Activating A Culture of Resilience in the Nonprofit Workplace

I’m excited to co-presenting a session at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference called “Activating A Culture of Resilience for Sustainable Impact,” with fellow NTEN board members, Ananda Leeke & Meico Whitlock as well as Carrie Rice.  This will be an interactive session and we’ll each be tackling a different aspect of resilience.  I’ll be talking about workplace rituals and the link to resilience.
The definition of resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficult situations.  But a culture of resilience about the collective way that people in the organization work together and how the treat each other.  Being a resilient organization is about your organization’s work culture – not just the results (which are, of course, are important), but the way the work gets done.  
A workplace culture that is stressful has links to illness, absenteeism, and there are dramatic drops in productivity. Research suggests that a “positive” work culture boosts effectiveness, resilience, and wellbeing.  
My topic area is about rituals in the workplace which create social connections and  many health benefits to individual staff members. And, on the flip side, as research by Sarah Pressman at the University of California, Irvine, found that the lack of social connections can have negative impacts on health.

Creating positive social connections at work offer a key productivity benefit: people are more likely to learn from each other, sharing and combining their thoughts more freely. Stronger relationships at work help us to feel more at ease in sharing our concerns and ideas, seeking new information, and can give us more confidence to speak out if there’s something that can be done more efficiently and effectively.
In my next post, I’ll share some examples of how different nonprofits have used rituals to boost effectiveness and build relationships all of which lead to more effective team work and more impactful results.
If you are attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference next month and interested in this topic, you are invited to our session, called “Activating A Culture of Resilience for Sustainable Impact.