Today’s Focus: Normal is desired, but what we really need is to be resilient

But normal is relative. There are countless stories of people who have gone through real hardships and overcome them: we also know people in our own lives who struggle to cope with even a chipped nail. We also tend to anchor in a past romantic time when things were “normal”, but meanwhile, our brains are misremembering what truly happened during that time: remember, that ex of yours? The stress when you were broke? When you were sitting beside with your loved one who was ill?

What’s dangerous about normal? It’s Normalcy bias: that is, a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects.

This bias is just one of 188 in the world, and that desire for normal might cause people to push aside consequences: that’s really problematic for effective decision making.

It might be things like:

• “Jane will never leave! She’s been here for 20 years.”
• “We’ll never have a fire in our plant”
• “Our supply chain is rock solid.”
• “We haven’t had a cyber attack yet!”

The reality? All of those can happen, and cognitive dissonance isn’t your friend, nor is it a strategy. You need to prepare and think through those things and have a plan. Make sure you don’t miss the Gray Rhinos out there, either. (A “gray rhino” is a highly probable, high impact yet all too often neglected threat: kin to both the elephant in the room and the improbable and unforeseeable black swan. Gray rhinos are not random surprises, but occur after a series of warnings and visible evidence.)

Your counter weapon? Resilience: building enough to help you think critically and live fully and healthily.

This is both a personal and organizational battle, and you have to be able to equip yourself, the team and the organization to live that out fully.

This is a time when 100-year happenings are happening every year: and that’s not normal. Rather than trying to MAKE things normal or feel normal, embrace building resilience. Whether it’s adopting mindsets like Norwegians, focusing on creating psychology safety, and pushing people to prioritize their mental and physical wellbeing, you’ll be better equipped to make good decisions in the workplace, and be a better team member at work.

Keep going: we need you. ❤️