Your high performers might be agile, but are they resilient? If not, they can be at risk and may put your business at risk.
Be careful what you wish for…… Without a doubt, transformation is today’s mantra for business leaders. Speed and risk are the new normal and increasingly business leaders depend on high performing talent who are risk takers and willing to “fail fast” to grease the wheels of innovation.
But there is a tipping point effect – too much of a good thing. Constantly innovating, changing, and trying again can have a negative effect on even the most agile employees with significant consequences to business productivity and progress. In other words, for some employees being too agile can be as problematic as not being agile enough
The science is very clear
New research has identified these high-potential agile employees as being at great risk for burnout if they lack the foundational skills of resilience, which include emotional intelligence, stress management and self-care habits. This group is called the “Strivers”. They might be on a leadership track, but their stress levels are impacting their productivity.
Agile but underperforming
While this seems like a paradox, the answers lie in the interaction of two constructs which are often lumped together but which in fact are distinct and complementary. Agility is the ability to react and adapt quickly to changing conditions. Resilience is the ability to rebound psychologically (and physically) from challenging situations, like today’s chaotic and ever-changing business landscape.
Strivers suffer a risk of burnout that is seven times higher (44%) than the burnout risk of someone who is both highly agile and highly resilient (6%). They also have a 27% higher risk of depression, a 54% higher risk of performance-harming anxiety, and an average increase in absenteeism of 5.7 days a year. Lacking resilience skills, these highly motivated employees are at risk of losing more than a week of work time every year.
Resilience supports agile skills
Highly resilient people are 28% better able to adapt to changing circumstances and score significantly higher than peers on attributes associated with agility: critical thinking, creativity and willingness to learn. High resilience scores correlate to a 30% higher ability to respond quickly to unforeseen challenges, boosting that all-important agile quality — speed.
Burning the ship