I used to think that change resilience was primarily about personal inner strength. I was wrong. Change resilience is about an entire ecosystem that nourishes, challenges, encourages, supports, and then surprises each of us. 

Here’s the hard truth: change resilience is not about you; it’s about us, together, because our interdependency and connection is precisely at the heart of resilience. Building change resilience is a collective endeavor, especially within organizations. Allow me to explain why.

A Healthy Culture Creates Resilience

After years of practicing organizational change and observing countless leaders, I have concluded that one key characteristic of resilient people and resilient organizations is a healthy culture built on trust and mutual respect. 

What does a healthy culture offer us? A healthy culture offers us safety and connection. With every interaction, we are subconsciously asking ourselves (1) Am I safe here? and (2) Do people care about me? 

When we feel psychologically safe within a group of people and we feel like we are known and loved, our capacity for resilience expands. Safety, connection, and a sense of belonging is what others offer us through relationships, and we offer the same to others in exchange. 

Culture is not the corporate handbook. It is the set of values expressed through interactions with our colleagues. Culture is how we do our work, how we communicate, how we exchange ideas and feedback, and how we support one another. Workplace connections reinforce the organizational values, the acceptable behaviors, the spoken and unspoken rules of engagement, the motivation and inspiration and recognition, the norms, and the value we place on teamwork.

Create a change-resilient organization by nurturing a healthy culture. In my experience as a change management consultant, I have witnessed organizations with exceptionally healthy cultures as well as those that demonstrate extremely unhealthy cultures. Although one could agree that productivity suffers in unhealthy cultures, the human cost is extravagantly unimaginable. The symptoms of unhealthy organizations include lack of trust at the senior leadership level, misaligned departments, lack of communications and thus missed opportunities for engagement, secrecy and blame, shaming, micromanaging, and unproductive employees. 

When a team is dysfunctional, negativity trickles into the team members’ lives outside of work, impacting their families and communities in a negative way. The damage can be devastating. But the good news is that each one of us can do something about it.

You Can Still Make Individual Efforts to Improve Resilience

You may be thinking, But Pam, I can’t change culture! I’m just a manager trying to do the right thing, and I am constantly fighting with my peers to get what my team needs. What can I do to make a difference? 

Don’t give your agency away by surrendering! If the culture is toxic and dysfunction is evident in every department, then get out. Certainly, fighting your way through negative cultural norms will get you nowhere. Respect is essential for every working relationship, and if it’s lacking, your enjoyment of life will diminish. If your organizational culture is based on trust and respect, then you can set an example by how you lead and collaborate with your team.

In the book The Culture Code, author Daniel Coyle defines culture as “a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal.” Coyle offers a handful of practical suggestions for achieving highly successful cultures, including to:

• Overcommunicate your listening to ensure connection.
• Spotlight your fallibility to create safety.
• Embrace the messenger to encourage feedback.
• Preview future connection to inspire a vision of the future.
• Overdo thank-yous to affirm the relationships.
• Be painstaking in the hiring process to ensure fit.
• Eliminate bad apples to uproot unwanted behavior. 
• Make sure everyone has a voice to encourage inclusion.
• Embrace fun to increase safety and connection.

Everyone has a role in cultivating a healthy culture within organizations. Everyone can show gratitude. Everyone can extend trust. Everyone can display respect. Everyone can contribute positively to a shared vision. Everyone can, and that means you can too.

The Purpose of Change Resilience

Change resilience is foundational to your professional success and personal joy, especially when faced with something like fast and forced organizational change. It has transformed my life, and you can also enjoy its benefits. 

The purpose of growing your change resilience is not so that you can push harder, work longer, or fight tougher. The purpose for growing your change resilience is so you can discover strength to uplift and refuel your organization, to give you endurance and propel you beyond your perceived limitations.

Once you understand how you contribute to your organization’s culture, see whether your example and your influence can help each of your team members contribute positively to the collective culture as well. Together, you can make a big impact on how well organizational change is executed.

For more advice on workplace change, you can find Speak Up or Stay Stuck on Amazon.

Pam Marmon is the CEO of Marmon Consulting, a change management consulting firm that provides strategy and execution services to help companies transform. From executives at Fortune 100s to influencers at all levels, Pam helps leaders achieve lasting organizational change with minimal disruption. She is also the bestselling author of No One’s Listening and It’s Your Fault, a book that equips leaders to get their message heard during organizational transformations, and the creator of the LESS change management framework. Pam and her family live in Franklin, Tennessee, and chase adventures wherever the road takes them.