Resilience in Difficult Times by Sara Jones RN

We can all think of a time in our lives where we have had to have resilience to manage something that has been challenging. What makes us resilient is the ability to survive, to cope with the challenges and upheaval or change; which is certainly the case at the moment with concerns around COVID19

Part of being resilient is to communicate and express our concerns in an open and respectful way.  It’s important to listen to others and take advice, to fully support and in turn be supported.  So how can we as a team enhance our communication to get the best outcome and make us more resilient to the challenges? 

 Anastasia Pryanikova The Brain Alchemist (14.2.13) has a theory that we can create this practice which will help us to promote resilience in our communication and create an environment where possibilities and perspectives are supported when under pressure. 

She suggests there are 5 things to consider in order to achieve this:

1. The first consideration is to look at commonality rather than differences, consider that opposing opinions do not threaten your opinion, it should challenge you to be openminded whilst still feeling secure in who you are. 

2. You don’t have to agree with every decision being made, adversarial collaboration is a term used to support robust decision making and identify different perspectives.  What you do have to do is support any best interest decision, for either the client, family or yourself and communicate this effectively.

3. Listen, listen, listen, a good manager has understood the art of listening, and the power of understanding what people are saying.  We live in a busy world where we communicate out of necessity, we try to overcome barriers of perception, time and delivery so that we can move onto the next job.  To be resilient to circumstance requires us to be open to the other person, to pay attention and listen rather than being closed or act as a barrier.

4. It can be stressful at times, and as a result our responses may not always be as measured as we would like to deliver them.  We need to learn to control our reactive responses.  Take a deep breath in and try not to respond to the situation.  Use your past experiences to support a measured response, stay calm and resilient to reaction when we feel stressed because we are all in the same circumstance to cope.

5. Being organised for some people is heaven, for others it stifles their creativity.  Asking questions of each other can stop someone who is entrenched in their organised life to open up to ambiguity and change.  This in turn allows creativity and a wider focus on any task to challenge preconceived assumptions.  We need to be adaptive to change as a result of the current concerns. 

Resilience is the glue that binds us to achieve amazing results under difficult circumstances, communicating this in a manner that is supportive, equal, and responsive is key, we are a team who can achieve just that. 

If you have any questions for the team, or would like to meet with one of us please get in touch: SupervisionAppraisalteam@ukics.com