In 2015, ten years after Hurricane Katrina, Paul Ramnauth Algu of Louisiana State University studied resilience in New Orleans residents. He wrote, “at its core, resilience is defined by reaction to disturbance.” One of his key findings is that “adaptive and organizational learning are among the most important of strategies needed to build resilience.”
We can learn resilience, just as we can learn the related skill of creativity – through practice. It first depends on the choices we consider and the decisions we make. Algu’s research supports this idea. He wrote, “an organization has three paths when faced with a crisis: learn no lessons from the crisis and risk repeating the same mistakes which led to the crisis, take steps to mitigate the impact of the crisis and maintain a system as close to the normal state as possible, or adapt and react to the crisis in a way which builds resilience and allows for a proactive response during the next crisis event.”
So, my question to all of us rebuilding our inner and outer lives in the wake of massive disruption, is this — In what ways are you, your family, your team cultivating resilience as daily practice?
