Navigating Change

As I write this month’s Board Column, I am in the midst of a heat wave that is affecting several parts of the world. There is much discussion about the weather and the effect that these extreme and unusual temperatures are on having on us and our environment: vulnerable people are becoming dehydrated; transport systems are failing creating great delays, backlogs and jams; air conditioning units are breaking; flora and fauna are suffering…and so the list goes on. Even those who are attempting to embrace the heat are getting burned by the power of the sun. We are being told that we are having some of the highest temperatures on record.

I also recall, not so many weeks ago, when it was quite the opposite: the temperatures were some of the lowest on record! We had snow and rain and ice and storms and high-speed winds. Once again, our environment and systems struggled under the strain, with railway lines freezing over, river banks bursting and flooding, vulnerable people struggling with hypothermia, roads breaking up under the strain of expanding ice…and so the list went on.

What I notice is the challenge we have in dealing with extremes. If the weather had been a little hotter or a little colder than usual, everything would probably have been fine, and we, and our systems, would have flexed to meet and manage the change. However, it seems extremity can create problems, especially when it’s an extremity that we are not accustomed to and have not built any systems to deal with the experience.

The human race is facing mental health challenges, and we are operating at high levels of “fight-or-flight” states on a more regular, habitual basis, when historically such states have been reserved to handle a crisis. When faced with what are experienced as “extreme” challenges, we find that we can break down, just like the burning tarmac on the road which literally has a meltdown in the extreme heat.

We have heard of the dangers of extreme pressure for many years. For example, in explaining the concept of “flow,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes how we become overwhelmed when the challenge we face is much greater than the skills and resources we have to handle it.

The opposite can also be true and, when our skills and resources far outweigh the challenge, we can settle into a comfort zone that, while seductively attractive at times, can keep us small and lead to boredom, apathy and even mental health challenges through the loss of purpose, goals, achievement and motivation. Carol Dweck’s work on having a fixed vs. growth mindset builds on this beautifully.

In today’s fast-moving environment, we are seeing changes happening of a size and pace unrivaled in our lifetime. So, how do we find our flow? How can we find the sweet spot between overwhelm and complacency, or even stagnation? How can we support clients to find this for themselves as they face their own challenges in various aspects of their lives?

A quality that is much quoted in this area is that of resilience. Not only is resilience useful for handling challenges, it is also noted as one of the key qualities of people who describe themselves as “happy.” So, what is resilience? In her book, Resilience: A Practical Guide for Coaches, Carole Pemberton challenges some of the misinterpretations of this word. For example, resilience is sometimes described as an ability to “bounce back,” yet people who have successfully navigated great challenges do not exactly bounce back because they do not usually go “back” to how they were before. Instead, they are changed by their experience; the nature and degree to which they needed to adapt somehow informed who they were from that point onwards. Pemberton defines resilience as: “The capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, feelings and behaviors when faced by a life disruption, or extended periods of pressure so that we emerge from difficulty stronger, wiser and more able.”

Resilience is not just our ability to stay flexible but also our ability to reflect and learn from our experience, integrating those experiences into who we are and, more importantly, who we are becoming. It’s one thing having an experience and another to learn from it. On this note, my mind goes immediately to ICF Core Competency 8: Creating Awareness. For me, this competency can really help the client leverage benefit from their coaching that is way beyond the topic they brought to the session. By really reflecting upon what they have learned about themselves and their situation, and then considering how they might use that learning, we’re taken to a place where we coach the person in addition to the topic. This is just one example of how coaching can help clients not only develop their own resilience but also truly integrate their life experience in service of being ever more flexible, resourceful and therefore choice-full, which is exactly what we need during times of change and disruption.

What are the great lessons that your life experiences have taught you and how is that learning positively integrated into your life and who you are today? Just getting clear about this is a great source of resourcefulness and choice which will in turn inform how we coach and invite the same learning opportunity in others!