Managing Change and Building Resilience Together – [FULL INTERVIEW]

0:02
Hi, everyone, I’m here with Rob Tyler here again, we were going to chat a little bit about what’s going on in the market at the moment. And one of the things we were chatting about just beforehand was, since the pandemic and the last couple of years, people’s levels of stress and anxiety has been increasing, and we’re just chatting a bit about maybe some of the tools and techniques does help with that.

0:20
Yeah, so I think the root of that really is, is dealing with unexpected situations, because I suspect a lot of the stress and anxiety is because situations have emerged that was somewhat unforeseen, and are now causing literally some unexpected grief, if you like in, in the day to day workplace, and both in the workplace, but also in the on the domestic scene, I would imagine. So what I would say is that as a baseline for that there’s no sort of cure or situations are very individual. And I think you have to regard it as being a very personal situation, it’s you, and what makes you as a human being dealing with the situation you find yourself in. So there’s no average experience. And there’s no in a pure sense, there’s no right way of dealing with it. And I think it’s not about getting to the right answer. It’s really about getting to a solution that works for you. And finding your own way forward. And I think coupled with that really is taking opinions from other people, what are the merits of that, what I would suggest is that, it’s a good thing to try and get other people’s ideas. But ultimately, any opinion that you might get will be based on their experiences, and their interpretation of the situation you’re in, is something to think about really is ultimately I think it is for the individual to weigh out their own situation. take in as much information as you can, but ultimately, really make your own decision and figure out what works for you.

1:59
How much do you think the world is changing, it feels like where we’re going through this huge period of change. And some of the norms we had, particularly for the pandemic. And I don’t want to keep talking about the pandemic all the time, but it just feels like it feels at least anyway, that things have gone into a bit of a different routine, sort of post, then and there’s quite a lot of change, management needs to happen. People were in the office, and they’re working at home, their own hybrid, they go back changes in interest rate, we’ve got mortgage mortgages potentially going up, it feels like it’s going up for folks, you think we’re going through that big change in society?

2:33
I don’t not necessarily know, I think it’s a case of the thing you’re highlighting is dealing with the unexpected. But I think the management, the unexpected, really starts a long way of head ahead of when the situation really comes into play. So it’s all about the preparation and preparing yourself for the unexpected. So I suppose the question is, how unexpected is the unexpected? Or how unexpected should it be? It’s a mindset shift really. And I think a good place to start is to assume that encountering the unexpected is somewhat of a norm. And the job is is to prepare yourself and have the right mindset for dealing with challenges as and when they come along.

3:13
And how do you best suggest preparing for that unexpected? Because it does feel like for the last sort of 30 years or so things was done in a certain way. And it feels like we could be a bit of an inflection point. And I suppose it’s is the unexpected is the more unexpected than the was and I and how do we get ready for that almost psychologically prepare ourselves for things might change, right?

3:32
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a really good point. So I think you have to visit your own mindsets, to some extent. And you mentioned that the outset, potentially, the stress that unexpected situations can cause individually we have a choice, we can either seek certainty, or we can have a mindset of resilience. If you have a mindset of seeking certainty, then if anything becomes uncertain, that’s likely to create a certain amount of anxiety and potentially some stress for you. It tends to attract that. Whereas conversely, if you have a mindset of resilience, which in general terms might be whatever the situation is that comes up, I have the confidence that I can deal with that situation, then I would suggest that is a calmer place to be and one that is probably going to be less stressful because one has fear associated with it. And the other one has optimism. I think it’s really important just to have the right mindset and go back and say to yourself, to what extent to my seeking certainty, which might be an unreasonable expectation, versus I accept the fact there’s going to be change, I accept the fact there’s going to be uncertain situations coming into play. And I feel that I’m going to be resilient enough to be able to deal with those as and when they come up. So I think that is that’s a good baseline, I think for any individual to set because that really I think creates the environment for the experience, you’re likely to have the unexpected issue.

5:05
I suppose I know we’ve we chatted before in previous videos around us as fear of change. And that can be quite a big driver canti in your careers and but also around sort of resistance to change to a certain extent as well. Another example there’s just come up recently as AI is there’s a lot of sort of fear around that some of it might be in mind, depending on your view, it might be legitimate or not legitimate, but how much of it? How do we determine between where we should be fearful versus where we should be looking at as an opportunities to grow, and then maybe there might be even opportunities in it for us as we get stuck between the, between those sorts of two emotions to a certain extent.

5:41
Yeah, change has always been with us hasn’t it as this is not change is not a new thing. Things are coming unexpectedly, it’s not a new thing. I think what can happen, though, is that things that are going on in the presence can get an unwarranted amount of attention from us. Because we lose sight of the bigger picture. It’s a little bit like if you’re, if you’re driving up a motorway, you can see a little bit behind you. And you can see a little bit in front of you. But you’re not really seeing the full journey that you’re on. And sometimes it helps just to rise above the present situation. So you get a wider perspective of where you’ve come from, what went on then, and where you’re heading for, and what is likely to happen in the future. Because then I think you just see what your current experience is, you see it in perspective, as part of a bigger journey that you’re on. So I think there is this element of perhaps too much waiting is being given to what you’re experiencing today, which can make it fearful. But if you look at it in the context of what you’ve experienced over a much wider period of time, in the past, and possibly even in the future, I think you can get the perspective back and hopefully reduce down some of the fears that you might have.

6:55
There’s that psychological principle where I think as humans, we very much more value the loss of something than the potential of something right. And I suppose so the fear comes from is great around losing something than the almost like the optimism around gaining something. And that’s quite hard for us. As human beings, it feels like

7:16
you’re right, yeah, there is a tendency, human tendency to, to place more value on what you have now than what you possibly can get in the future. The danger is that you place more value on what’s going on for you now, in terms of the experience, then looking at it from a bigger perspective, and seeing it in context to all the things that you’ve experienced in the past and also into the future. And I suppose what I’m getting to is that, if you stand back and look at the bigger scheme of things, in all likelihood, your current experience won’t seem so bad, because you’ll see it in the context of everything else that’s gone on. And a way of doing that is to maybe think about what’s happened to you over the last, say, 1020 years. And ask yourself the question, how much of that did I really expect to happen? How did I deal with it, and how bad didn’t really turn out? And I think then you’ll see that the unexpected and things that are going on in the now are part and parcel of the normal flow of experiences that you’re going to have. It does help to not just reflect on things as being part of a longer journey, but also look back on what you did when you faced similar challenges before? And what resource can you draw from that, that will help you then face the challenges of the future? Because I would suggest that you’ve had challenges many times, and you overcome them. And it’s worth remembering that and going back and drawing on that as a way of building confidence. But also, again, this sense of resilience, rather than the seeking of certainty going forward.

8:54
Do you think social media, but also the speed at which we’re operating, it feels like it’s increasing every day? So people quicker responses to messages people want? We all want a bit quicker responses to if we buy something or we have a service rather. But that was like that speed, force acceleration? Does that actually increase anxiety because you mentioned there around time, so sometimes you just need time for these things to pass. And after the time has passed, you feel a lot better about things. But this society is stopping us because we’re getting so wrapped up in having to do things immediately so that it will take magnifies the anxiety certain extent because our timeframes are so much shorter, our perception of time is so much shorter.

9:36
Yeah. I always think that the individual has the choice. And as I said, right at the start is human the environment in which you’re operating, which creates your experience. And you can’t control what goes on in the outside world and how many emails people fire at you, that you can decide how you react to those. So I think it always comes back to the individual to decide for yourself, what experiences you want to go through. And how much of that you’re prepared to let in social media DNA is not compulsory, you can move away from it if you wish to. So I think there’s, I think it’s really important just to just allow yourself time for some reflective practice, and stand back and think this is the experience I’m going through how much of it do I really want to let into my life? And where can I make positive change? And be in control of it? I think it’s really important to take control of it and not let the situation control here.

10:39
And in terms of that, like self reflection, what do you typically recommend to for people to do that? Is it go on retreat? Is it spend some time in the evenings doing that? Is it using time in the car? Or when you’re on a journey? Isn’t that what’s, what do you think is the best way to do that? Because that can be tough for people just with this screen, the life is sometimes what do you think? What do you see with the words test?

10:59
I think there are lots of different ways that people approach, self reflection and reflective practice. So I wouldn’t say that there’s the ideal approach. But I think what’s important is to is to know what you’re getting out of it. So really, behind self reflection, is the ability to learn and then develop. So through reflection, you reflect on the experiences you’ve had you learn from those experiences, is your chance to think about the experience you’ve gone through. But really, what’s important is that you look at what’s happened and then decide to make the change, because learning is one thing. But development only comes if you figure out what it is that you no longer want to experience and you make an adjustment going forward. And I think that’s the best real benefit behind self reflection.

11:53
Yeah. And do you use journaling and those sorts of things is that something you definitely recommend, because that’s a good way of I mean, I, I like data and one way and I suppose it’s gathering the data or the evidence, and you can see what the outcome is. And then you’ve got the hard day to disable, I need to make a difference, or I need to change something and you can go back and reference it. Whereas the brain seems quite malleable and you can forget things you can anyway,

12:16
which are journaling. Journaling is useful because they it captures your thoughts. But it also gives you a record of the fact that you had some thoughts, and you’ve acted upon them, and you’ve made some positive changes. And this is why I think the use of reflective practice is key really, because in order to improve a situation you’re in, and this includes facing the unexpected, you’ve got to actually step back occasionally think about the way you felt about a situation, and then decide that you want to do something different going forward. And in doing that, you then start to develop as an individual. If you reflect on something and do nothing as a result of it, then it just becomes pure reflection. So you have this reflection, which enables you to learn. And then from that learning, you can make choices about what you do going forward. But you touched on a really important point a few minutes ago, which I think is also key to dealing with the unexpected, that it gives you an opportunity for growth, it may not be something that you necessarily thought was going to happen. But these opportunities are opportunities for lasting change. And the unexpected doesn’t always necessarily have to be a bad thing. Things can turn out to be unexpectedly good as well. If you view unexpected events as being something which is bad, then what I suggest is then maybe think about them as opportunities for learning and personal development as well. How can you test yourself if you’re sitting in a comfort zone, occasionally, you’ll need to do something which is against a challenge that was unforeseen.

13:54
And I have to say I do spend some time on social media. And I do find it very, I think your comments really around around fear and fear of change really seem to come across me can be quite negative, and it feels like it’s been more negative recently. In some areas. I do wonder if it’s almost like the world is changing people. It’s almost like clinging on to the way things used to be. And that fear of change is quite pervasive. And fear is a very powerful emotion, isn’t it? Yes. Yeah. It’s so that negative fear seems like it’s coming across with all the changes coming out. And I just wonder if that’s generating a lot of almost like feeding on itself to certain extent. It does. Yeah,

14:28
yeah, the fear comes because of course, you’re fearing an unfavourable outcome of some description. So your focus goes to wanting certainty again, we keep coming back to that. Whereas if your thinking is about personal resilience, you’re going to be less concerned about unfavourable outcomes because your mind immediately turns to the fact that whatever the outcome is, I have the confidence that I can deal with that. So I think mindset is really, really important part of it, where I’m dealing with change, dealing with uncertainty Is it something that you don’t like? You don’t want change, you want more certainty? Or are you prepared to deal with that allowed into your life. But with the backdrop and the mindset of being resilient and confident, to the extent that you’ll be able to deal with it, whatever comes along, and more importantly, see it as an opportunity for personal growth,

15:20
just on a wider society basis, how do you think we can get some of these principles out there to try and change because it does feel like the fear piece is growing? I know that you do coaching and they’ll be a group of people who haven’t that resilient mindset, and the three great powerful, no big opportunity for them. But I suppose it’s like, how do we reverse the trend of everywhere else? Is that advocacy around around having a much more sort of resilient mindset or be more positive? Or do you think there’s something more fundamental that’s going on? Is there some things we can do? Say, for example, amongst our employee population?

15:52
Yeah, I think it’s communicating the options really isn’t it is getting a different way of thinking about a situation. And the only way that really you can deal with that is to, to some extent, evangelise the opportunity for a different approach to is a psychological shift. Yeah. So I don’t think there’s any simple answer that’s going to cure 5 million people’s particular mindsets, other than to, you know, turn off tick tock, maybe, but to help learn from each other’s experiences to some extent as well.

16:24
How do you feel about so a lot of these sort of the new tools that we’ve got, say, for example, AI is one but also social media being another, there can be forces for good, but there could also be like forces for fear, as you say, that that kind of balance between the two can be hard to manage. Because when I just mentioned flippantly mentioned Tiktok, I’ve learned stuff from Tiktok. Coming out, I have been on it, and I’ve learned stuff, particularly how to around that how to use my dishwasher as an example. It’s just things that come up, it does have nuggets of information in there. But there’s also a huge amount of stuff that is not relevant for me and I can be if I get sucked in by the algorithm may be quite fearful as well. How do we best balance that? How do we take a step back and take that bigger picture, and remain in the moment to remember to take the bigger picture, what’s your kind of view on that and the things that we can do to help ourselves to certain extent,

17:15
I think you’re gonna, it comes down to personal choice, and you’ve got to, you’ve got to decide what’s right for you, it’s like anything that you get drawn to that may not be particularly helpful, it becomes a personal choice. If you’re getting a negative experience from using a particular tool, or whatever you choose to do, then I think, again, go back and reflect on the situation you’re in, take some time out, use reflective practice, learn from what you’ve experienced, and then make a different decision going forward. And this is why I think these things are always very much individual based, is you and the situation because your experience may be completely different somebody else’s. So it is important, I think, to slow down a little bit occasionally and just think back on your situation and decide for yourself, what works best.

18:05
For me, a lot of it comes back to time and how do you create time, because it does feel like if you just go back to Victorian times me what the daily routine would be. And you just there was so much more time built into the day because things weren’t quite so easy. Whereas now we can do all of the things we would have taken us a day to do before 10 o’clock to a certain extent. And so that allows us to even more thing, but it puts the pressure on us, isn’t it? It’s like, we’ve got to take take things maybe a little bit slower, a bit more of a human pace that allows us to be more effective, or let’s create use a tool to allow us to create the time. Maybe this is just me getting old, I don’t

18:39
probably. But it always comes down to personal choice, doesn’t it? You can choose to run at a fast pace, but equally you can choose not to. So again, I think it comes down to are you in control of the situation? Or do you want to be controlled by it?

18:54
Yeah, I suppose I suppose it’s just it’s interesting how that then intersects with the wider business environment, which seems to be is trying to do more with less certainly, that’s what I hear when I talk with people, which is the speed piece. And I suppose it’s takes quite a lot of self control as well, to decide when you take a step back, because there could be consequences for that. That’s people’s fear, isn’t it? Which is the balance that you’re going to balance up? I’d imagine from the self reflection element.

19:20
Yeah, again, it comes down to resilience, doesn’t it? Because if you have a mindset of resilience, again, you know, you’re going to be less fearful of a negative outcome. Because you will trust that whatever comes your way, you will find a way forward and you’ll find your way of dealing with it. You as the person you are with the environment that you find yourself in. So this is why I think it’s really important to to build that really resilient mindset. Move away as best you can from seeking certainty because in all my experience, the more certainty you try and seek, you’re choosing to live in an anxious place. Whereas the more resilience You can build your choosing to live in a much more confident and optimistic space.

20:05
Yeah, a documentary on Bill Gates and how he used to take a week off during reading week. I know I used to take a load of books and have a week’s almost like, not meditating. Because I think he used to do a lot of thinking. And I’m sure he used to have telephone calls, but he used to do and maybe some of them correctly, but he used to take out all the different books, he could go away and be reading for me. But it feels like that sort of taking almost like a bit of a retreat for yourself to do things can actually add quite a lot of energy, and resilience coming back. And I think it’s something that’s never been top of mind for me. And I imagine for most folks, which is taking time for yourself to reflect on things, and this is how important it

20:39
is. It is yeah, yeah. And I think as taking time for yourself, and taking time away, has a point to it really, apart from just going off and enjoying ourselves, I think it does present an opportunity to be able to take stock of the situation you’re in. Again, reflect on it. What learnings Have you achieved, and what will you do differently going forward. Because we can all make improvements, whatever situation we’re in, we’re going to work we can all make improvements to what we are what we choose to do in life taking time outs important. So if you’re running at 100 miles an hour constantly, then by definition, you’re not giving yourself that opportunity.

21:16
I know that coming back from coming back from the holidays was is always difficult that as well, when you’ve had a bit of time for reflection, I suppose. Even in your holiday, you got to build time in for self reflection of new otherwise, if you’re busy doing stuff and don’t get a lot of that. But even when you’ve been relaxing, giving back and then getting back up to speed is quite interesting, at least watching the change in yourself in terms of being very quiet or in holiday mode to then having to run 110 miles an hour. Because that’s what the people around you are doing and watching that change and how we adapt that I thought was quite interesting this year, at least anyway. At least coming back. So for me, what comes across, at least in terms of this time around was just making sure we’re taking the time

21:55
here, there’s a few things that we touched on, I think it’s worth revisiting your mindset regarding unexpected events. Because if unexpected events are creating anxiety, it’s worth thinking about a strategy for preparing yourself for those. And this is where you stand back and say, okay, am I fearful of the unexpected? Or am I prepared actually to build some resilience? And trust that I will deal with it? Do I see it as a negative? Or do I see it as an opportunity for personal growth? I’m gonna get something out of it, I’m going to be able to test myself. Do I believe that I have set myself any limiting thoughts that are saying to me or whatever happens, I’m not going to be able to deal with it. And are they even valid? So there is an element of also building your personal trust, if you like, in your abilities to be able to cope with whatever there is going forward? And his answer is uncertainty, such a bad thing. Things can actually be better in the future than you expect. So, again, you know, if you’re labelling uncertainty as a negative, then maybe that’s a miss Louisville.

23:01
Okay. It’s really interesting to chat with Rob as ever. Thanks very much for making the time. I really appreciate it.

23:07
My pleasure, Chris. Always a pleasure.