Norbert, a good friend from Germany
had to choose a career-path after his degree in Business Administration. His
personality-strengths all lay within the conscientious area (quality, clarity,
good at analyzing, best working undisturbed), and the stable area (harmonious,
good at listening, loyal, supportive, and in need of a lot of security and
stability). Given this insight it would make most sense to find a calm, steady,
risk-free, and not too adventurous job. But Norbert went for a challenge. He
consciously went for a challenge, to develop himself further, and to keep on
growing in a healthy way. He started to work for an import-export company that
trades limber between Germany and the Ukraine. A rather chaotic, instable and
risky job! Lots of wispy working-times, lots of people that come seriously late
for their appointments (if they come at all), and a lot more vodka than you
would want to!
Yet, what happened to Norbert?
During his time in this company his resilience grew rapidly, and with it his
attractiveness. To the extend that one of our female consultants discovered
what a cool guy he really is. They got married, and they have two great kids
now...
So, like we have seen in the
previous blogs, you can find structural resources through jobcrafting. But
there is one more thing that a job ought to imply: it should be challenging, so
that you keep on developing and growing in your resilience!
Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote the
bestseller ‘Antifragile’ in 2012. He describes why we need more than just the
classic resilience! He makes a certain distinction between 3 stages of ‘dealing
with stress’ and ‘stress-resistance’:
- Fragility: only very little ‘stress-resistance’, and few challenges. People that experience challenges mostly as pressure and stress will always try to avoid challenges and risks. They are constantly trying to incorporate more and more security into their work and life-style. By doing so their resilience steadily collapses, which makes them all the more vulnerable for the very ‘dangers’ that they try to protect themselves for. It gives birth to a structural indulgence, and they start to feel like a victim more and more. Nothing grows except their self-pity and anxiety!
- Robustness and resilience: this is a healthy life-style, which enables you to cope well with challenges, stress, disappointment, critique, loss, and failure. And, it does so on the long-run!
- Antifragility: This is the mentality that goes a step further: it welcomes crises and challenges as great possibilities to learn, and to grow! To turn the experiences into more resilience and strength. In this light our resilience grows when we face plenty of challenges, and it declines if we lack challenges. In other words instead of ‘post traumatic stress disorder’, challenges offer the possibility of ‘post traumatic growth’!
How do you recognize Antifragility though?
I’ll give some examples. You can recognize Antifragility in people that:
- Have fun in learning their entire life;
- Don’t walk away for problems but take them on as a challenge;
- Display courage, and that are willing to take necessary risks;
- Welcome challenges, and even regularly seek them out, to ensure growth and development;
- Take responsibility – ‘skin in the game’. In the old Rome, an architect had to live under his new bridge for a week, right after the bridge had been build. Which meant, that you had to be prepared to literally personally vouch for your work, advice and actions.
In short: the second factor in regard of structural resources is
experiencing plenty of challenges. But this only happens if you are able to
develop a mentality that welcomes challenges, or that even seeks them out.
Think about what challenges are awaiting you during the next few weeks, and
welcome them.
Good luck with taking them on!
Paul
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