What the F is Resilience?!
Resilience is such a loaded term, isn’t it?
If you’re a leader/director of training in an organisation, it’s wise to be careful about mentioning the R word in any training you put on.
It can easily be interpreted as you saying to your teams:
“You. Hi. You’re the problem, it’s you” (to completely misquote Taylor Swift).
When in fact your people are thinking:
“You. Hi. You’re the problem, it’s you”…
…right back at the firm.
What’s the truth of it all?
Well, as always, I reckon it’s somewhere between the two.
That the issues around resilience in the legal profession are due to the perfect storm of
a) the way the profession is structured; and b) our own character traits.
So in the Blue Corner we have the structure of the profession:
– A target driven system
– A culture of appraisals whereby consolidating or even (whisper it )staying still are not considered viable options. We must always be moving forwards otherwise we’re seen to be going backwards, as uncommitted or unambitious.
– Those blasted clocks and the chargeable time system
– A system OBSESSED with categorisation (2 yrs PQE, 10 years call, Seniors, juniors, senior juniors WHAAAAAT?)
– A profession that has never prioritised the development of managerial skills and supervision. And has never recognised how nigh on impossible it is for seniors to meet their own targets while managing others well..
– A tendency to only give feedback when something has gone wrong…
-…or to never give difficult feedback, thereby leaving people feeling vaguely unsafe without understanding why
– Teaching us all how to predict possible danger for our clients, turning us into professional worriers
And in the Red Corner, we have our own personality traits…
– Being insecure overachievers
– A tendency to look to externals to boost our self esteem
– A penchant for measuring ourselves up against others instead of being able to be just one of many
– A tenacious drive (whether it came from our parents or is just innate within us)
– Difficulty accepting less than positive feedback
– A negative bias in our brains and tendency to worry and try to control that I find most highly intelligent people have
– A natural propensity towards over-diligence at a cost to ourselves
Sorry if this seems really depressing!
The solution? And how to build resilience?
Well, as I often say in my training sessions including recently for Juro, a lot of it is about recognising these issues and spotting them in ourselves and the culture. And once we have, we’re better placed to address them when they arise.
There is no neat solution as far as I’m concerned. But awareness is the first step.
What do you think?
What does resilience mean to you? And do you think it’s a helpful concept?
PS here’s me in one of the best places in the world and where I used to wander when my resilience was wonky – Lincoln’s Inn Fields in Londo