On Resilience

1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress;  2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.


We were inspired by the cover story in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine about kids' success. Specifically, about the value in failure and learning how to deal with it.

The piece also questioned whether focusing on perfect performance is overvalued, and cited some illuminating results of multi-year studies among middle-school kids and their longer-term success . . . or lack thereof. The gist: Kids who scored higher for traits like resilience (i.e., "grit") were more likely to attain more lasting and meaningful success than kids with higher grade-point averages and standardized test scores.

This sounded a lot like the central message of the famous Ken Robinson TED talk, in which he so brilliantly called for schools to rethink the fundamental principles of education itself. He states, convincingly, that we're teaching kids to fear making mistakes, and that fear systematically stifles creativity.

Think about it. A young child of say, four, will often make up the wildest, weirdest answer to a question that baffles. Ask a tough question to a 12-year-old, and the likely answer is "I don' know." Older kids have been taught to not take a chance on an answer that might be wrong; it's "safer" for them to shut down and not try to conjure up an answer.

If the education system focused more on rewarding kids for their strength of character—for overcoming obstacles with relentless dedication—we might be better served. The kids, certainly, would be better served, as the research in the Times piece makes clear. Grit makes good.

Here at Positively Writing we notice the companies, especially in our field of advertising/marketing, who make it a point to state they employ "nice" people. Polite. people. Respectful. This hits home for us (especially the notion of respect), because it speaks to the character of a person, not just his or her experience or college or industry awards. For us, the companies that hire people who will run through he proverbial brick wall are better positioned for long-term success than those who "require" MBA-level job candidates.

We tend to over-dramatize mistakes in business, perhaps because the spectre of money—or potentially losing money/clients—looms. Wouldn't it be more productive, for employees and companies alike, if mistakes were acknowledged as a way of life and we emphasized the value of learning from mistakes . . . and we did not imply that the mistakes had better not happen again?

Answer? Yes it would. We would all be better off long term and we'd be happier, too. Fear of failure can become insidious and can have deeply negative effects on a company's culture and on its employees. We know from painful experience: Going to work in a decidedly negative, threatening environment is a stifling, debilitating experience that makes people feel disrespected.

Our advice to the job seekers out there: Seek out companies with truly collaborative cultures that value the ideas that come from all of their employees—not just the "idea" people. And if the spirit moves, take a run at that proverbial brick wall once in a while; strange as it might sound, it couldn't hurt.