What Is Your Level Of Vigilant Resilience?

In this episode, I’d like to talk about ‘The Paradox of Vigilant Resilience’. And that’s the tendency to be optimistic, while also looking out for potential and emerging threats. In order to be able to recover quickly from any setbacks while maintaining effective strategies. It’s one of the 12 behavioural paradoxes developed by Dr. Dan Harrison. Now, if we take a paradox as two statements which seem to be contradicting one another, and yet are both true. We can take a behavioural paradox, as two traits or behaviours that seem to be opposing or contradicting one another. And, yet when they come together, form something synergistic. 

Optimism

So, the traits within The Paradox of Vigilant Resilience are Optimism, which is the belief that the future will be positive.

Analyse Pitfalls

And Analyse Pitfalls, which is the tendency to scrutinise the difficulties related to a plan or a strategy. 

Blind Optimism

Now, if were a very high in Optimism, but low Analyses Pitfalls. We can end up in the Blind Optimism quadrant. And that means that we may believe that the future will be bright, and we may inspire confidence in others and deflect pessimism. If we neglect the valid concerns of others, that confidence can be quickly undermined. And people may even think that we’re deluded. And we may get some very expensive surprises. 

Sceptical

Where if we’re very high on Analyses Pitfalls, but low on Optimism, we can be seen as very ‘Sceptical’. We may believe that we’re the only ones with a realistic attitude in the room. We may be wanting to prevent expensive mistakes. However, we can be seen as overly pessimistic and missing out on valuable opportunities. And, that if we’re seen as overly negative, it can undermine our well-being, and can undermine our career prospects, and put us in a spiral of negativity. 

Realistic Optimism

So, what we want is Realistic Optimism, where we’re able to be optimistic and inspire confidence and resilience in others. And we can also be mindful and watch out for any emerging threats and take appropriate action to adjust what we need to in order to be able to succeed. Means that we can be able to learn from trial and error and be effective in the long run. 

So, what I’d like you to do is to consider, where are you on this quadrant or on this Paradox? And, where are your team? So, that you can stay in Realistic Optimism and achieve success. 

Because above all, Stay Curious! 

With best regards,

David Klaasen

Talent4Performance help business leaders clarify complexity. We inspire people and drive continuous performance improvement, so they can convert thinking into action and results.

©David Klaasen – 2022