How one busy CEO developed a model for practical resilience

How the leader of an Organizational Development consultancy found herself unexpectedly drained during Covid, pushing her to develop a deceptively simple way to build resilience into our routines.

I’m excited to share another guest post with you this week. Guest posts help me share the stories of other searchers, learners, transformers, thinkers and recovering overachievers, so we can learn from their perspectives, lessons, and ideas. I want to amplify our community and help demonstrate the beauty of a life lived messy— learning, growing, and doing, on whatever terms make sense for each of you.

After 10 years of experience working in politics, plus a Masters in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Lindsay joined Yarbrough Group in 2015 in order to help others build and maintain sustainable high-functioning teams. I’ve always known Lindsay to take a direct, honest, and powerful approach to growing others. It makes complete sense to me that today she works on organizational and human development challenges spanning culture, leadership, agreements and team dynamics. Anywhere there are people talking to each other, or to themselves, her work fits in. 

Her article today introduces a very cool framework she developed to help pull herself out of a pandemic induced slump, which she is now turning into a book! It’s a great tool anyone can put to use for themselves. It’s a story I’m excited to share since I hope you’ll find it as helpful as I did. 

Here are her words:

Practical Resilience: How I discovered a deceptively simple way to build resilience into our routines.

I never meant to go into the family business. I was going into politics. 

My mom founded her business in Organizational Development and Conflict the year I was born. My dad joined when I was 7. 

I thought all families sat around the dinner table talking about team dynamics and how to navigate conflicts. So, since everyone already knew how to have healthy debate, understood power dynamics, bias, and that having hard conversations helps keep conflicts from happening, what work would there be for me to do? 

My plan was to create policy that positively affected people, and show voters how to affect policy. Or maybe I would find a way to fix the problem that for some people, striving for the American Dream drives them to vote against their interests. Or maybe I would work at an embassy dealing with cross-cultural communication. Regardless of what I did, it would surely be totally different from my parents.

Why did my bosses build a team?

For 10 years I worked in domestic and international policy as well as on election campaigns. At each job, I was confused why no one was using their knowledge of high functioning teams to lead. 

Election campaign teams would work around the clock, scraping together enough energy to make it to the first Tuesday in November. We would all burn out together in a mighty flame and then go our separate ways. 

Then when I worked on policy, the groups were made up of highly intellectual individuals. We operated like independent trains - we didn’t know if we were on the same track, different tracks or even if we were headed to the same destination. Some work would be duplicated. Some work would never get done. Other work had nothing to do with any goals the leaders saw as important. The leaders did nothing to build us into a cohesive team. 

I was astounded when bosses would flip from totally hands off to micromanaging. Like many young employees undergoing a rude awakening to the dysfunctional world of modern work, I thought it should be obvious: Didn’t they know that behavior like that undercuts trust? I can’t learn what they want if they won’t show me and then let me try. 

Reflecting back to dinner table conversations with my parents about just such issues, I knew there was a solution, quietly wondering: Why weren’t we setting expectations up front? And why were we shying away from conflict rather than talking about what we were experiencing, so we could figure a way through together?

I was perplexed when no one thanked others for their work, or when we didn’t stop to celebrate accomplishments. I knew the deadline was moved, but we needed to take stock of all the good work we had done. Why didn’t we stop to review all we had done and catch our breath?

I was working so many hours on one project that my boss, instead of making sure I was ok, asked me to bill fewer hours so it wouldn’t look so bad to HR. It felt like a punch in the gut. The only person who seemed to care at all was someone from payroll who sent me a thank you note, saying they hoped I was doing ok.

I got so tired of this thankless culture that at one job, I started keeping Dove Dark Chocolates in my desk drawer. They have nice little sayings on the inside of the shiny wrapper. On Monday I would put 5 in the front area of my drawer. I would try to give them all out to people by noon on Friday, with a “thanks for [something specific they did that was helpful].” 

A lightbulb started to glow in my mind–it wasn’t that our leaders knew and weren’t doing it. It was that they didn’t know. 

I went to get my Masters in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, which gave me words for these gaps, and I started to see there might be a way for me to use my experiences to make this hard work a little easier. Afterwards, I worked to mitigate conflict around the world, supporting hard conversations among Members of Parliament in over 20 countries, as well as global and domestic policy makers. I supported healthy debates. I brought an understanding of power dynamics into the conversation, integrating the role bias plays. Yet I still saw more I could do.

The teams remained hampered by poor leadership in these environments. The way we worked blocked our ability to do our best. I would take steps to help build sustainable high-functioning teams, but my boss would get in my way, saying, “that’s not how we do things.” 

The little lightbulb that had started to glow in my mind before getting my masters degree was back, getting brighter and brighter now, illuminating the gaps between where people were and where they could be. 

I wanted to build a system that might actually support them to do more than survive, but to thrive, to bring their full talent to the table, with less burnout and better outcomes.

And so, in 2015, I joined the family business after all. 

Growing as an Organizational Development and Conflict Consultant

My dad had retired in 2004 following a life-altering stroke, which impacted all of our lives and ultimately inspired my mom to write a book, called Treasures in Trauma. Helping her write portions of the first few chapters describing his stroke while we were kayaking in a remote river area became another step in my own understanding of myself. I learned more about my own strength and the power of my family, because we had always communicated so clearly. 

After that, my mom carried on running her business, Yarbrough Group, but by 2015 she had started winding the business down. So, when I joined, I built my own practice. I soon found myself traveling across the US, working with a range of organizations and teams, from individual executives to nonprofits to multinational corporations. 

My mom and I taught (and still teach!) a course on Leading with Power and Authenticity. We taught (and still teach!) how to use her Genius Team model to build a high functioning team. And now I’ve added courses I teach on my own as well as working with organizations.

It is amazing to have so much time and connection with my mom. A lot of people’s parents don’t seem to really understand what they do, let alone have the opportunity to work together. It’s a gift that my mom and I get to share our expertise and support the things we do, both together and separately. 

By 2018 and 2019, I was so busy I was gone more than I was home. A pair of friends took care of my dog so often their phone number was on his dog tag!

I was constantly on the go. I hardly stopped to catch my breath, but I was so energized by what I was doing, I didn’t mind a bit. I got to watch people fall back in love with their jobs. I got to support teams as they worked through their challenges so they could transform from merely limping along with broken wings to flying high together.

Buckets of Resilience: A Model for Self Management

In March 2020, the world changed. For me, it meant my calendar of in-person workshops, trainings, and coaching suddenly went from being almost totally full, with only a few weekends at home, to empty. All trips canceled.

Then, after this initial lull, my weeks started to refill at a breakneck pace. I had meetings back-to-back-to-back with people who were totally drained and looking for solutions. Most of them felt like they shouldn’t express their feelings of sorrow and stress because we were the lucky ones still alive at a time when there was so much suffering and death. 

The world was on fire. I was simply trying to get by, rolling through all the changes without really noticing how they were affecting me personally. 

I was working at a furious pace moving my business online to the extent possible. Evolving in-person workshops to be virtual, having to keep them engaging without losing impact. Inviting coaching clients to Zoom rather than to my living room, with few non-verbal cues and a lessened ability to connect and comfort others.

After months of lockdown, and all these changes, I found myself drained and tired. My “covid-tini’s” weren’t fun anymore. I was the person who was supposed to help people “think differently” and “see it from different angles” but now it was me who was running out of angles. 

I’d always thought I was a resilient person. I had always been able to keep going even when times were tough. But I couldn’t find joy. 

Before lockdown, grocery shopping was a joy. I would buy a few necessities and a few treats to last me the few days until my next trip. Now, I was trying to figure out what to buy that would last for weeks at a time, and it was terrifying to go to the store and see the empty shelves.

Having a whiskey in the bathtub to recover after every grocery store trip was looking less and less sustainable.

I started to consider how I had kept going for so long before, when I was constantly busy and on the go. I made a list of things that had made me happy and tried to sleuth my way through my own brain. 

My list included all the little things and big things that brought me joy. Seeing other people. Travel. Connecting. The process of traveling. Being in different places. Sitting quietly on an airplane. Working with passionate people. Walking through an airport. Seeing my parents who were still in Colorado, while I lived in DC. Delicious meals. Did I mention I liked the actual process of going to an airport, getting on a plane and being in motion? 

I finally realized that I had always gotten my alone time for reflection in airports. As I walked through the terminal and along the concourse I would almost feel a moving meditation on what mattered to me, where I was going, who I would see, and what impact my work would have. Sitting in the plane I would relax, watch a movie, and slow down from the rapid pace I lived at most of the time. I saw people so much of the time, that was my real alone time. 

Of course! How had I not seen this before?!?

The recharge space that I didn’t even know I was using was gone. Of course I didn’t realize my “sudden” lack of resilience was connected to my lack of active reflection time. I needed to find ways of building this back in, and fast. I started experimenting to see what worked for me from what I had been doing and what I might try.

Like many of us, the first week I organized something, I went for “walk and talks” with friends where we would be on a call together and walk for 30 min wherever we were. It felt like we were on a walk together. 

When there was no milk at the grocery (which I need for my coffee, which I also need) I bought whipped cream. The feel of shaking the can reminded me of birthday parties or cold winter nights with hot chocolate. I delighted in the feel, sound, and sight of the swirling mound of fluff being created on my coffee. After this, it became a routine. Every day when I pulled it out of the refrigerator I would take the time to bask in the whole process. 

I started paying attention to all the new little ways I was caring for myself. Soon my friend Sally, who also has a background in Organizational Development and conflict, pointed out to me that I was onto something good here. I had broken down the hard problem of rebuilding my resilience into actionable steps.

So we did the obvious thing for two social science nerds: we decided to build a resilience model.

We figured the right framework would help ourselves and others take necessary actions to rebuild their resilience. Not just for now, but through an on-going personal check-in process that would more systematically keep us from hitting the wall again and again. Our shared backgrounds made the process fun. And it was exciting to create something we knew would help people through this difficult time.

Resilience Buckets - A Practical Model

Resilience has been thrown around a lot since the pandemic. There have been lots of articles claiming some people “just have more!” or some are “better at it.” But I think it has more to do with having the tools to notice life in a different way when things are the hardest– which is also the hardest time to slow down and become aware.

The American Psychological Association says “resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” 

For me, it is about knowing the steps to take, even when you feel like you are skating as fast as you can on thin ice because if you stop you’ll surely fall through. Or when you’ve been straining to hold it all together for so long that you’re certain that if you move a muscle everything will fall apart. Those are the moments we most need to find ways to refill our resilience buckets.

My resilience model breaks out the seemingly intangible concept of resilience into four very hands-on buckets:

• I did it! (accomplishment, starting something, finishing something)

• I feel good! (body care and pampering)

• I like them! (relationships and connection)

• I’m here. (mindfulness, spirituality, presence).

The four bucket names are what you might exclaim after an activity that refills that bucket.  Prior to March 2020, most of us had many ways of refilling our buckets. Like me, you might not have even known what they were. So, this model gives us a way to notice and name the benefits of things we do.

Once Sally and I developed this model, I sat down and figured out what I was doing that was working for me, and which bucket it fit into. 

• Organizing things filled my “I did it!” bucket.  

• Whipped cream on my coffee added to both “I feel good!” and “I’m here!” 

• “Walk and talks” with friends filled all four, if I did it mindfully! 

Step by step, I used what I had already been doing to notice my life differently so I could deliberately build back my reserves of resilience, even without access to airports!

Looking at my buckets helped me get clear on and meet my own needs, so I could better help others. The fresh burst of energy I gained from these new practices in resilience then helped me get through the challenge of revamping my whole business into a digital, lockdown friendly one. 

I created several new workshops, including one about finding your career path, called (re)imagining your career. It had been in my mind for a while, but I hadn’t yet figured out how I would get a group to the same place for a weekend. Now I built it entirely for the virtual setting, giving me flexibility to use a longer timeline and to use my new roster of tools from interacting with clients online. I felt like myself again.

How and When to use the Resilience Model Yourself

In working with people all around the world, it has become clearer and clearer that we cannot do complex problem solving without first tending to our own needs. 

Particularly if the members of a team are burned out, exhausted, and have not had time to build up their resilience reserves, they can’t show up and be their best team-member selves. We all know that feeling. 

Luckily, because of my own experience, I now know that when we are at our messiest we can still create spaces for our resilience buckets to refill. In fact, that is when we most need to take this kind of action.

But you don’t have to wait to be on empty to use the model. In fact, don’t wait! I use it regularly to check in with myself. Have I done something in the past week that refills each bucket? I tend to easily fill up “I like them!” but there are times when I’ve gone a bit without seeing key friends and I know it’s time to make a dinner plan! 

I find it hardest to fill the “I’m here” bucket. So I challenge myself to sit quietly for 5 min and focus on my breathing, or I notice a beautiful flower on my morning walk with my dog and daughter. It isn’t taking an Instagram ready picture. It is about noticing the beauty of this particular moment and basking in it. 

For “I feel good!” I try to treat myself and to move a little more. Working out has always been a last resort. But a little longer walk in the morning, or a little dance party in the middle of the day make me feel like I’m paying attention to my body and refilling my bucket.

“I did it!” is the easiest for me because I start, stop, and finish things often. Filling this bucket is about remembering to celebrate. I celebrate that I did start something new! That I did stop doing something I didn’t want to do! That I did finish something! I now take a mini celebration moment for these kinds of things.

To put this kind of resilience work into practice for yourself, start by identifying activities that fill up each of your resilience buckets. What works for you might not work for someone else. (That’s the whole point - finding what works for you. It isn’t a competition.) Then bring your attention to checking whether the actions you take actually refill you. 

The steps are easy enough:

1. Notice what you do already that fills your buckets. 

2. Plan what you might do to fill your buckets.

3. Actually do something with an intent to be present differently.

4. Come up with a few new activities that might support you.

5. Do those things.

While some activities may refill only one bucket, others might refill a few buckets or all buckets. One thing isn’t “better” than another. They’re all good! You don’t have to refill every bucket everyday. In fact carrying 4 full buckets is a big challenge! Instead, it is about knowing yourself a little better.

Over time, you’ll notice it becomes easier and easier to see what brings you joy, what you feel like when you are burning out, or what you can do to mitigate burnout before it has you in its grips.

Fill Up Your Buckets

I hope that as you journey on your way through this messy life, you find authentic ways to support yourself in becoming your most resilient self. 

As the title says, this is deceptively simple. All it takes is doing it. Yet that is always the hardest part. 

Paying attention to your resilience means that you have more resources on hand when you hit a hard patch. It doesn’t mean there won’t be a hard patch. Covid hit us all. The resilience buckets gave me something to ground myself so I could get through. 

When my dad was hospitalized with Covid I was terrified. And because I had been paying attention to my buckets for 6 months, I knew who to call, how to focus my attention, and how to care for myself so I could get through– as the American Psychological Association says– “successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences.” 

I truly believe that when we have our buckets filled we are able to be more present to ourselves and others. When we’re filled up, we can become our own best teammates for all our endeavors. I believe it so much that I’m in the process of writing a book about these buckets. 

I hope this supports you in getting out there and catching fire with your own greatness. The world deserves to see your light shine!

-Lindsay

For announcements about Lindsay’s soon-to-come book on Resilience, stay in touch with her here!