What about your own coping strategies?
The above cognitive strategies show how we can perceive situations and frame the world we are in. We typically employ two to three of the coping strategies that can work more or less appropriately for us.
Perhaps you can already work out what it is that you tend to think and do in challenging situations? It is a good ability to be able to spot your coping strategies and then consider questions such as the following:
- Why do I employ the coping strategies I do?
- Is it effective? For me? For others? For task-solving?
- Is it in particular circumstances that I do what I do?
- Could I have handled it differently in the specific situation or is the adaptation I do effective?
- Where could different strategies be effective? What would I then think, say and do?
- What has this taught me about myself that I must watch out for the next time I am in a particular situation or under pressure?
Training of adaptability and resilience
Once you have discovered your own coping strategies, it becomes possible to consider them and consequently train more appropriate use of the strategies. It becomes particularly important when we need to interact in complex organisations and in situations, which need our flexibility and ability to perform. And still we must be able to flourish as human beings. The organisation should ensure a context that promotes well-being as far as possible – the context or the environments that form the basis for the various coping strategies that are brought into play and that conversely will contribute to creating this environment. If we work seriously on this dualism and the link between environment and individual, we must first create awareness of the mutual relationship between them and consequently focus on the coping strategies to use within the context.
Awareness and development can take place through active learning, where we make it possible for the individual and the team to experience or imagine stressful situations and learn through resilience training how coping strategies work and how they can help towards building capability with an impact on both performance and well-beingviii. It is effective here to set up different scenarios that are reminiscent of a stressful everyday situation in the organisation. Resilience is built by the employees together having an opportunity to experience and imagine the ‘threat’ and understand their own ways of coping when handling it in the organisational community.
Resilience training requires a tailored design, so that the specific and organisational environment appears relevant and realistic as a context. Only in that way can learning and experience be transferred with sufficient purpose to the everyday situation from the categories that we know from empirically based research will be relevant for building resilienceix.
The common learning arises when we subsequently reflect together on what happened in the situation: How did we cope? What strategies did we employ? How did it help us through what was difficult, or how did it prevent us from perceiving the situation clearly and constructively? Through attentive training in which we experience, feel, think and discuss the coping strategies with others, and when this experience is transferred, we will become better at coping and dealing with similar difficult situations in the future. This may be of significance for the culture that exists in the organisation and the common ability to act in an adaptive and agile manner. Our complex world without doubt calls on this psychological capacity, which is necessary for a mentally healthy work life, sustainable collaboration and reliable performance in organisations that have reshaped themselves towards the future.
How could we design a training programme?
A leadership training programme that builds agility and flexibility capabilities, can, based on the above, as well as experience with other effective leadership training programmes, be designed as follows:
Pre-programme
The individual has identified their current level of resilience through an assessment and has spoken with an external management consultant, their manager or colleagues about the ability to deal with challenging and difficult situations. Articles, videos, podcasts, e-learning, etc. can be sent out to prepare the individual for the development process, and instructions can be given for small studies or ‘field work’ within agility and coping in the company.
Camp 1
Knowledge and models for leaders who in demanding contexts wish to be able to act in an agile manner through personal psychological insight. Insight into own coping strategies and mental flexibility in relation to mental health, psychological motivation and behaviour to be sustained in the organisation despite complexity and strict requirements.
Camp 2
Simulator training based on stressful situations, coping opportunities and responding behaviour followed by immediate feedback and constant learning iterations. The leaders will be able to try out and experience coping strategies live and learn how these have preventing and promoting effects in different situations. They are all observed in groups by a subject matter expert and instructor who ensures a suitable learning context1.
Camp 3
Here the understanding of coping and resilience is developed in depth. The individual coping strategies are converted into handling options filtered through culture, leader groups and teams. At the individual resilience level, the leaders work in depth with their own coping strategies, as well as the handling of stressful events embedded in a forward-looking behavioural design.
Post-programme
Key people from the organisation can be trained in the role as internal follow-up partners linked to the individual or joint behavioural design or more in-depth follow-up conversations can be held with external (subject matter expert) consultants. It can also be complemented by digital nudges and networks. This can be done at an earlier stage of the journey or just here in the post-programme. Thereby, the implementation and long-term impact can be supported effectively.
I hope that it will be an exciting journey to build good coping strategies and resilience in the organisation. Pay attention to the individual and common adaptability when it becomes most difficult to meet existing demands and adversities in the situations that arise. Difficult situations will arise for sure – this is part of organisational life and the future we need to be able to face in a resilient way to become even more agile and adaptable as humans and organisations.