Resilience

Resilience isn’t stubbornness. It’s not resistance to change. It’s adaptability.

People often confuse the two. They think that being resilient means fighting against the tides of change successfully, but it’s the complete opposite. It’s rolling with the punches.

A long time ago, I managed a sales office for a third-party sales company (that means we did the sales for client companies, rather than selling things we made ourselves). After a long time with a particular client, they changed some of their product and service offerings, which meant we had to re-train our staff, and the commission structure changed. I led the meeting where we went over those details.

I was amazed by what I saw, and recognized then that I was witnessing something very important. As I was laying out the changes in the commissions, products, etc., I watched the whole staff basically divide themselves into one of two categories.

Category A, which was the majority, were people who immediately started complaining. They objected, groused, fought. All for nothing, of course – this came from the client and we had no control over it, except to drop their contract, which we obviously weren’t going to do. Fighting me was especially silly. All that sound and fury, signifying nothing. Nothing, that is, except wasted mental energy and attitude.

And then there was Category B. A minority of people on the staff immediately began figuring. They asked intelligent questions, diving into the new structure. They started doing quick math on scrap paper. They looked up a few things about their territories. In other words, they took the change as a given, despite being no more pleased with it than anyone else. And within that new structure, they immediately started figuring out the ways to make the most money.

Over the next few months, the leaderboard rankings changed within the company. Everyone in the new top 10% of sellers was in Category B in that initial meeting.

That’s resilience. You don’t have to like the changes. But you do have to know when fighting them won’t do a damned thing, and that the smart move is to adapt. The resilient people win.