Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

I recently saw a comment on social media that said there’s lots of talk about the need for resilient teams but not much about how to build resilience. 

It reminded me of an article we recently published over here titled “Team Building and Team Development are not the Same Thing”. If you haven’t read the article, I hope you’ll check it out. Organizations need to help teams by giving members the proper training. For example, team members need communication skills training to be better at communicating with their colleagues. This could also mean that individuals need to learn about resilience, so they are able to effectively be resilient as part of a team. 

When I did an initial search for resilience training, a lot of what popped up is related to the military. While I’m respectful of the military and their role, I think it’s fair to say that most of us don’t want to take military training (or enlist in the military) to learn how to be more resilient. Thankfully, there’s another option. 

My friend and colleague Simon T. Bailey has a new book out on resilience. It’s titled “Resilience@Work: How to Coach Yourself into a Thriving Future”. I don’t want to give away the book, you should read it yourself, but there are a few things that I enjoyed and wanted to share.

It’s a short, easy read. Brevity is an art form, and this book accomplishes a lot in a few pages. As business professionals, our time and attention span are valuable, especially when it comes to this topic. I see myself using this book on a regular basis as a reminder, so I want something that’s short and easy to digest. 

It doesn’t focus on testimonials, per se. I will admit when I started reading this book, I really didn’t want to hear from or about other people who are better than me at being resilient. The book has people profiles – but they’ve been named “worry”, “hurry”, “steady”, and “ready”. Personally, I loved that because some days I was “worry” and some days I could see myself as “hurry”. At other times I was “steady” and “ready”. I could relate to the profiles, which made the conversation better. 

The book includes resources. At the end of the book, there are a couple of self-assessments that allow the reader to begin their self-discovery journey relative to their own resilience. There are also several pages of resources should you wish to do more research on the topic of resilience. 

I thought Simon’s book was a nice start toward building personal resilience. It could easily become one of those books that you read a few times during your career to stay focused. 

Both organizations and individuals face challenges at times. Being resilient is an important quality to have in managing those challenges. But resiliency isn’t as simple as “Viola! You’re resilient now.” It takes time, focus, and regular reminders. Consider putting together your resilience tool kit and fill it with resources that you can tap into as you need them. Not only will it be good for you … it will be good for the teams that you’re a part of.