The relationships and habits that sustain resilience.
Participants examine the relational and environmental factors that support resilience, including the quality of key relationships, personal values, and physical recovery. The session closes with one specific, actionable next step.
Individual resilience does not exist in isolation. Research consistently shows that social support is one of the strongest predictors of resilience under stress. A meta-analysis by Ozbay and colleagues (2007), drawing on military, medical and workplace populations, found that social support buffered against the psychological impact of adversity more reliably than individual coping strategies alone.
In a workplace context, this translates into the quality of relationships with colleagues, line managers and direct reports. The practice of managing up, building a genuine working relationship with one's own manager, is often treated as a political skill. Its relevance to resilience is more direct: a well-functioning relationship with a manager reduces ambiguity, increases support during periods of pressure, and makes it easier to ask for help when it is needed.
The connection to personal values matters for similar reasons. Research by Michael Steger and Bryan Dik on meaningful work (2010) found that people who experienced their work as connected to personal values showed greater resilience and lower burnout over time. When work feels meaningful, setbacks are more readily interpreted as obstacles to work through.
The corporate athlete model, developed by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz and published in the Harvard Business Review in 2001, provides a practical frame for energy management. Performance depends on the oscillation between stress and recovery. Peak performers in sport and in high-pressure professions deliberately build recovery into their routines, treating rest as a performance requirement. The question the model raises is specific: where does recovery sit in a participant's current working week?
Participants understand resilience as shaped by the conditions around them as well as by individual effort, identify one or two areas where those conditions could be strengthened, and leave with a concrete personal commitment for the week ahead.
Work through four short reflections, on social support, values, recovery, and one next step, each grounded in the person's real situation. Close by having everyone name one small, specific action for the week.
Ask people to consider who the two or three people at work are who genuinely support their resilience, and what those relationships provide: practical help, honest feedback, emotional steadiness, or challenge. Then ask where the gaps are, and whether any relationships are costing more than they give, particularly with a line manager or within the team. In a brief discussion, ask what they could do in the next two weeks to strengthen one of these relationships. It need not be a large gesture; a single honest conversation, a clear ask for support, or a shift in how they manage a regular interaction is often enough.
Ask people to identify the two or three values that matter most to them in work, the things that make the work feel worth doing, such as making a real difference, producing excellent work, being part of a strong team, having meaningful autonomy, or developing others. Then ask whether, in the current period of pressure, those values are present or absent, and if absent, whether that is temporary or something more structural. Keep it short. The aim is to reconnect people to what actually matters to them, which makes the sources of current stress easier to weigh with perspective.
Introduce the idea briefly: performance depends on the balance of stress and recovery, so how well a person recovers matters as much as how hard they work. This applies to physical energy, such as sleep, exercise, and nutrition, and to mental energy, such as time away from decisions, transitions between tasks, and protected low-demand time during the week. Ask what one recovery habit they could build or protect in the next two weeks.
Ask each person to write down one specific action they will take this week as a result of the session, small enough to be realistic and specific enough to be actionable. For example: I will speak to my manager on Thursday and ask for clearer feedback on the project; I will try the challenging-beliefs technique the next time I receive difficult feedback; or I will protect one hour on Friday afternoon with no meetings and no email. Take a brief share-back around the group, since naming it aloud increases follow-through. Close by noting that resilience builds through small, repeated actions.
Use Resilience in Practice when people treat resilience as individual effort and overlook the conditions around them. The session looks at the relationships, values and recovery habits that sustain it, and each person leaves with one concrete commitment for the week.
Using this tool with a skilled facilitator means that discussions are focused, time is used efficiently, and the group moves toward consensus, making the session productive and impactful.
