© Copyright OPP Ltd 2013. All rights reserved.

BUILDING RESILIENCE

Facilitator notes

Introduction

This document provides you with a timetable and notes to run a 180-minute workshop about building resilience, based on an understanding of MBTI types. It is designed to run with groups or teams, so is not dependent on participants knowing each other in advance. However, if they do not know each other beforehand, we would recommend extending the ‘welcome’ section of the workshop with some additional getting-to-know-you activities.

Whilst these notes are fairly detailed, we have created additional scripted facilitator notes for some of the exercises so that they can be printed off and used separately.

The workshop is designed for groups of 8–12 people. If the group is smaller, it will either take less time or allow for longer discussions. If the group is larger, please allow more time.

Before the workshop

In addition to the usual preliminaries for running workshops, such as room bookings, you will need to:

Send an email to participants using the draft email provided as a template and adding in your own information

Collect best-fit types and generate a Stress Management Report for each participant

Print enough workbooks for one per participant

Print off stressor and energiser cards to use in the session

Print off copies of any facilitator notes for the workshop, along with the more detailed notes for exercises

Refer to the course packing list for a full list of materials required

Building Resilience

2

NB You will need to generate Stress Management Reports based on participants’ best-fit type. If anyone in the group has not previously completed the MBTI questionnaire, make sure they do so prior to the workshop. If you are then providing individual or group feedback, you will need to add that time to the session, or complete it before running this workshop.

Objectives

To understand the definition of resilience and the impact of taking control

To explore you at your best and what happens under pressure

To understand the impact of type in managing pressure

To develop an understanding of energisers and stressors

To create strategies for building personal resilience

Time Topic Content Materials

Pre-workshop

Prepare the room

Note down the types from the MBTI reports and type distribution within the group

Hand out workbooks, pens and writing paper

Set up room in a circle – allow space for break-out into pairs

Workbooks

Pens & Pads

Flipcharts (2)

15 mins Introductions and objectives

Welcome

Overview of the workshop

Talk through why the organisation thinks this workshop is important and what the group can gain as individuals.

If there is an organisational sponsor or a leader on the workshop, it can be helpful for them to introduce the session, or say a few words about why it is important to them and/or the organisation.

Objectives

o Understand the definition of resilience and the impact of taking control

o Explore you at your best and what happens under pressure

o Understand the impact of type in managing pressure

o Develop an understanding of energisers and stressors

o Create strategies for building personal resilience

Module overview

o Resilience and taking control

Slides

Workbooks

Programme overview

Facilitator notes

3

Time Topic Content Materials

o MBTI refresher

o You at your best...

o ... and worst

o Exploring what happens under pressure and in distress

o Energisers and stressors

o Strategies to manage impact and build resilience

o Action planning

Introductions

o What is your name and role?

o Your best-fit type and something you have learnt about yourself through learning about type

o What do you hope to gain from participating?

o What are you bringing?

Explain that we will be using the workbooks throughout the workshop – they will get time to read and reflect on the different sections. The workbook has been designed to work alongside the individual Stress Management Reports, which they will also receive. There will be time for discussion, opportunities for reflection and time to capture/embed the learning.

Setting the scene

o Notice your reactions, thoughts, feelings

o Understand and listen to others’ perspectives

o Notice others’ reactions and how their styles differ

o Respect bounds of confidentiality

o Openness and curiosity

o Practicalities

o What else?

Show the slide with suggestions and ask what needs to be said explicitly for people to feel comfortable in the room. Allow discussion and probe for concerns.

This session can be done by asking the group what needs to happen for them to get the most from the day – what do they need individually and as a group and what do they need from you, the facilitator. Ask questions such as: ‘what could get in the way of this being a great experience?’, and ‘how do we work to ensure it is a great

Building Resilience

4

Time Topic Content Materials

experience?’ Generating from scratch takes longer, but is useful for a group that needs to build a safe environment to work in.

20 mins

(35)

Why develop resilience, and what is it?

Why building resilience?

Talk through the stress research slide: stress affects all of us, at work, at home, even in social life. And it tends to get a very bad press; the media are full of stories about how stressed we all are, how technology and the pace of modern life is driving us all to distraction, and there is some truth in this.

o The Health and Safety Executive found in 2012 that 40% of work-related illness in the UK was due to workplace stress

o And the healthcare organisation BUPA estimated in 2011 that over 105 million working days are lost each year in the UK because of work-related stress

In 2011, OPP carried out a large-scale survey of over 1,000 people and found that:

o Almost 75% of the population were stressed by their work life

o 61% of people were stressed by their home life

o A third of people were even stressed by their social life!

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

o First, as we’ll see, stress can and does have a positive effect

o Secondly, the media does tend to exaggerate the negative impact of stress; if we look at OPP’s research for example, only 10% of our group said that they were ‘very stressed’ at work

o Whilst we all know what stress feels like when it takes over, it may take us a while to acknowledge what is going on, or to identify our best coping strategies

o By recognising the triggers for, and consequences of, stress for people with different personality characteristics, it is possible to mitigate the negative effects of distress – and perhaps even to start harnessing the positive, motivating force of pressure and challenge that can help us reach our potential

Slides

Workbooks

Flipchart

Facilitator notes

5

Time Topic Content Materials

Ask the group to talk in pairs or trios for two minutes about what resilience means to them, and encourage them to make notes in their workbook (page 2). Debrief in the group, pull out peoples’ thoughts and make notes on a flip chart.

Psychological resilience

Resilience is the ability to withstand this pressure and bounce back. Share the resilience definitions.

o In physics ‘resilience’ is defined as “the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed, and release that energy upon unloading”

o [Show the definition slide] A definition of psychological resilience is therefore: “The ability for an individual to bounce back to a previous state of normal functioning, after experiencing pressure without negative effect”

Optimal performance

For a long time it has been well understood that too little pressure leaves us bored and listless and too much pressure leaves us overwhelmed and exhausted. For each of us, what leads to feeling ‘under pressure’ or ‘stressed’ will vary: for some it’s too much change all at once; for others it’s high volumes of work under time-pressure; for some people it may be working with little structure; for others it will be working with too much. Appreciating what works for us and what doesn’t is critical in helping us to anticipate stress, and to manage ourselves through demanding situations.

Stressors affect people differently

The optimal level of stress differs greatly between people, depending on their personality, background experience, support networks, resources available.

Self-awareness

There is plenty of research to show that a sense of control is also critical (Karasek, 1979). If people can gain a sense of control, even if it’s only over how they think and feel about something, then the stress reduces.

So, we’ll revisit MBTI and increase awareness of how your type impacts on what makes you energised or stressed, and on your typical reactions and coping strategies.

If you have time, facilitate a short group discussion about what it is like to feel out of control and in control when in a pressurised situation.

Ask the group what it is possible to be in control of during

Building Resilience

6

Time Topic Content Materials

high pressure times.

Stephen Covey in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1994) talked about circle of influence and circle of concern. Focus on what you can control. It’s not about changing the world; it starts from how you feel and manage yourself. Tell a story such as “I got a new car. I was looking forward to meeting my husband in the evening for an anniversary dinner; but on the way, a post van clipped the wing in a narrow lane. Thankfully no-one was hurt. I could not control the fact that the car was damaged. I could go to the meal and complain and let it ruin my evening or I could put it behind me, book it in for repair and enjoy the evening.” Control the controllable.

o I can control myself and my reactions but I can’t control others or events more generally

o “I am able to control only that which I am aware of. That which I am unaware of, controls me. Awareness empowers me.” Anon

So raising awareness of typical reactions to stress can give us more choices about how we react.

20 mins

(55)

You at your best

You at your best...

Introduce this section with “It can help us to look at how we operate when we are at our best, looking at our behaviours at times of optimal levels of stress. We can use this to help us face greater challenges.”

o Using the image of the person on a tightrope, explain that when we are at our best we are challenged, but feel in balance, confident and in control

o Take the group through the ‘at your best visualisation’, using the script provided as a basis for the exercise

ACTIVITY 1: At your best

o Use page 4 of your stress management report

o Read the description of “What your type is usually like” and “How others describe your type”. What do you recognise in yourself?

o Compare this to your description of yourself at your best

o Discuss in pairs

o Ask participants to make notes in their workbooks (Activity 1, page 3)

At your best visualisation script

Slides

Stress management report

Facilitator notes

7

Time Topic Content Materials

15 mins

(70)

MBTI Refresher

Provide a recap of the MBTI framework

o Begin by asking participants ‘what do you remember?’…

o … and then ask for info about each preference pair

o Provide additional information, and dispel stereotyping if that is needed

o Try to pull out some personal examples of the different preferences from the group and/or provide some yourself

o See if there are any preferences missing

Remember that if you are including a group feedback in the workshop, then this session will need to take 2-3 hours and would need to be conducted before discussing the content of the Stress Management Report.

Slides

20 mins

(90)

The stress cycle

The MBTI stress cycle

Talk through the process we tend to go through when we are under pressure and then move into highly stressful situations using the slide.

When we are at our best, there is a balance between the different parts of our personality, and we are able to respond to different situations by choosing and flexing according to who we are working with and what needs to be accomplished. This is what we call ‘normal balance’.

As stress increases, we all have a tendency to ‘revert to type’, to behave more and more in the ways that we prefer, and with less capacity for flexibility. This is an exaggeration of our natural preferences and we can come across as immature caricatures of ourselves, lacking in the ability to adopt different perspectives. We refer to this as Stage 1 stress reaction under pressure.

Again, taking an easy example for extraversion and introversion:

o People with a preference for extraversion will tend to become louder and louder and more active when under stress, neglecting to spend time in reflection that would normally provide balance to their activity

o People with a preference for introversion will instead become more and more internally-focused, meaning that they appear to withdraw from the external world and become quite uncommunicative, whilst there is a whirring going on inside their heads

Slides

Workbooks

Stress Management Reports

Building Resilience

8

Time Topic Content Materials

If this pattern goes on for an extended period, or when we are ill or tired, then we may go into the second stage of the stress process called extreme stress or duress, this is when we go into ‘meltdown’ or ‘see red’. This is sometimes referred to as being ‘in the grip’ of our unconscious. In this second stage, we tend to behave in ways quite uncharacteristic of our normal balanced selves. To the individual this stage will feel quite out of control, and to the observer it will look dysfunctional. Understanding the process is often greatly reassuring, as it helps an individual to know that this is a normal and expected reaction; but even more powerfully, once you have identified your MBTI type, you can use this information to identify the specific things that you can do to recover normal balance and break the stress cycle.

Under pressure

Using the image of the person with the weight of the world on their shoulders, explain that pressure can feel like a burden; then take the group through the ‘under pressure’ visualisation. Use the script provided as a basis for the exercise.

ACTIVITY 2: Under pressure and worse

Ask people to make notes in their workbook (Activity 2, pages 4-5), then use the slide to ask them to link their thoughts and discussions.

o Look at the foot of page 4 and page 5 of your stress report, and at the description for your type under pressure in your workbook (Pages 7-14)

o Read the description of how others often see your type under pressure. What do you recognise in yourself?

o Discuss this in pairs or trios

o Suggest that they work with someone who has a different type, so that they can hear how people with different personalities react to pressure and stress

You could run through slides looking at the stress reactions of different types. These slides are also included in the workbook, so you can leave them to look at their own and others’.

15 mins

(105)

BREAK During the break spread the stressor cards around the room on the floor, as shown in the video.

Stressor cards

20 mins Under-standing

Identifying your stressors

Most people assume that when something stressful

Slides

Facilitator notes

9

Time Topic Content Materials

(125) stressors and energisers

happens in their life – a ‘stressor’ to use the terminology – then negative outcomes such as anxiety, dissatisfaction or poor health necessarily follow – ie that stressors cause distress. This simple idea is represented by the arrow across this diagram.

However, our focus today is on the different factors that can cut this link:

o The top green box refers to ‘environmental moderators’. These are resources or factors available to you that can moderate or buffer the impact of the stressor. The two that we focus on in relation to work-stress are opportunities for control and the provision of social support at work.

o The second green box refers to ‘personal resources’. These are factors within ourselves that can also buffer or moderate the impact of stressors to reduce or prevent distress as an outcome. Some personal resources are inborn and are reflected in our personality; others are coping strategies that we can learn and improve to manage stress more productively.

In what we are discussing today, we are not focusing on the minority of individuals who are suffering extreme and debilitating levels of stress (although the same model does work for these people), but instead we are focusing on the majority of workers, such as those who participated in the OPP survey, who are fully functional at work but do experience some level of stress that holds them back from performing at their best. Our proposition is that by enhancing the capacity for all of us to manage stress, we can all become more productive and create greater opportunities for growth and personal development.

Depending on the stressor

o We may be naturally able to cope with it

o We may have learned how to cope with it

o We may not cope well with it.

Of course there are some general trends as well. On the whole, some activities ARE more stressful than others.

MBTI types and stress triggers

Share this slide and some examples of things that people with different preferences are likely to find stressful.

As was mentioned earlier, different people react differently to stress, but also our personalities make a difference in terms of the things we find stressful or

Workbooks

Building Resilience

10

Time Topic Content Materials

energising. To take a simple example, people with an extraversion preference will be energised by spending time actively working with other people, but the requirement to spend long periods of time in focused individual work can trigger a stress reaction. The opposite will be true for someone with a preference for Introversion, who will tend to need time alone to recover from prolonged and intense social interaction.

ACTIVITY 3: Your stressors

o Ask people to circulate and pick up three cards that name things that are stressors for them

o Look at the cards and choose three things that you identify as stressors for you

o In trios discuss the words you’ve chosen and why; notice the differences with your group

o Review this alongside the information on page 6 of your report and the MBTI types and stress triggers in your workbook (page 17). Ask them to make notes in their workbook (Activity 3, pages 16-17)

o Ask for each trio to share something they have learned or noticed

ACTIVITY 4: Your energisers

o Now get everyone to stand in a circle around the edge of the room, take the energiser cards and say “let’s look at things that act as energisers”, throw the cards randomly into the air (this will take a few goes, don’t try to throw all together as they tend to stick in a clump!)

o Ask people to circulate, look at the cards and pick up three that show things that energise you

o In your group, discuss the words you’ve chosen and why you chose them

o Notice the differences within the group

They will work with the same trio as they did for stressors. Give them approx 5-8 minutes for discussion. When they have had chance to talk, ask for comments on anything they have noticed in comparing stressors and energisers.

o Pull out the differences between different types, particularly by dominant function

o Ask them to make notes in their workbook (Activity 4, page 20)

‘Under-standing stressors and energisers’ sheet

Energiser cards

Facilitator notes

11

Time Topic Content Materials

25 mins

(150)

Developing strategies for handing pressure and building resilience

Building resilience

Referring again to the factors that can moderate stress, we are going to look at how you can make the best of your own personal resources and your environment to reduce the impact of stress and build resilience for the future.

Three core strategies for resilience

Diane Coutu identified three core strategies in the Harvard Business Review article “How Resilience Works”:

o Accept the Reality

o Find a purpose

o Improvise

We may encourage people to be positive about difficult situations, but in her work, Coutu found that overly optimistic people don’t do so well as those who accept the reality of their situation. What she means here are people who believe everything will turn out right, but then get downhearted when things remain tough.

She quotes a survivor of the Vietnam prisoner of war camps, Admiral Jim Stockdale, who said that those who believed they’d be out by Christmas “seemed to die of a broken heart.” This is an extreme example, but also relevant to us all as it can bring a sense of waiting for something to turn out right, rather than taking stock and taking action.

Viktor Frankl, concentration camp survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, was interested in what helped some people survive while others perished. He noticed that survivors created their own meaning and purpose in their lives. In the midst of stressful times, it can be helpful to take time to think about the meaning of the situation, maybe consider ‘what am I learning and how does it fit with my beliefs and values?’

Finally, Coutu talks about improvising, finding ways to adapt by using resources creatively, working differently or making new connections.

Activities that build resilience

It is helpful to have these core strategies for resilience, but Coutu says less about how we can develop them. The American Psychological Association (APA) has created a set of “Top Tips” for developing resilience, which are shown here:

o Take decisive actions to act on adverse situations

Workbooks

Stress Management reports

Slides

Building Resilience

12

Time Topic Content Materials

o Look for opportunities for self-discovery

o Keep things in perspective

o Nurture a positive view of yourself

o Seek support through family and friends

o Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable

o Do things you enjoy and find relaxing

o Maintain a hopeful outlook

o Take regular exercise

o Accept that change is part of living

o Develop realistic goals and move towards them

Good advice, but while people will often talk to a friend or family member, they are also using less helpful strategies, such as watching TV, surfing the net, eating, and drinking alcohol. Let’s take some time to look at the activities you use to manage stress and build resilience.

ACTIVITY 5: My current strategies

Find a partner with a similar but not identical type and discuss the following:

o A stressful or tough situation you are faced with at the moment

o How are you managing yourself in this situation?

o What strategies are you using to manage the stress? Refer to your workbook and highlight any of those recommended by APA

o Refer to pages 7 to 9 of your report

o What other, less helpful, strategies are you using?

o How does this compare to how you usually deal with tough situations?

Looking at pages 7 and 8 can help you think about strategies that are particularly relevant for your type. It can also be useful to think about how you encourage others to be a help rather than a hindrance. Ask them to make notes in their workbook (Activity 5, pages 23-24).

20 mins

(170)

Action planning

ACTIVITY 6: What else could help you?

Make notes in your workbook (Activity 6, pages 27-28) of actions you will take to:

o Recognise when you are getting stressed

Workbooks

Flipchart

Facilitator notes

13

Time Topic Content Materials

o Manage tough situations

o Build your resilience

o Arrange participants in type-alike groups for this last exercise. If there are people without a same type group, try to get them in groups where they are similar in some way, eg same middle two letters.

o In your group create a flip chart showing some key actions you will take

o Be prepared to share these with the rest of the group

10 mins

(180)

What next? Review content of the day

o Ask participants to stand in a circle and say that each person will be asked to share something they have learned about themselves or others during the day.

o Use a small ball (such as a juggling ball) and say that you will throw it to someone to say their one thing. They should then throw it to the next person, who will share. This makes the process more dynamic and energetic than sitting following a formal pattern.

To close

o One thing you have learned about yourself or others today

Evaluations. Hand out evaluation forms and ask for people to complete them before leaving.

Close