1.
Association for Project Managers
Building resilience and managing
in dynamic unpredictable
challenging times.
Trudi West
Triple Accredited – Benchmarks of the Quality
and Standards in Education we provide

2.
Trudi West
Leadership Faculty
& Action Researcher

3.
What to expect today….

4.
A chance to take a
break & sharpen
your axe

5.
The intention for this session
• What is Personal vs Team Resilience
• Acknowledge the challenging times you have been
working through
• Use the Clipper Round the World yacht race findings
to help you frame your environment
• While you can't prepare for everything, your can be
more resilient and be responsive to anything

6.
Personal Resilience Definitions
Psychological Resilience
“The positive capacity of
people to cope with stress
and adversity”
Mechanical Resilience
“The physical property of a material
that can return to its original shape
or position after deformation that
does not exceed its elastic limit”

7.
Tough times build resilience if…

8.
Personal Resilience Protection Factors
Organisational
• Control
• Influence
• Change as a challenge
• Personal vision
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Social connectivity
• Learning from feedback
Physiological
• Sleep
• Exercise
• Diet
Psychological
• Confidence in own abilities
• Interpersonal confidence
• Self-awareness
• Optimism
• Family and friends’ network

9.
Team Resilience
“The process of managing pressure
effectively across the team as a whole,
and the outcomes of doing so, that further
strengthen the capacity of the team to
deal with future challenges and adversity”
Flint-Taylor & Cooper

10.
Team Resilience Personal Resilience
of Team Members
Diversity in
the Team
Team-level
Positivity
Balanced
Leadership Style
High Levels
of Well-being
Sources of workplace
pressure and support
well managed
© Flint-Taylor 2013

11.
The Bath Analogy

12.
A story about a sailing race…

13.
The Clipper Sailing Race
Have taken what’s useful from the findings to help you frame,
and then develop the environment for your teams…
• To consider multiple perspectives and still align with each other
• To help focus on the capabilities required now
• To reflect on the level of autonomy necessary – and why?
While you can't prepare for everything,
you can develop your team's resilience
and responsiveness to anything…

14.
Imagine you’re leading a crew….
• Your direct team
• Project teams
• Experiment groups
• Departments
• People you live with

15.
Main finding: ‘Winning’ means different things
Winning’ was not straight forward
• Win… be “first past the post”
• Be safe… “safety is a given”
• Be competitive enough… “stay out of the bottom half”
• Have fun… to be a ‘happy boat’
• To “see dolphins and the Golden Gate Bridge”?
• To stay on the boat and “not fall off”!

16.
Another finding - The sailing was the easy bit
“The sailing, I find the easy bit”
“The crew, that’s what makes the job so hard I think; all the crew come on board
with their expectations”
“The challenge… not so much the sailing, although that is an enormous
challenge, but moulding the crew and leading them”
“I knew that the human side of it was probably going to be as big a challenge as
the sailing side of it, and it certainly has, without a shadow of a doubt”
“Sailing’s the easy bit; it’s the management of people and that is the hard bit.
And it’s really hard. It’s the psychology; that’s, that’s the hardest part”

17.
Outcomes
Despite extreme weather conditions, performance pressure, close confines
and physical exertion…
• Positive outcomes
⎻ Taking responsibility
⎻ Putting in an ‘awesome effort’ to achieve the best result possible
⎻ The majority of the team ‘pulling their weight’
• Negative outcomes
⎻ Fraction: ‘teams-within-teams’
⎻ Friction: slowed people down

18.
Friction
A ‘physical or moral impediment to action’
• Consumes energy and impairs agility
• Occurs with uncertainty or distraction
• Gets in the way of performance

19.
Friction - Our Current Experience
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

20.
What is currently causing
friction for you?
Please respond in the chat box

21.
The Virus Itself
Covid-19
• Physical threat
• Losing people
• Feeling vulnerable
• Front line bravery…
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

22.
• How national policies play out
• Face masks and protective equipment?
• News headlines & social media
• Hand washing
• Social distancing
• Lockdown
• Not seeing family and friends
• Resentment…
How the virus
impacts our day to
day
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

23.
Impact on our day to day
• Working at home
• Finding our ‘space’
• Home schooling
• In touch with banks etc.
• Being together – or alone – all day!
• Endless Zoom* calls
• Can’t exercise
• Singing from balconies
• Zoom parties and quizzes
• Celebrating the NHS
• Catching up with life
• Excuse not to exercise
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

24.
Decisions today that affect the long term
• Being furloughed?
• Redundancy?
• Pension?
• Not knowing what’ll make
a difference long term
• Where to invest energy?
• Adapting ways of
working…
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

25.
Future Considerations
• Will I survive financially?
• Recession?
• When will I have a
holiday?
• When is ‘life after’?
• Education
• Brexit?
• New opportunities
• Impact on the environment
Covid-19 Future
Day to day

26.
Future
Long term impact of the virus
• Testing?
• Vaccinations?
• Tracked digitally?
• When are we safe?
• How will borders be
managed?
• What will happen
politically…?
• Is this a permanent shift?
Covid-19 Future

27.
All while…
Experiencing…
• Difficulty sleeping
• Vivid dreams
• Trouble focussing
• A lack of motivation
• Guilt
• Eating too much
• An impact on mental health and
wellbeing
As well as….
• A new kind of connection with people
• Opportunities to do something
different
• A sense of calm as not rushing
everywhere
• A chance to catch up
• An excuse to just …

28.
Back to the race…

29.
Alignment
A combination of ‘common identity’ and ‘common intent’
• Common identity: draws people together
• Inclusive
• Value what’s important
• Separate identity from performance
• Common intent: moves people forwards
• What is OUR intention?
• Also, share honestly what we each want & need as individuals
• Have ‘Cards on the table’ conversations

30.
Capability
The development of skills and processes required for leading, learning
and living together
Friction and uncertainty reduced when skippers developed:
• Clear and consistent processes that reduce friction, not create more (can
be developed together)
• Technical capability – how to sail a boat, return from lockdown etc
• People capability – managing expectations, integration, communication,
trust & support from each other

31.
Autonomy
The degree to which a crew have discretion to
act and organise themselves; related to
responsibility and control
High autonomy:
• Respond to ‘why’
• High level of complexity
• Make decisions
• Act within ‘common intent’
Low autonomy:
• Respond to ‘what’
• High level of control
• Told what to do and how to do it

32.
What next - Where is your team?
Alignment
Capability
Autonomy

33.
So what?
Covid-19 Future
Day to day
• Make some time to think about what any of this means to you
• How might you use these frameworks, stories and metaphors
to have a different quality conversation with your ‘teams’

34.
© Ashridge Executive Education 2020

35.
Questions?

36.
Contact
Trudi West
Leadership Faculty & Action Researcher
Ashridge Executive Education
trudi.west@ashridge.hult.edu