In my job (HR), I’ve had a myriad conversations about, and attended loads of workshops on resilience but I came across a quote from from Sheila Mcnamee and Ken Gergen today that nails it! However, they weren’t talking about resilience per se, they were talking about relational responsibility*!
Here’s what they said:
To live life at all is to confront conditions that are nettlesome, disappointing, irritating, and downright devastating. The problem then is not that we confront the problematic but, rather how we respond.
(Mcnamee & Gergen, 1999)

Here’s my eureka moment!
Resilience is a relational achievement, not an individual skill or competence that you acquire!
______________________
*Mcnamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility [electronic resource] : resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Sage,.
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I am a ‘People Practitioner’ who has, over the years, been swept up by the tidal wave of change that has seen my profession go from being called Manpower Management to Personnel Management to Human Resource Management, and now back, well sort of… to Systemic People Management. I came up with the last phrase because I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with working within the confines of the ubiquitous neo-liberal approach to categorising and organising people. I believe that people are people, not merely assets, human capital or resources. While we do find fulfilment from PRODUCTivity, we are ultimately human beings, not human doings. I would like to transcend who we have become and becoming in a marketized, monetarised world and leave the corporatist worldview that reminds me so much of the allegory of Plato’s Cave.
I love God, my family, playing guitar, following Arsenal, travelling and taking and editing photos. This website is a celebration of all these things and more.
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