Episode 5: Resilience coaching in a pandemic

With statistics such as one in five people experiencing moderate to severe depression in 2020, what has the Covid-19 pandemic meant for individual and organisational resilience? 

We look at how resilience coaching has been used to support workers during the last 18 months and are joined by two coaching professionals to learn more about their involvement with resilience coaching during the crisis. Both panellists have completed the Resilience Accreditation coach training programme and share their experiences of working with the Resilience Dynamic® model and the ‘whoosh’ which is used to chart resilience levels from break down to break even, right up to break through.

This episode explores some of the pressure points affecting workers, the most valuable lessons the coaches have learned and shares their insights into how to build a resilience capacity and work best with mental health conditions, stress, anxiety and isolation using a whole person approach. 

Enjoy!

You can link with the podcast participants here:

Jenny Campbell, CEO, The Resilience Engine

Alyson Ainsworth, Alyson Ainsworth Coaching Limited 

Emilia Piera-Adamczyk, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust 

Transcript

Jenny 0:06

So it's a great pleasure to bring this podcast to you from the Academy of Executive Coaching in partnership with the Resilience Engine. Hello, I'm Jenny Campbell, I'm the Chief Exec of the Resilience Engine. We are resilience researchers and specialists, and immensely proud of the work that we are able to bring to our coaching clients and to our organisational clients indeed, who do it for themselves, bring this stuff into the world themselves. And I'm joined today by two of our resilience engine accredited practitioners, Alyson Ainsworth and Emilia Piera- Adamczyk. So, guys, why don't you introduce yourselves?

Alyson 0:49

Okay, Alyson Ainsworth. My background is and my career was predominantly in HR and latterly in a lot of work in talent management. And I left a large corporate eight years ago and set up on my own as a career coach, executive coach, and then took on the work with Jenny in terms of the resilience aspect, which again has formed a big part of what I like to do, and I have a particular interest in resilience and mental health and supporting people with anxiety.

Emilia 1:16

And I am Emilia Piera-Adamczyk. I currently work as an internal coach in the NHS in England. I'm also a leadership development practitioner, and I use my my training and my knowledge and resilience practice both in my coaching work but also in the leadership development work and really bringing the focus back to to looking at our own resilience and how important it is in the leadership sphere, always. And I'm Polish by background, so I may say words that sound a bit of Polish English or maybe some direct phrases. And we love that about you.

Jenny 1:54

And we love that about you. We are growing and diverse, more diverse community as we go along, which is really showing up now, actually. So, those listening just to say that there's a resilience engine community of practice that's very vibrant actually and has been in the last 18 months to two years during the COVID crisis. And we all worked in different sectors. There's internal and external practitioners, and you know, that's been incredibly helpful for us. I wanted to start off at the kind of more macro level because I've been in this work now since 2007, but it's a long time, and I was seeing the need for it back then for myself as you know, when I was in leadership, etc. And I know you guys will be seeing all the time, and there was something there just was a hole, in that whole world, which is why we triggered off the research. But now it's landed into the world with a tag of mental health, and it's still with the concept of sort of deficit, if you like, so that it is mental ill health that people are focusing on, and at the moment, probably quite rightly. And so that's happened, but not the full gamut of resilience. And then the other thing that's happened is whilst the attention has increased into mental health, like WHO has targets, there's 174 states signed up to it, member states signed up to it, they've all got mental health plans, etc., they have entirely failed to fulfill the plan. So one of the things about the WHO, whilst the hundred and seventy-four member states have signed up for the plan to really put mental health into community, especially that's part of the WHO sort of advisory thing is to push mental health services very much more down to the community so it's localised and much more accessible, right? And actually the 2020 report or the one just done last year shows that we're just so slow in getting there. And so I've got both those things. I'm really pleased that mental health is getting its attention, but at the same time, I'm kind of like, yeah, but it's not all about the really tough stuff. What about preventative stuff, you know, on the proactive stuff? I don't know. I wondered whether both of you could speak to that a bit and your own sense of it.

Alyson 4:13

Yeah, I think it's quite shocking that we we, have taken so long to get to this state because the numbers, whether you look at the the WHO numbers or even numbers from places like mine are really very frightening. I was looking at something even this morning about statistics around the number of people who are now suffering from anxiety and stress and suicidal thoughts even, you know, that's an extreme of that condition. And there is still so much more that's needed to be done. You know, we know it needs to happen, and companies are making more of it. You know, wellbeing, wellness is coming up more and more, which is great, but there's still so much more to do. And I think we've we're only just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of the things that will have come out of the pandemic.

Emilia 4:59

I worry, actually, as a practitioner, that unfortunately wellbeing interventions organisations can become a little fud. It's great that it's come to the attention of all of us. But I also think that systemically we put a lot of responsibility on people in the NHS, for example, it's the individuals who work, and actually I will use the word fight, they are really made incredibly accountable for patient care. And the system is not ready to support them, to support the patient. So I do agree with what you've said, Jenny, that while it's great that mental health care has come to attention and it's at the fore of what we do, it's the prevention and the building, the readiness and resilience in the system to actually sustain that.

Jenny 5:49

Absolutely. I mean, that's right. So if you're building resilience forward, even if you're building strategies and you're only able to cope right now, that's just a healthier place than not having those strategies in the first place. I don't know if you see that difference. Like maybe sort of explain a bit about what we've been doing in terms of our resilience work throughout the pandemic. I think that'd be really interesting.

Alyson 6:09

I mean, if I just think about my own practice, I've been with organisations and with individuals. And I think when it initially came about, the main focus of probably initially more than 50% of my clients needed support with mental health, with anxiety and with stress to deal with issues from not just the simple things like dealing with technology. So everything's gone remotely. So dealing with Zoom, homeschooling, working in isolation from everybody, having been used to being around a team and then suddenly being thrown home and having to deal with all sorts of other things as well. The anxiety levels went through the roof. I was dealing with a particular contractor that I was working on site with, and then suddenly, as I say, they were all thrown home. And at least I could say 50 to 60 per cent of them, we spent most of our coaching time talking about their resilience and their energy levels and how to focus on dealing with all of this change because it was so unusual.

Jenny 7:02

I think that's a really worrying thing about the level of anxiety and depression that's increased. We saw a trend, by the way, before then. So, from a data point of view, you would do these biannual surveys and they're not huge data sets, but they did give us a sort of sense that while the world was normally in that middle ground of, are you okay? I'm okay. I might not be brilliant, but I'm okay. You know, sometimes I'm not okay, but I can kind of get myself back, is that was slipping down already towards coping. And there's felt like a more stuck thing. It was something to do with pace and overload before the pandemic. And then when you switch to thinking now, the level of anxiety and depression potential increase, i.e., in our terms, to fragmentation, very difficult to get a handle on this size, but it feels really significant.

Emilia 7:53

Yeah, what I was thinking today, actually, kind of comparing my work from before the pandemic to the work in pandemic, actually, both on myself as a coach, but actually on the work with clients, is that before I think the focus was on high performance and getting to high performance. So in our language, would be the how do you get on the whoosh, how do you stay on the whoosh, how do you live the whoosh? While now I think that the focus is on thriving in coping, if that's the if that's the phrase, and actually just tickling along from day to day and accepting that today my coping is actually my high performance and making sure that you rest and then you tackle every day from when it starts.

Jenny 8:39

Well, I think that's really profound for performance and for growth in the economy and all of that sort of thing, so that if the world is sitting at coping, we're not necessarily going to change in the way that we need to, with resilience being that ability to change, that capacity, that capability together. And what are the sorts of themes do you think that have come up if you take now that we've been in 18 months into the pandemic and it's still going? What do you see as the main themes that are coming up in your coaching practices now?

Alyson 9:08

A lot of my work comes down to balance, and I spend a lot of time thinking about the balance between personal and professional. And I use the energy battery tool, which I absolutely love and I find that very helpful, encouraging people to say, Well, what are you doing to look after yourself? So, you know, that whole definition of what is self-care for you, and how can you ensure that you're maintaining your resilience by looking after yourself, both from a professional perspective but also in your personal life. And I think again, some people who've had a lot more freedom to take some time out, like going for a walk during the day. Now, how are you going to build that in and maintain that going forward? Because you don't want to let go of some of those healthier habits that we've developed and maintain that self-care.

Jenny 9:52

And do you see, Alyson and Emelia, - I mean I'll come back to the same question, Emelia, about your work and themes, but just what you just said, Alyson, do you see that traditionally people have separated out their personal and their professional life, right? And then all of a sudden everyone's in their own living room or their spare bedroom, right? And the kids are around and all of that just get mushed together, you know. Do you see that is something that is no longer like a bit of a that's outside of work for me to recover from work, but it's part of my work to means ensure that I've now got sufficient resilience to respond to things well. Do you think that's beginning to happen?

Alyson 10:30

I think it is, and I think certainly it was more heightened during the pandemic because there was all of that being thrown home. Even if I think about my own situation and not having to commute for three hours a day, but that just elongated my working day. It just meant that people thought I was available from nine in the morning till six at night because I would still be around, and I think that's one of the points that we need to think about. I do think, and I talk about it when I talk about resiliency in workshops, is around the scheduling. I'm a huge fan of scheduling, and I think if you don't schedule in those things, particularly like your walks in the day, or I schedule in my yoga classes, and I find that I have to blend that work and personal life, or else some of those things don't happen and you just carry on working. And I think it's more and more important. I also recognise that you know, thinking about the term resilience, I mean I think it is here to stay. And actually, interestingly, some of my work is in career transition. And I was working with somebody recently, and I actually saw the term resilience on the job description, are actually asking for you know, encouraging people to demonstrate how they are personally being resilient and dealing with and adapting to change. And I'm talking to clients about putting that as a skill on their CV, you know, what have they learned from the pandemic? How have they tackled their own resilience over the last two years? It's a great thing to be able to talk about because we've all done it.

Jenny 11:52

That's really profound, actually. And Emelia, you're supporting people all over the place who have been absolutely and continue to be in the front line. And I just don't think unless you are alongside people, I mean, we've done tremendous amount of work in the resilience engine and the community in it, and we've talked about it a lot in our coffee mornings and everything. But I just think people just don't get it. They say that people are exhausted, but they just don't really understand the pressure. But it's a football rather than the reality of what's going on.

Emilia 12:21

Yeah, I really liked your scheduling. I called my strategy diarising. So I think the theme now is that I help colleagues and clients to approach resilience as a strategy, and almost it's no longer all like things that you would do, you know, hobbies or rest or having a walk during the day, and not as a I'll schedule it around my work when I can. So kind of absolutely what you said, Alyson, but scheduling my work around those important things that I need to do. Absolutely have a break for lunch, absolutely have a break between Zoom meetings and really look after yourself. But I think what I see is a great tension, especially in the NHS system, is that it's almost trying to learn a new identity where the the previous identity was that we are there to care for others. And suddenly it's that that belief and acceptance that you know I need to care after myself. I think for me, a teacher, I used to be an air hostess and I absolutely loved my job and it was a mantra, you would never find it written anywhere. But what we were told and what we learned is that you are important. We knew we had to take care of ourselves. And again, whatever shape or form that may have taken, because we knew that if we weren't at the top of our game, should something happen, we would not be helpful to anybody. And I think this is the lesson that maybe is not really taught enough nowadays because we're, I don't know, as a society, it has to be tough, to be strong, to be you know high performing. So I think that stopping and taking care of oneself and looking at your capacity, you know, really assessing your abilities and your pace is a really difficult lesson to learn, I guess. In terms of patterns, I think in my work through pandemic, that kind of sense of purpose really came to the core. And it's for individuals and for teams. And I think more now than before, I see teams in need, and it's almost like teams struggle together or teams build their capacity together. And it's that again, that sense of coming together, helping one another, experiencing things together and learning. I think you know, learning about your team members before, you may agree or not, it may have been more about those fun activities, getting to know each other. While now it's you really get to know the real person, you really and it supports you in terms of building trust and that psychological safety that is very important. Organisations, but it's very, very hard work. And I guess the other pattern that I may mention is that emotional drain, it takes a big toll.

Jenny 15:00

What's interesting about this conversation for me is how much our work across the board, because I would echo this, is shifted from we would have been across all of the resilience dynamic. I often am working with chief execs and boards and senior directors and all that kind of thing, who generally are on that higher end of resilience and thinking on behalf of. And now I would say, and I really have been working with people who have had suicidal thoughts, who you know have really serious depression, who are really stuck, who are shocked at actually just getting to coping and actually don't understand why they can't make a decision clearly. So, you know, in some ways we're talking about our energy and wellbeing as if that is it, but actually underlying it, A, that's the context they're working in, but it's so performance related. So this thing of performance and wellbeing together, you know, I'm really struck by that actually. And I would say my own personal experience, so I did a tremendous amount of pro bono coaching and then supervising coaches who were working in NHS and social care, whether that was through coaching through COVID, through Lindsay Wittenberg and the guys there, whether it was through the NHS Scotland side of things, and they put in a huge level of support from our end. We'll probably drop in the ocean for the NHS's end, but it felt a big programme. But I felt myself, and I didn't realide it at the time, it was when it sort of there were certain things ended naturally to either coaching contracts or supervisory contracts or whatever. And I realised how heavy I had been in it all , and I'm an expert, right? So I'm doing loads for my resilience all the time, playing tennis and sleep and being inspired and trying to think about how to stain my learning all the time so I can't remain on the whoosh and don't switch back, you know. All this I do it all the time, right? And I came out of this period, it was sort of probably the first six to eight months, and I thought, oh wow, my vision feels intense and heavy, and I must be carrying that all the time. How did it affect you guys?

Alyson 17:05

And I think some of that comes through also the the Zoom fatigue. I mean I got massive Zoom fatigue, and maybe it was to the point I said earlier about my days were probably longer because whilst I wasn't commuting, which was a blessing in lots of ways, I was still dealing with back-to-back meetings and back-to-back clients. And I think you have to work so much harder when you're coaching over Zoom because you don't have that natural connectivity. And because so many people were experiencing issues of heightened stress and anxieties as part of what they were going through, every session I felt was quite to use your word heavy, Jenny, it felt quite difficult. And I suppose again, going back to one of the things we learnt during our training, which you know was invaluable was around our boundaries and and having to just be really clear about what those boundaries were and what I am and the resilience coach and what I'm not. You know, I'm not a clinical psychologist and I am not here to fix you. And , whilst I appreciate people that have heightened anxiety, it's very difficult to then separate that out from what you're dealing with because it's so integral into what's happening to them as an individual. And I found it very, very, very tiring. I couldn't work out why sitting still in front of my computer for so long was so tiring. And I would literally sometimes crawl out of my office at seven o'clock at night in search of food, thinking what has just happened to me today. On the plus side, I think what we do in and the reason we are all coaches in and we love our resilience work is that it creates such a massive sense of value and purpose. And I think I really came to terms with that over the last two years about what is my meaning and my purpose and doing something I love and that is valued, finding that been great.

Emilia 18:46

Yeah, I could echo, Alyson, that kind of that exhaustion. And I think what I've learned is you pick up from your clients, you carry their load, but that reward you get when when you together, I think what I felt more so now than ever, is that in my coaching work, I have become a part a partner, a real partner with my clients. We get on a journey together and we're learning from. So I think in my resilience work is sharing my learning, what I've learned from my training and my experiences, and sharing those with clients and actually that kind of again, baby step strategies, taking little steps, really basing yourself, assessing your capacity. And what's really strong for me is that that acceptance that coping is good, it can be a really good source of performance. I think my most profound learning through COVID was through a very difficult experience with a particular team where I've noticed that similarly to them, I was like emotionally and cognitively exhausted. So I think I recognised I thought that maybe I have to adjust my capacity, I really adjust my capacity to be helpful to them. And it was actually through supervision that I recognised the dynamic between power and resilience in those coaching relationships. And I think accepting my own power and how that has affected others' resilience, but also how it's affected my resilience kind of awareness of the dynamic was really, really profound. So it was a very hard learning, but I think it helped me to assess my resources and where to draw them from. So, like we mentioned the community of practice before, and actually reaching out to people and really discussing what is happening to you and your clients and sharing tips and and and I guess flowing in the river together.

Jenny 20:35

So both humbling and also empowering your learning there, Emilia.

Alyson 20:40

I think really for me, some of the biggest learnings with clients was helping them adapt to that change, which you know, as you've already said, is that definition of resilience because not everybody likes change and not everybody's comfortable with it. And I did a lot of exploring why that was. And you mentioned stuckness, Jenny. I got a lot of stuckness with clients and particularly working with them when they were in transition with careers, what was holding them back and understanding that sometimes it's us that's holding them back and what do we need to let go of in order to be able to move forward. You know, how do we let go of some of our unhelpful thinking and practices? And that's difficult, particularly when you're going through things overlaid with the extra stresses of the pandemic, because we talk about that river, we talk about you know we never get into the river at the same place because it is dynamic and it flows, and everyone is individual, and that's overlaid by a set of personal circumstances. So whether that's they've lost their job or they're on furlough, or that you know they're they're worrying about people who are struggling because of the pandemic, or you know, even even worse, having lost people during the pandemic. Helping them just understand and realise what is their thought process is very normal, and what do they need to do in order to come to acceptance that there will be good days and bad days? You know, and as we say, resilience is dynamic, it's shifting. I used to say to clients it's okay to have what I call the bad. COVID day. We all have bad COVID days as long as it's just not helpful to stay there for any length of time. We can all have days where we sit in a bit of misery because something's gone wrong or we've we've experienced something that has made us feel like at a low point and so you're having a low mood day that it's just not helpful to stay there and understanding how you you work with that and again that model of control can I control it can I not is it helpful and ways of letting go more than bouncing back such thing it's more about developing those coping strategies as you mentioned.

Emilia 22:33

I think what struck me Alyson when you were talking is that I think there's another theme with clients who I heard saying you know it never happened to me before I always was resilient even if I had a little blow I would come up just as quick and I think that kind of realisation them facing the fact that if their resilience levels fell it was very difficult for them to kind of again rise up or the strategies that worked before they haven't necessarily what worked now or as quick and I think it was that kind of acceptance but patience and I wonder whether it's a new resilience skill actually being patient space to pace with yourself and your pace and how you're learning and how you're progressing, how you're rebuilding your your capacity again.

Jenny 23:23

I mean I think this is the profundity of the work really in any situation. So it's the same if the resilience is high to actually help and enable somebody to deeply deeply accept that where they are right now and where they could be their resourcefulness and how that potentially is untapped but actually the doorways to that and to accept that they are not available right now until certain things are in place. Having done a lot of the research initially the scale came off the eyes you know it's just a sort of like once you see it you kind of go and then try and live it a bit you go oh yeah that actually works you know and it's not just blah blah you know it really makes the difference but the profound nature of helping somebody for me this is often about enabling agency and I'm doing that at an individual on a team level and often a systemic level is helping the system take responsibility for itself and what it's created and deeply accept that and forgive it sometimes right and actually then unlock it through becoming resourced again. I think often I mean there's quite a lot of resilience work that's very practical but in that it then uncovers potentially some very very deep work you know learning fundamentally about adaptability really that's where you get it so if you've got the energy and the being present the learning thing is the key to create the adaptability and as you say you have to unlearn stuff. What have you unlearned in COVID then?

Alyson 25:04

I think I'd rather focus on the things I have learned the positive I think I've learned a lot about maintaining my own resilience. There's part of me that really had to to pull myself off a bit short thinking I need to be on my game and more energetic when I'm dealing with with extra levels of anxiety but also at times you feel a bit of a hypocrite because you know it's very easy to as a coach to tell other people to do all these things and then think am I doing that myself so I really did make a a concerted effort to be what I would advise other clients to be and focus on myself and to put myself back in my centre of my world because I know more than ever they needed my support and if I wasn't on my A game and my energy levels were low for whatever reason you know even from not having a good night's sleep to not getting any fresh air today that I needed to focus on that. And very much focusing on the self-care support was one of the things that I have learned and also maintaining those boundaries which I've already mentioned I think that's very difficult. I've always been somebody who wants to fix people it's been my constant coaching challenge and actually realise that you can lead a horse to water scenario with it stuff and that people still have to take accountability and responsibility for their own actions as you've already mentioned.

Jenny 26:17

I think that's been difficult in COVID to help people hold themselves to account because one has enormous empathy not just sympathy but empathy with the situation for me it's that plus less is more I mean you and I have chatted about this - Emilia interjects - I've got it written down. Back to Jenny - I'm just like really I continue to be humbled by where people's start point is while I race ahead in my clever researchy mode and all of that actually some people are still kind of like I need to know I need to be tough they've got the habits of their do-do-do's they're the go-to person they can't possibly do anything else the whole world will fall apart if they do you know all these sorts of things right I just I found it really profoundly moving and humbling and also very energising to see the impact as a result of that deep acceptance of them of my clients of the systems that I'm working in of they really just genuinely don't understand why they're feeling the way they are or they genuinely don't understand what is good and what could be good and what could be better. And so to help them discover it is just kind of one of those exciting bubbly moments you know so less is more and all the time stripping out content from what I do, what I say, what we say, stripping it right out, and yet we've got all this stuff and we go ah you know we've got a cupboard full of really good great stuff but actually you know what, let's just start here , so that's been quite interesting.

Emilia 27:52

My phrase for that is at the moment go slow to go fast and I will go for the challenge and I hope I can describe it in a less Polish and more English way. That actually what I have unlearned after my last summer experiences was not to do everything at once. I think I just wanted all and I think that was my learning I wanted all and I always did everything and it always worked and suddenly I had to change my thinking because whatever worked before for me doesn't work now. I had to really had to slow down I had to go slow in order that I can kind of be more present and observant which is actually that observant of what is going on around me and what is going on in my client work for my clients I have actually stopped first time in my life I had two weeks leave in August and I stopped, I planned to do nothing. I am very proud of myself because I really did nothing yeah it's the kind of the usual I have two children so it was attending to them and going to the park and being in nature and if I happen to lie down and not fall asleep I would read because I love reading I just love absolutely reading but I didn't give myself time in the previous months to actually get that energy that I get from from reading. So for me stopping and observing what is happening to me to my body to my mind to my heart and actually how then I am able to give back to the people that I'm with and to my work I think it was an important lesson again to learn. So yes I've unlearned to do everything at once and I learned to go slow to go fast.

Jenny 29:31

I think we the community needs some CPD on that maybe could help us. Emilia interjects here - pleasure.

Alyson 29:37

I think it links to meaning and purpose though doesn't it because sometimes when we take a step back we stop and say well why are we doing this? You know what's the point? And again I've worked with a lot of clients who particularly had been furloughed or who were looking for new jobs and and identifying that whole purpose allowing them to bounce back from coping and feel energised and motivated by future choices. And some of that was simple stuff like volunteering. I worked with a guy who was in social media and I said you know why don't you go and talk to your local pub about how you can help them do takeaways and and you know distribute bottled beer and he got some fantastic experience out of doing that and volunteering and use that and use their testimonials and used it to help him feel that sense of being involved and you know taking time out to create something beautiful whether it's a beautiful garden or a picture or something that maybe you haven't done before you know people got so much pleasure out of being able to do simple things that maybe they hadn't had the time to do because they had got a bit more time to take a step back. And I think just that stop think moment as you said Emelia is pulling yourself back and thinking what else could I do that will create that meaning in my life.

Emilia 30:48

And I notice now that you say that and actually thank you Alyson because you made me realise that now I haven't seen that before that actually when you start talking about purpose and it's having that little sight on the purpose for clients really help them to get unstuck and get out of the coping stage.

Jenny 31:06

And it's available sometimes and sometimes it's really not right so when somebody's really lost or for example in depression and anxiety they just can't see that kind of way of doing things. So you're really in very very different worlds. And one of my greatest sort of privileges is walking shoulder to shoulder with people who had suicidal thoughts and actually not being scared of that. And so you know like the recent CPD that we were doing with Anne Archer and that's being repeated about how to talk about suicide as coaches that's not part of the accreditation programme but actually it's come up as a really serious need. And we're now going to put in something every year about mental health and make sure that we are more equipped as a community to do that. What one of the things that comes up for me is in a way we're talking is I'm wondering about the difference between when we trained and when I was a bit of a newbie in this work versus how we are now and when we're repeating the same cycles in a sense of learning like I don't know about you but I mean how many times have I learned how to not do something? That's I don't know is that an age thing but I'm curious about in a sense is it very different the work that you're doing now say that when you finish the accreditation programme or is it the same kind of work but you're just more adept and more questioning and more honest or more clear about what makes the difference in the those situations?

Emilia 32:30

I think for me definitely feeling more adept and more open and honest. I think the initial training and the journey since then made me more aware and more focused on my resilience and therefore it's easier maybe to translate and work with clients. But I also think maybe because of the context of last 18 months it's colleagues readiness or willingness to be open as well I guess from different language we were talking about change readiness or leadership readiness but actually the resilience readiness colleagues are now ready to explore that area and dive in, dive deep I mean I would say that you know the training was invaluable was amazing it was such a a huge investment for us but significant investment and has made a big difference to the work that I've been able to do supporting people because I think it runs alongside so many other aspects of the work we do whether like you say it's leadership training or whether it's career transition or even if it is dealing with anxiety, personal resilience comes into all of those and and we all have it we just need to be able to remind people what it is. It's not a special gift that certain people get given, we all have the ability to be resilient but it's how we remind people some of the simple things they need to do that to maintain that balance and that energy. But also I think the other thing that I've learned since doing the training really is that sharing the information and the connecting to the resources and the support that we got from the community which has been invaluable particularly over the last two years not feeling isolated. Sometimes having to make an effort to say oh I will drop into the coffee morning sessions because I really would like to see some more people and when you listen to other people's stories I always get invigorated by the learning that you take from other people that's a bit like coach supervision that I always come away thinking gosh that was amazing even if it wasn't my case we were talking about you take something from everything and I think just making that extra effort to link back into the community and that's been massively supportive over the last few years.

Jenny 34:33

Do you know it's actually connected to something that's becoming just in this conversation more aware of both in the people's openness to talk about resiliency and to be open to exploring their own resilience and sort of the support required right and I think those two things come together. So we're working with for example one of the biggest global tech organisations globally and there's a recognition that their old ways of doing things which is very much pushing it down to the individual right so there's strong systems of support but it's just very higglety pigglety you know it's not set out in a way that is I can get at it now and depending upon what state I'm in, you know and there's a more openness and recognition of the collective. So you said earlier Emelia about teams and I actually think as a team - I'm a systemic team coach and I did the diploma with the academy I think the first year after their pilot and I'd always been in systems anyway. And now we're working at the systemic level. So we're helping organisations overall build their own capability at multiple ight and I see the openness to that. I see the openness to both connecting and doing something as a collective process or collective learning, collective cultural sort of stuff but I also see a much broader level organisationally , I've just looked down and seen the WHO report which shows that the countries are not actually investing properly in the reactive side and in the more tricky side which needs psychological support into the community. I think we might see leaders in the middle of this but also and hopefully followers but we also might see real laggards who just don't get it. They're sort of really curious about that how do you take it to the next level I mean as a coach for example you know I'm trained in systemic team coaching. I've been in this world, I've been a senior leader, I've been in systems and do gestalt and constellation work and all sorts of things and I just wondering how do we equip ourselves to do that collective thing?

Alyson 36:30

Great question. That's a great question Jenny I think we're still all learning aren't we and I think the whole last 18 months- two years as it almost is now has taught us all lots of things but I think it's starting to share that information getting it out there more widely connecting into those resources supporting each other in in our learnings and making it more available I think that can only do good in being able to help support other people understand the benefit of taking this stuff not just to heart but making it a habit making it something that they genuinely believe in, not something that is they pick up like we do the odd yoga session here or there.

Speaker 2 37:04

Yeah a bit of mindfulness on uh on a Thursday at two or 12 o'clock type of thing which is okay but it sits on the side and bringing it more into the heart and there's I don't know there's maybe opened up a sense of organizational humility.

Jenny and Emilia 37:17

I don't know, would you echo that Emilia? Emilia then continues - I think I may have said something similar earlier because I see those tensions they're absolutely there are organisational plans and strategies and many many brilliant beautiful interventions brought in but the systemic capacity to sustain it to uphold it and I think the kind of the tensions between messages, so yes absolutely we recognise that we need to and we want to look after our stuff we need to have resilient workforce to be able to deliver on those strategies on all the work that as a result of the pandemic or the delays because of pandemic that we need to do but we probably don't believe that we have capacity to do yet there is this enormous responsibility on an individual so and I think sometimes you can see that people maybe they show up to mindfulness sessions or to CPD workshops they listen, they hear, they agree and then yet they don't really take that action because there's so much things that they are responsible for and they need to or they feel that they need to deliver so I don't know yes I don't have an answer maybe that's another question for our CPD for our community but is that how do you build that organisational responsibility for resilience? Who do you speak to?

Jenny 38:32

That's the next book right so maybe we leave that one hanging there. It feels a bit sort of out there. I mean just to be more kind of practical maybe on the other side is many people listening today they won't know necessarily about the resilience dynamic or these kind of things but they may be interested in bringing either resilience into their client work or organisationally an accreditation programme for their internal coaches or just for themselves within their own work if they're solo practitioners internally, what advice would we all give them - what would we say to them today? I mean it sounds like it's an easier thing to get into there's certainly an awful lot of demand for it what might we advise them

Emilia 39:09

I would say make it your strategy, make it your purpose but take baby steps, try things keep building your energy battery keep filling it up again a reference to my previous career a plane cannot fly on an empty tank. So try things, work out what gives you energy different things draw from different contexts of your life so yes from family from friends from peer networks whatever it is that you grow your energy from and just never stop at it I guess never stop at it.

Alyson 39:49

No I agree with that I think understanding the basics of of self-care that it is a priority and you know that is definitely here to stay and to ensure that it is sustainable we need to do small steps and to maintain our energy levels because it affects us both emotionally and ultimately that affects our performance. So we need to develop those practices to support us which will benefit both the individual and the organisation. The other thing is connecting to your resources also looking for that support within your network and maintaining those positive relationships that you've developed you know they always say when you go through periods of change or transition or potential crisis you kind of know who your friends are. I think we develop a different level of connectivity when we're going through times of negativity and we know where we get that positive energy from so maintaining those positive relationships and potentially avoiding some of the negativity where possible.

Jenny 40:42

It's really lovely. So there's a couple of things that are in my Onmind. One of the things that has happened in the last couple of years is I've been really really pleasantly aware and applauding for younger coaches to be able to really do this stuff well. And I think that's really helpful. So if we take the suicidal rate 15 to 24 year olds is the highest level across the world are they going to come to us maybe but actually you know there are lots of the youth programmes that are going on and actually there's a profound understanding of this stuff. And once you help them understand the containers know the knowledge that how to contain the work safely how to actually enable agency and a client and everything I think that's really helpful. So if anyone is listening and they are thinking this is not for me yet actually I would just offer why not you know but think about that. I mean there's a pathway and maybe there's some more experience required in it to do it well with some higher supervision. But it's really struck me as being absolutely necessary that we reach out into younger folk and that younger coaches who are actually see themselves as resilience coaches as well. So that's one thing. The other thing I would say is the biggest thing that makes the difference once you've got energy in the tank is really being truthful about both your own learning and then how to enable your clients learning so that it's a sustainable thing. And I think that's quite complicated to do. But to start to be curious about people's learning styles, learning habits I did a longitudinal study once about the impact of my coaching and it was years and years ago and I thought my coaching had been great you know I obviously went to people that I thought was really good and I was really interested and actually they didn't remember most of it they got the one or two nuggets that really made the difference to them. It was pretty humbling actually at the time we can feel that we've done a great job but actually what happened so you know that data lens is are you seeing really what's going on? And I think it's once you become more curious about it, it takes you off the hook of doing it right or wrong. So maybe that's my bit of advice is sort of switch from good or bad, right or wrong to curiosity and inquiry.

Alyson 43:02

That's a great point Jenny and I think that there's a case that we discussed where you know I was coaching with a client who had really was high functioning anxiety really and all the tools and the techniques that we brought, everything we brought and the things that we shared with this individual but it's the lead a horse to water scenario you know you have to accept that it doesn't make you a good or a bad coach if somebody doesn't take on board your advice or you hold the mirror up and say well you've said all these things don't you agree with it they can agree with it but they might not want to do anything about it. I think that learning is saying that there will still be people out there who just as you've rightly said before don't get it. They understand that they need to do this stuff but there's always the avoidance of it - it is easier that they'll throw themselves back into work because that's tangible and I can deal with that to deal with some of the emotional stuff that's not as tangible to them. They go into that avoidance or denial state.

Jenny 43:54

And I guess all the more reason to have multiple different ways in which this sort of stuff can be taught about and equipping organisations internally to be able to do these things, managers, etc, to be able to have it more open. I mean I really love the resilience dynamic because of that I mean I know it was created out of the research but I honestly feel still that it was a bit of a vehicle for bringing it and it just takes the scales off, sorts out you know all this kind of it's not emotional. This is just what's happening and that's I see it again and again and again. So again if anyone's listening to that and you're curious about it, read about it. There's the book there but come into the workshops or whatever from the academy to find out. What a great conversation, how lovely is that.

Alyson, Emilia and Jenny 44:27

Well thank you for allowing us to have that. Well thank you, so I'm sure whoever joins us after this podcast will be received with open arms and open hearts. Jenny closes the conversation - absolutely absolutely I mean thanks Emelia, thanks Alyson, just loving it, it's lovely to connect lovely.