Resilience gets thrown around a lot at work these days, but it's more than a buzzword.
In this best-bits episode of Building Better Cultures, taken from Episodes 39 and 84, we hear an incredible story of resilience from Ryan Campbell, and the psychology that explains it from psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick.
Ryan Campbell was a kid who wanted to fly before he could really explain why, and who went solo on his fifteenth birthday. A few years later he was in a heavily modified light aircraft, alone, crossing oceans on a round-the-world flight. Then, aged 21, on an ordinary day at work in an ordinary aircraft, the engine failed at low level and he went into the trees. He woke up in hospital rebuilt with titanium and was told he had a complete spinal cord injury. In a split second, as he puts it, the very thing that made him him was gone.
What happens next is the part worth staying for. Stuck halfway through learning to roll over on a rehab mat, twisted up and looking out through a gap under his own elbow, he sees Ben: a quadriplegic who had slipped while mopping a floor, with no feeling below the chest and barely any hand movement. Ryan had been feeling sorry for himself. He realised he was lucky to be a paraplegic. That was the first lesson, and it became the first item on a checklist he built for adversity, borrowed from the way pilots handle an emergency: gratitude, confidence, resilience.
Niamh Fitzpatrick brings the psychology. She is practical about what leaders can actually do, starting with the uncomfortable truth that you cannot read a room over video, so you have to know people's baseline well enough to notice when it shifts. She is also firm about something most of us get wrong: measuring your own hardship against someone who has it worse doesn't make you feel better, it just makes your feelings inadmissible. And she closes on Viktor Frankl.
The common thread? Resilience isn't a personality you either have or you don't. Both guests describe it as something you build, deliberately, usually while you're in the middle of the thing.
Adversity deserves a checklist. Pilots don't improvise in an emergency, they work a drill: aviate, navigate, communicate. Ryan built the same thing for setbacks so he wasn't deciding how to cope while coping.
Start with gratitude, because it changes the size of the problem. Finding something to be thankful for, however small, shrinks the challenge and gives you perspective before you begin.
Perspective usually arrives through other people. Ben didn't say anything profound to Ryan. He was simply there, and that was enough to reframe everything.
Confidence doesn't require the whole plan. You need to believe you can take the next step, not that you can see the entire route. That is a much smaller thing to ask of yourself.
Expect obstacles and you'll adapt faster. Resilience, in Ryan's version, is anticipating the need to change course rather than being surprised by it.
Leaders can't read a room over video, so learn the baseline. Know how someone usually sounds, looks and turns up, and you'll notice the change that matters.
You don't need to be a therapist to notice. Use your senses, trust what you're seeing, and know enough about people's lives to put it in context.
Don't hold your feelings to someone else's account. Someone always has it objectively worse. That doesn't make what you're carrying any lighter, and comparison mostly just adds guilt.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour. Feeling anxious or low when something difficult has happened isn't a malfunction, it's a normal response to something that isn't okay.
Allowing the feelings is what lets you move. Naming what you feel is what gets you to the point of asking what needs to change, internally or externally.
00:00 – Introduction: resilience is more than a buzzword
00:25 – Ryan Campbell: a kid obsessed with aviation, and flying solo at fifteen
01:45 – The modified aircraft, and the round-the-world flight
02:25 – One ordinary day at work, aged 21
03:26 – Hospital, titanium, and the news of a spinal cord injury
04:05 – The rehab gym, and meeting Ben
05:51 – Why he decided he was lucky, and what Ben taught him about gratitude
06:33 – Building the checklist: step one, gratitude
07:17 – Step two, confidence, and only needing to see the next step
08:39 – Step three, resilience, and anticipating the need to adapt
09:02 – Niamh Fitzpatrick: what leaders should be watching for
09:52 – Learning someone's baseline, even over video
10:37 – Why comparing your hardship to someone else's doesn't help
12:18 – One piece of advice: an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour
13:22 – Wrap-up
EP Ryan Campbell: 39 | How to successfully navigate change | Podcasts
EP Niamh Fitzpatrick: 99 | The Pandemic Pushed Mental Health Out of the Workplace Shadows | Niamh Fitzpatrick | Podcasts
Download your free copy of Bridging the Connection Gap Report: Bridging The Connection Gap | Inspiring Change
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resilience, adversity, mental health at work, wellbeing, psychology, gratitude, mindset, leadership, psychological safety, emotional awareness, aviation, spinal cord injury, recovery, perspective, Viktor Frankl, Ryan Campbell, Niamh Fitzpatrick, Scott McInnes, Building Better Cultures, Inspiring Change, best bits, podcast compilation
