Tag Archives: careers

Becoming Sane In A Turbulent, Interconnected, Unpredictable World — Part 1

Why Emotional Resiliency Doesn’t Work In The 21st Century

It’s becoming clear that our understanding of emotional resilience – what it is and how to achieve it — (and, more broadly, psychological health)  doesn’t mesh very well with today’s realities. Conventional descriptions of resilience and pathways to mental health don’t enable you to handle the challenges and stresses we face in the 21st Century.

Let me explain. Resilience is generally defined as the ability to cope successfully with misfortune or traumatic events. Being able to bounce back from adversity and keep on going. What helps you do that includes, for example, reviewing your strengths, focusing on positive thoughts and feelings, learning stress management, looking down the road to what you can manage better. And, by getting psychotherapy and medication when you’re unable to bounce back very well on your own.

Prior to the 21st Century, that view of resiliency and how to build it was more relevant than today. The adversity and disruptions you were likely to experience were more stable, in a sense. The world was more predictable, more linear, with respect to the kinds of stresses and disruptions that would occur – as emotionally troubling as they might be.

Most of our thinking about emotional resilience and healthy functioning, then, fits a world in which unanticipated negative events are fairly predictable. They follow a fairly understandable course, following which you can reasonably anticipate a return to some form of previous stability. In that world, wars eventually ended. The economy went through recessions, then recovered. You might suffer a career or relationship setback but could assume that there was a path to recovery.

That notion of resilience and the ways to build it remain an important foundation for mental health. But they don’t help so much when you’re faced with the challenges of today’s environment. That’s because the very notion of resilience and the strategies for bouncing back are reactive. They focus on responding to something that happens to you, rather than on what you need to be doing proactively, as part of your way of life.

Starting with 9-11, and especially since the economic meltdown that began in the fall of 2008, we’ve been living in a world that’s rapidly transforming beneath our feet. Today’s world is an interconnected, interdependent, diverse, unpredictable and unstable global community. And that’s created new psychological challenges for everyone, challenges that require a highly proactive mentality.

Without it, you might feel like the woman who consulted me recently. Even before she sat down she said,  ”I don’t know whether to reach for the Prozac….or Prilosec!”

Her grim humor masked her “recession depression” and other emotional battering. She didn’t know what would help. I’ve witnessed that a great deal in the last few years: Career and financial worries or losses; the ripple effect of those upon family life; anxieties about what sort of future one’s children are headed into, especially with climate change and terrorist threats; and the increasingly polarized views about our government’s role in people’s lives. Research and clinical observation show that all of the above are taking a psychological toll on relationships, families, career expectations, and on people’s entire sense of what they’re living and working for — their life purpose.

Unfortunately, those of us in the mental health professions haven’t been much help with these issues. Most of us continue to look through the rear-view mirror at a model of resiliency and health defined by coping with and managing conflicts in relationships and the workplace; conflicts that you can bounce back from and reestablish some kind of stability…all while continuing to pursue self-interest, such as getting your needs met, your personal goals achieved, your “happiness” acquired.

But today’s world of ongoing disruptions, continuous uncertainties and insecurity has become the new normal. Seeking to bounce back to stability and focusing on self-interest, which we’ve learned to think is the pathway to success, health and well-being, isn’t the right ticket.

In short, there’s no state of equilibrium you can bounce back to. In this highly diverse, interdependent, interconnected world.  Trying to do so is a fast ticket to dysfunction and derailment. You can’t reestablish equilibrium within a constantly shifting world. But engaging these new realities in positive ways will support your success and well-being.

Research shows that you can proactively build specific emotions, thoughts and actions that are effective for adapting to life in the non-equilibrium world we now live within. That’s encouraging, because I think we’re evolving towards a new definition of psychological health via rethinking resilience.

The criteria of a new, proactive resiliency – maybe call it “prosilience – may sound contradictory because they include letting go of self-interest in your relationships and work. The new view of resilience emphasizes being flexible, open and nimble; being able to shift and redeploy your personal resources – emotional, creative, intellectual – towards positive engagement with others.

Resiliency grows from putting your energies, your values, emotional attitudes and actions in the service of the common good – something larger than just yourself. That’s what supports both success in your outside life and internal well-being. And in today’s rapidly transforming world, you need both.

In the future look for new posts about perspectives, research and actions that relate to “becoming sane in a turbulent, interconnected, turbulent world.”  Through them I hope to contribute to a revised and needed reformulation of what psychological health and resiliency are in today’s world — in all realms of life:  intimate relationships, career challenges, engagement with diverse people, and in our responsibilities as  global citizens.

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Your “Life Footprint” And The 4.0 Career

In a previous post I wrote about the rise of the “4.0” career, and how it contrasts with earlier orientations to work.  In brief, the 4.0 version is an emerging shift towards a broader vision of career “success.”  It includes the desire for new learning, growth and personal meaning from work – increasingly visible themes over the last few decades, and what I’ve called the “3.0” career orientation.

What’s different about the emerging 4.0 career is that it’s an expansion beyond looking for greater meaning and sense of “purpose” through one’s work.  It also includes a desire for impact on something larger than oneself, beyond one’s personal benefit.  It’s becoming visible in the pull men and women report towards wanting to contribute to the common good -  whether it’s through the value and usefulness of a product or service.

The 4.0 career is part of the emerging new business model focused on creating “sustainable” enterprises.  It’s part of what’s known as the new “triple bottom line” — financial, social and environmental measures of success.

In this and in future posts l’ll describe some 4.0 career themes and how men and women illustrate them.  This is important because the transformations now underway in global societies, which became more dramatically apparent following the economic nosedive in September 2008, have tremendous implications for career survival and success.  The unstable, unpredictable new world upon us makes the 4.0 career orientation the path towards both outward success and personal well-being in the years ahead.

As a step towards finding the 4.0 career path, consider this little historical nugget: Continue reading →

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What Is The “4.0” Career?

Some readers have asked me to explain why I have a category labeled “Work and Career ‘4.0.’”  Fair enough: A few of these blog posts are tagged that way, but I haven’t described what I mean by that designation.

What I call 4.0 is a shorthand way of describing a new evolution I see in people’s attitudes, behavior and desires about their work and career.  Think of 1.0” as more of a survival orientation to work.  It’s how people think about and engage in their work when they’re in situations of extreme hardship, political upheaval, or within socio-economic conditions that limit their opportunity and choices.  That probably describes the situation for the masses of people throughout most of history, and of course it exists today.  In such situations, just earning enough of a living to survive and support yourself and your family is your target, your criteria of  “success.”  Today, the conflicts that people experience within version 1.0 often concern working conditions, discrimination and limited opportunities for getting onto a career path that can lead to something better.

Version 2.0 emerged with the political and economic environments that gave rise to the modern “career”; that is, mostly within increasingly large, bureaucratic organizations from about the late 1800s into the early 20th Century.  Those organizations required layers of management and administration – white-collar jobs.  Advancement became possible along a defined path, and was available to people who could gain a foothold within it, usually because of educational opportunities and/or social class advantages they were born into.  Seeking recognition, power, status, and material perks from steady advancement define success with Version 2.0.  It still predominates within today’s career culture.  It’s where you find the conditions that generate, for example, work-life conflict, boredom, workplace bullying, hostile management practices, and subtle racial and gender barriers to moving up.

Version 3.0 arose just in the last few decades.  It reflects Continue reading →

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Dealing With Career And Management Conflicts In Nonprofit Organizations

  • A social justice advocacy organization is stung by accusations from some of its staff that the leadership doesn’t “walk the walk” when it comes to racial and sex bias. Complaints also include that the organization’s mission has become too diffuse.  Anger and resentment build.
  • A public interest research organization discovers that shared staff commitment to consumer protection doesn’t preclude staff relationship conflicts or complaints about management practices. “We all believe in what we’re doing,” the Director tells me, “so we shouldn’t be having these kinds of problems.”
  • A social service organization is faced with apparent emotional disturbance of a senior staff member. Increasing amounts of management time are spent trying to deal with the person’s declining performance, absenteeism, and behavior toward coworkers. The Executive Director is unsure how to deal with the problem, and asks me “How do we balance compassion with the needs of our agency, in situations like these?”

Sound familiar? I have observed many nonprofit organizations trying to carry out their public interest or social service missions effectively – but within a workplace and cultural environment that gives rise to problems like these.  Such problems reflect an increasingly common, interwoven mixture of personal and organizational conflicts.  Many are similar to those I find in for-profit companies.  But the unique circumstances of nonprofit groups makes knowing what helps – and what doesn’t – critical to maintaining their internal and external success.

Continue reading →

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Psychologically Unhealthy Management: A Human Rights Violation?

Four years ago, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Harvard professor John G. Ruggie to be Special Representative on business & human rights. This new mission was charged with investigating human rights abuses by transnational corporations and other business enterprises. Since then, it’s focused on such areas as discrimination, pesticide poisoning, child labor, drinking water contamination, sexual abuse, and the displacement of indigenous peoples.

But I think another, largely overlooked category of corporate behavior deserves inclusion as a human rights violation:  Management practices that damage the mental health of a company’s own employees.?? Unhealthy management and leadership harms employees and, therefore, their work performance.  Most everyone is familiar with the damaging effects of abusive, hostile, arrogant and narcissistic bosses; of manipulative or deceitful leadership behavior, often directed by senior management towards each other; workaholic demands that result in burnout and diminished productivity; intimidation and threats, subtle and overt; public denigration and humiliation; destructive political maneuvering and closet discrimination.  The list goes on.

Typical consequences for individuals include depression, rage, severe stress or anxiety, withdrawal, paranoia and, increasingly, lawsuits.

As a consultant to business leadership and a psychotherapist for 30 years, I’ve helped people at both end of the spectrum — from the mailroom to the corporate suite — deal with the consequences.  Moreover, I’ve seen an increase of such practices since the economic meltdown began in September 2008.

Unhealthy leadership and the culture it spawns Continue reading →

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