency helps us become stronger or more resourceful after enduring adverse situations. Resilience does not mean we won’t feel the pain of our struggles.
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The ADP Research Institute (ADPRI) recently released results of two studies of human resilience. Marcus Buckingham, who is the ADPRI Head of Research, People and Performance, co-authored the study. In a Sept. 29, 2020 Harvard Business Review article about the findings, Buckingham says that leaders can enhance people’s resilience by communicating honestly. He says,

​“…you realize that we humans do not function well when our senior leaders gloss over the reality. We don’t need them to sugarcoat in order to make us feel better. It won’t. It is far more frightening, and damaging to the psyche, to downplay tough or dark realities, or to pretend they don’t exist, because then we allow our imaginations to run riot, and who knows what kind of demons we can conjure in our mind’s eye.”

In effect, Buckingham’s research corroborates the oft-repeated crisis communications mantra, “Tell the truth. Tell it fast. Tell it yourself.” Buckingham writes, “Instead of downplaying the reality, tell it to us straight.”
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Buckingham is an author, motivational speaker and business consultant. He is the author and co-author of many books, including, First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. His research and experience relate directly to the workplace. The recent ADPRI study designed and developed a Workplace Resilience Scale to understand how resilience plays a role in the world of work.

TWO MAJOR FINDINGS ABOUT RESILIENCE:

1. Those who love what they do at work are 3.9 times more likely to be highly resilient; and
2. Trust is a crucial part of resilience. People are more resilient when they trust their team leader and the organization’s senior leaders.

​Open, honest communication is the foundation of trust. Strong two-way communications channels foster workplaces where people feel valued and team leaders and members work together to match people’s skills and interests to career paths that result in more people loving their work.

Words matter. What we say to one another and the respect with which we deliver our messages are critical. We need to choose our written words wisely, too.

Because written words are more permanent, they sustain the life and culture of an institution. One of the most resilient documents in the world is the U.S. Constitution. Our nation’s founders chose their words well. They also created a process for ratifying Constitutional amendments that have strengthened the document and our nation for more than two centuries. The Constitution itself is a model of resilience – it adapts and grows stronger through adversity and challenge.

Listening may be the most crucial component of communication. By listening, we open our minds and learn. In these times, it’s more important than ever to listen. Listening is a gateway to understanding and building resilience.

If resilience results from learning through adversity, then 2020 is the mother of all learning experiences. Building resiliency does not blunt the pain, and that itself is painful to accept. Many, many people are hurting right now, and we need to acknowledge that. We must take care to not de-value or disrespect the untold numbers of personal tragedies happening all around us.

One possible glimmer of hope from the train wreck that is 2020 is that if we can work together to forge personal and collective resilience from the wreckage, maybe we can bounce back together, stronger. May it be so.

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Choosing the right words -- either spoken or written -- is paramount for building trust and resilience. This post originally appeared in the KSC Blog on October 19, 2020. We thank Kathy Schaeffer for allowing us to reprint it here for you. You can more of her insights on communication and leadership on their blog: http://www.ksapr.com/ksa-blog
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Public relations activities help you build a positive reputation and educate important audiences in your community long before members of those audiences need your company’s services, and long before you need their support. The CANA PR Toolkit, developed with professional PR firm Kathy Schaeffer Consulting, LLC, is designed to help you craft your PR strategy to grow your reputation and educate your community. This exclusive member benefit is available online and on-demand, whenever you need it most.

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Kathy Schaeffer, principal of Kathy Schaeffer Consulting, LLC (KSC), has run her own public relations firm for 25 years, helping clients win in the “court of public opinion.” Kathy helps nonprofit, association and corporate clients build public awareness, generate public support, mend reputations and navigate crises. She advises leaders on messaging and communicating in the public arena – whether the environment is positive or fraught with crisis, opposition or political sensitivity. Kathy’s services include strategic communications counsel, messaging, community support-building, writing, and media and presentation training. A lifelong Chicagoan, Kathy founded her firm in downtown Chicago in 1994, advising clients in an array of areas, including health care, economic development, tax policy, education and philanthropy. She and her team earned numerous accolades and awards, including the prestigious Platinum Award from the Publicity Club of Chicago. Kathy now splits her time between Michigan and Illinois.