MENTAL RESILIENCE: THE ROAD TO COMPANY HAPPINESS

FOR A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, MARC ROWLEY HAS CHAMPIONED THE IMPORTANCE OF COACHING MENTAL RESILIENCE IN THE WORKPLACE. NOW, THROUGH HIS CONSULTANCY, H.I.T. LEADERSHIP, COMPANIES ARE PUTTING HIS ADVICE INTO PRACTICE AND SEEING THE BENEFITS TAKE HOLD

I’ve been leading people the correct way for 25 years, using psychology and an understanding of human nature,” says Marc Rowley, a long-time advocate for the benefits of mental resilience coaching, who’s been encouraging business owners to understand its value. “That’s probably why I’ve been made redundant five or six times, as large corporate organisations don’t like to hear that!

One of the biggest responsibilities for any business owner is keeping their workforce engaged. Everyone has life stuff that can get in the way of their duties, but equipping employees with the tools to overcome such challenges can not only benefit them, but the business as well.

“People are starting to realise why it’s important, and many companies are engaging more with HR, seeing that if they work with empathy and humility, they can get the best out of people.”

Marc founded H.I.T. (Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency) Leadership to bring his knowledge and training to as many business leaders as possible. Aside from his years of corporate experience, he’s also a qualified councillor, an exprofessional boxer, and the creator of a practical self-defence course. He wears many hats, but it all points towards the same conclusion: mental resiliency is vital.

“It’s about reprogramming your brain to ignore the ‘chimp’ voice. The voice that tells you you’re awful, a failure or that no-one likes you –that’s your ‘chimp’, and it’s usually wrong. Once you can ignore that, if you encounter a setback, you can avoid going into crisis mode, and look for opportunities.”

Marc recently had an illness that left him in a wheelchair for a period of time. Rather than listen to the chimp that was telling him to give up, he looked for the opportunities that could arise from his situation.

“I’m big on strength training to look after my heart and body, but I couldn’t go to the gym, so I took the opportunity to look after my mind instead. I did research I’d not previously had time for, and took a few courses.”

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can often get in the way of your happiness, and that mindset can become all consuming. It’s important for employers to understand how to avoid this.

“It’s a known fact that a happier workforce is more productive. A happier workforce is more creative. A happier workforce is more engaged and will want to be part of the company’s journey.

“A lot of jobs have pressures like financial targets, deadlines, or angry customers. Mental resiliency can teach us to understand that these are not the most important elements of life. If you carry these burdens home with you, the stress can cause friction in your relationship, your children learn from those behaviours, and the cycle repeats into society.

“Reducing stress is so important. After 10 minutes of living in stress, it reduces your cognitive capability – your ability to think – by 50 per cent. It leaves you with brain fog or memory problems. Stress produces cortisol in the brain, which can affect your white blood cells and reduce your immune system. This is actually carcinogenic so has the possibility of causing cancer; it won’t happen to everybody, but the possibility is there.”

These are all symptoms that businesses should want to eradicate from their workforce. Regular overtime, taking work home, deadline anxiety, work overload, and client rudeness all cause more stress than they’re worth. Yet employees often wear it as a badge of honour.

“How often have you heard, ‘oh, I’m so stressed at work; I’ve had so much to do, I did three hours at home last night.’ Is that good? If you’re doing unpaid overtime, the company won’t know you’ve done that and the work has been done, so they think everything’s fine, and nothing changes.”

Marc’s Three Top Tips for Business Owners

RECOGNITION – Understand that your employees will get stressed and have a plan in place to combat this. A phone number they can call is a good first step, but it’s a sticking plaster and doesn’t address the systemic problem. Mental resiliency training can help to address this.

MENTAL HEALTH CHAMPIONS – A real difference can be made by having someone within your organisation who can recognise when people are struggling and who has the training to help them.

MEDITATION – This can take many forms. It could be anything from repeating a mantra that resonates with you over and over, to conscious breathing (breathing in for four seconds, holding it for five seconds, and breathing out for six seconds). It’s about taking time to focus on yourself and not letting the pressures of the world overwhelm you.

Entrepreneurs often place a huge amount of stress upon themselves. When you set up a business, it’s your baby, your vision. You know what it should look like and how you want it to run, but that creates a tendency to try and do everything yourself; the weight of which produces stress. If you can trust other people to help you, it will reduce this pressure.

“Understanding that you’re not good at everything, and other people can help you, is its own form of mental resilience. Trying to control everything and do it all yourself comes from a place of ego. But just because you think your way is better, doesn’t mean it is. And just because you’ve spent a lot of time on something doesn’t mean you’ve done it right.

“It’s known as ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’. You’ll keep going with something that’s failing because you’ve invested so much time/money into it that it feels foolish to give up – even though the smart choice would be to stop and change course. It takes a mental strength to recognise that.

“It’s the same in leadership: ‘I’ve been leading my business for 20 years.’ Yeah, but has that been any good? Having experience doesn’t mean it was good experience. And now there’s LinkedIn and Glassdoor, so if your company isn’t a good place to work, potential employees will know that and you’ll struggle to recruit.”

A mentally resilient, happy, supported workforce creates the environment that will help a business to thrive. There’s more on mental resiliency training at hitleadership.co.uk, where you can also learn more about Marc.