While organisations know the importance of building stress and resilience within the workforce, often it seems that L&D teams do not care much about the subject. In this article, I would like to elaborate on five specific ideas that will help build organisational resilience. These “quick wins” can help an L&D team gain confidence among the senior leadership. You don’t need to do all five, but you do need to begin with the first one:

1. Start with you: While it is very interesting to go out and start selling the idea of resilience to others, it is hard to convince anyone if you look stressed out. Besides that, investing in being more mindful will pay off personally and professionally in ways that can’t be captured in a whitepaper.

2. Look for resilient role models in your organisation: Regardless of how high pressured your organization is, there will be individuals who face very large demands but aren’t stressed. That is because they are not ruminating. Smart organizations try to identify these people and position them in visible roles across the organisation. Daniel Goleman’s E.I. research showed that when the stakes are high, people look to the leaders to decide how to respond. Our research shows that leaders who are both sensitiveto others AND can remain detached are the leaders most effective at navigating their people through the storm. Find them and promote them.

3. Offer meditation classes: Ten years ago classes such as meditation and yoga were seen as irrelevant for workplace performance. Not anymore. Now, many high profile organizations are offering both types of classes on-site and during the workday. It seems like this is filtering into the work itself. I’ve heard of many cases where leaders begin meetings with a short, focused meditation.

4. Offer resilience trainings: Show people what the latest research on stress says and then put the tools in their hands. Many organizations are starting to offer CCL’s resilience workshops to their staff and seeing their people change. But if you want to do it yourself then just create your own program. The key is to find the best research on resilience and blend that with real life stories of highly resilient leaders in your own organization. When you add them both together you get both credibility and context.

5. Use the free resources: Why not just give people the free resources and let them learn for themselves. I am capturing the best tools and methods that I know of on this free leadership resource library www.nicholaspetrie.com. Once people start getting the tools in their hands let them drive the demand for more learning your organization. It makes your job easier if people are coming to you with new ideas rather than waiting for you to come up with the all the solutions. Have a look at the website and let me know what other tools and topics you want to learn about and I’ll keep creating and sharing them.

Stay awake and good luck!