The Resilience Habits Every Leader Needs with Dr. MH Pelletier

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Speaker B: You're listening to Foresight, the weekly podcast about hr, M leadership and the future of work. We explore the ideas, trends and the real stories reshaping how work gets done. I'm your co host Mark Edgar, a former consultant and coach turned Chief People Officer on a mission to make work more human.

Speaker A: And I'm Naomi Teitelman, former big firm consultant and HR executive, now striving to make work better, one leader and one organization at a time. Every week we chat with top experts and dive deep into the issues facing HR and business leaders today, from retention and engagement to AI flexible work culture and leadership effectiveness with ideas you can use right now to lead with confidence into the future of work. Welcome to Foresight, uh, a podcast about HR leadership and the future of work. I'm one of your co hosts, Naomi Teitelman, and I'm joined today by our next special guest, Dr. Marie Helene Peltier. NH has over 20 years of experience as a leadership psychologist, executive coach and senior leader across industries and sectors. Her award winning book the Resilience A, uh, strategic approach to optimizing your Work performance and Mental health was named Top 5 Book to Read by Inc. Magazine. Anne Forbes, Congratulations. Most recently, MH brought this work to the TEDx stage at her talk Crossing the Resilience in the Age of AI where she explored what rapid technological change is demanding of leaders and organizations. Welcome to the podcast mh. It's great to have you here. How are you and where are you joining us from today?

Speaker C: Thank you so much nv. It is an absolute pleasure to be here with you. I'm joining from Vancouver, British Columbia where I live. I'm from Quebec City, hence the long French name. Complicated. But I live in Vancouver.

Speaker A: Very nice and we love to talk about weather. I'm here in Toronto. How's the weather treating you over there in Vancouver?

Speaker C: Wonderful today. Love it. Yeah, I always love it Though even when it's raining here, I'm one of those people who love the rain as well. So it is beautiful today.

Speaker A: I need more for you. I need more of you in my life. Our listeners and everyone in my life knows that the rain and I do not get along very well. When it's gray, I'm gray. But today it is bright and sunny and so I am very happy. And it's been really hot. Like it was like 35 degrees yesterday.

Speaker C: Oh, look at that. And that's one of the things I love about Toronto. You're getting at this warm temperature at this time of year, so.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So before we get started, we like to check in. So my check in question for you today is related to your work on cognitive load. So what's one cognitive tab? You call them cognitive tabs you want to close in your brain today. And how are you going to do that?

Speaker C: Well, that's a great question. I think for this conversation. I'm actually closing all the other tabs so that I can be fully here with you in this conversation. And the way I do this is, I mean, number one, that will make me enjoy this moment even more, but also is I'll just be very focused on what we do here in the present moment, what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, what, you know, all of these. So that can just be fully here in this conversation and knowing that the other tabs will be there for me after.

Speaker A: Yes. Fantastic. All right, well, let's get into it then and if you can first share a little bit about your career journey to where you are today and what compelled you to write the book the Resilience Plan.

Speaker C: Well, so I got here in part initially from the psychologist angle. That's where my training was. But I ended up working in workplace mental health early in my career and loved it, loved the aspect of the opportunity to be proactive, to be very practical, to be very focused, solution oriented. All these aspects really spoke, spoke to me. But then my work also allowed me, brought me to work in northern Quebec in very remote, isolated areas, which at the time brought the question of, oh, how, how can individuals who live in these locations have access to great expertise, great services? Now, all of this was prior to now with Zoom and everything else about 20 years ago. And so decided based on this to do research on what was called at the time telehealth. Can we use video conferencing to provide psychological services? Which most people were saying, why would anyone ever want to research this? Uh, why would anyone ever do this at all. So I explained all that and did that research. But through all this that required a lot of management and that sparked my interest in management and leadership. So that's why I then continued with the business school part of my training. And then with all this it brought me mostly in leadership roles in private and public sectors, which I loved as well, and brought me to work a lot with professionals and leaders at uh, times struggling with their resilience. And through the past almost 10 years I've been focusing on keynote speaking, executive coaching and still have a small practice as a psychologist. And the book came, the book came, it almost like, feels like as a result of all this really. But why at that specific moment there was, number one, it's right off the bat, acknowledge the challenge of so many professionals and leaders burning out and sometimes fully burning out, sometimes just sliding towards it and struggling and not having the enjoyment they used to have and all these things in the work that they do. So the challenge was there and then there was the mismatch between the support that is available in general and their reality. And so it's as if the standard approach of oh, do these things, it will help you kind of thing was just not matching the amount of demands that they're facing, the personality that they bring to what they do, the amount of ability to deal with challenging situations, high pressure moments one after the other, including uh, including product demands. And so all this together led to just that clear loud call that I heard to sort of say we need a framework that is proactive and written down in a way that can help professionals and leaders. In addition to the fact that when I was working with audiences and individuals in my one on one work, number of them kept, not kept, but said a few times. This is fantastic. This has changed entirely how I approach things. I wish I knew this sooner. And so after a few times of hearing that I wish I knew this sooner, which I totally understood, I thought, well I write it in the book, someone's going to know it's sooner. So that's how it came.

Speaker A: Fantastic. And your book starts with, and I think your TED Talk also explores a personal story about an eight day mountaineering adventure with your husband. Do you want to share share that story?

Speaker C: Yes, I'll give you the shorter version of that story and you're right, the full version is in the TEDx. But really what happened, it's the story itself and the link that I saw between that story and well, so many learnings. But one of them connects with the book and so what happened is, so Nick and I, we do a lot of mountaineering, walking in the woods, hiking, all of that and multi day ones as well. And so in that situation we had decided to go do an eight day traverse in the Canadian Rockies. So you get in somewhere and days later come out somewhere else. And um, but what happened is after four days of going up, we actually faced a situation that meant we could not keep going. So we made the decision to go back and it was a very frustrating, like tough decision, but also frustrating because you know, when you have your goal and this is where you want to go and, but we really had no choice and but what happened is that on the day one of this entire thing we had to cross a river. And because this entire traverse is a, ah, wild traverse, there is no human made structure on it. So to cross the river we have to go in the river. And we had successfully crossed it on day one, you know, had planned how we were going to do it, all the safeguards and, and everything went fine. But it was, it's not a small river. It was like you know, maybe 12 steps to cross the river. So significant, so some current and all this, but we could navigate. So we crossed that river fine. But when we came back, so now it turned out to be eight days later, the river itself, that same river was actually way bigger because this entire traverse was happening late June of a year that had received a lot of snow. That's in Alberta. And so now all the snow in the mountains was melting and so the river was now way bigger. And so when we got to this river, now in a very different state than day one, we're now exhausted, we're not working together, we're not doing the planning that usually we would in front of, uh, a challenge. We ended up not doing any of these things. I ended up almost drowning in that river. I could have died there, literally. Nick was able to save me. So yes, that's great. But then it's the after of all this, not in the moment. The moment you're just like, oh my God, this just happened. And can't believe I'm still alive. And that's wonderful. And I had that feeling for many days after the event. M. But then the learning came later where I was reflecting on how as professionals and leaders we're in general when things are going well, we're like on day one, the equivalent of day one, we have energy, things are going fine, everything's great. We actually naturally or deliberately, but we do think that will protect our overall Resilience, both individual, team, and even organizational. But where we're at risk is the equivalent of day eight, when in a work context we've got many things going on, we're exhausted, we're tired, often even on the personal life side of things, more things will be going on there, more people needing our support and all of this. And so then we get to a point where, no, we're not doing the things that usually would have protected us, we're not using resources, we're not doing any of these things, and that's when we're most at risk. So that's the story and the learning on that.

Speaker A: I'm, um, thankful that the story ended the way it did. And what powerful learnings. Because we all come across situations that we've done before in our sleep, right? Like we've done before. We could do it, no problem. We could do it with our eyes closed backwards, upside down, right. And then you encounter that very same situation when you're exhausted and you have no gas left in the tank. And it's a completely different situation. And you don't acknowledge that. So why is that blind spot so dangerous?

Speaker C: Well, it makes us, in a way just not pause and look at the context. It makes us disregard what is in front of us. And of course, the funny thing is, it's the equivalent in some ways sometimes I say this. If we were in a business context and we would not want to disregard what's going on, we would want to be the financial statements, look at even small changes on any line items to really try to understand what's going on. But if we're not looking at the context, it's similar to if we said, well, I don't need to look at the financial statements, just that, you know, if we're going bankrupt. Well, no, we would never say that. So same here. We don't want to just wait until we're at the end of our rope. We want to look at the context, take it into account in a realistic way. And an additional included in this. But specifically, one example of how we do this is that especially as highly capable and resourceful professionals and leaders, we have this natural tendency to underestimate the demands we're facing. Oh, yeah, I've got these few demands over here, you know, and overestimate the supply of energy we have. Oh, yeah, I do all these things. I go for walks, I eat well, I do all these things. But then if we really look at how things have been, say in the past two weeks, really, then people will say, well actually I have way more things going on on the demand side and well, no, I haven't had actually the chance to go for any walk. Well then we're m creating an uh, imbalance that we had not noticed until we pay attention in a realistic way. And sometimes you need an outside person to poke and in turn we do.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm a big fan of habit building. So like what do you do before, during and after that situation happens and turns dire?

Speaker C: Yes, love that, the, the habits. Because in terms, sometimes people think oh, uh, where to find the motivation to prioritize myself and that kind of thing. That's important. However, we know from research that ultimately will, what will make the biggest difference is the architecture, like the built in behaviors that so I would say we actually want to implement today, ideally a regular check in. So because we never know, you know, you're saying, you know, before, during and after. Sometimes we don't even know that something is coming in five minutes. Mhm. So, so we want to do this proactively. And so some people who are perhaps with us listening today are thinking, they are doing meditation, they are meditating on a potentially daily basis. So that's a great way because that's often built in that in your meditation you are taking a moment to reflect and be self aware and check in with yourself. That's built in. So that could be one way built in the habit of daily small meditation, even if it's four minutes, it's something. Another way may be to rent a calendar, put it at a place that you visit every night and every night it will take you one less than one minute actually you just write zero to ten scale. How were you feeling overall? That day literally will take maybe 10 seconds, not long. However, it forces that very small moment of checking in. So that way you can keep an eye on how you do it. Now if you are in a phase that you know is a very demanding phase, you could purposefully do check ins even more times, more often, three times a day each time you eat potentially or each time you wash your hands. Just built in moments, habit stacking. Right. Things you already do, you just add that, uh, check in for yourself which will increase the chance that you will notice things becoming challenging for you sooner, more proactively than when it's a big red light flashing saying can't do this anymore. Things falling through the cracks, you know, full like bottom of my tank type situation.

Speaker A: Mhm. Which is really, really hard to get out of at that point. You know, I'm, I, I I feel for, and have no patience for people who say, I don't have time to do that. Right. Because, you know, it takes 10 seconds of your time to potentially save lots of time in spinning and lots of time in, you know, worry and unproductive behavior.

Speaker C: I know. It's a. I, uh, think sometimes the. The notion of I don't have time, it can come from so many places. It's a bit glorified, you know, in society, to be entirely turned towards others. Sometimes. It's how people see. See their role as a leader, to be serving their teams, which in itself, of course, that makes great sense. However, if you are only in that and not in taking care of yourself enough to do that, then of course that goes too far. But, yeah, no, sometimes, I mean, even we see it in movies, the redemption story of the person struggling through something and on their own, just getting themselves out of things. Where really resilience is not just individual, it is systemic. So we need to think about so many aspects to shift how we're approaching it. And I would say that's especially important now as we are dealing with even more chronic demands of AI. The acceleration that, uh, AI and other emerging technologies are bringing, it's possibly one of the best investments we can.

Speaker B: Mm.

Speaker A: So on that. On that note about resilience and it not being an individual necessarily trait or thing, you know, we. We hear people say, oh, that person's so resilient, like it's a badge of honor. Right. You argue, and I agree with you, that you can develop personal resilience, and not just personally, but as a team and as an organization. So how do you go about doing that? Where do you start?

Speaker C: Yes. Well, first, that recognition that, uh, resilience is not a personality trait. It isn't. It's connected with some personality traits. So a bit, uh, that we see a research, uh, correlation between resilience as a state with a tendency to be more optimistic in general, which is a personality trait. Okay. Um, but even then, whether we tend to be optimistic or less optimistic, the reality is that it is a state. So something that will fluctuate through our lives, and therefore something we want to invest in. And yes, it is systemic. So in a workplace, we want to think of resilience as us individually, the kinds of things I can do for myself, the things that we can do as a team, and things that the organization can do. So to give you. To give us some example, as we're talking about this today from an organizational perspective, one of the ways to operationalize it it will depend. Right, because the best way for an organization to increase resilience in the overall group of people is to first create a mental health strategy and connect it with the business strategy. And all this will be very unique to each organization. Often though, it will in part include paying attention to the psychological health and safety of this overall workplace, for example. And then that drills down to very specific things we could be. How do we look at our workload, our engagement, our recognition, those various aspects related to psychological safety? In a team, same thing. We actually could be looking at that as well, uh, in a team, I would say, because it's just us, the leader, and as the members of the team, one of the ways to just increase our resilience might be to look at where are we already great at from a psychological health and safety perspective. And I would just say let's do more of that. Not even find the weaknesses and try to build. Yes, that's also another great, uh, opportunity. But to start, if we're already pretty good at respecting different perspectives or at recognizing each other, let's do that even more. That will help us. Another thing to consider in a team, very practical as well, is how about we plan a conversation about the next time we know that as a team we will have a very demanding time. So is it the end of this project in three months? Is this one time each year where we know everything happens there and we tend to just put our head down and try to survive it? Well, what can we do proactively to plan for this next round to feel different? What can we do the month before while we're in it and after to recover even better? So now we're right, taking a more proactive, deliberate, intentional approach to these demanding times. That's a way to increase our resilience. And then on the individual side, there are the things we know, but we want to be strategic about what behaviors we may want, uh, to implement more?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's so helpful because I'm thinking back to my days when I was in corporate HR and you know, year end process, for example, is a very, very strenuous time of the year. And we never really, we planned for the work and we planned for the communication, but we didn't plan for the resilience plan. In fact, like, the only thing we really mentioned on that front was after this is over, I'm taking a vacation.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Like that's the only thing we did. But I think, you know, planning for this as a team in advance just allows a lot more room for you Know acceptance and teamwork versus oh, that person has different objectives than I do. Or a, uh, hidden agenda.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Which sometimes comes up when people are short with each other. People, you know, seemingly don't have time, are too stressed. Those kind of things come up and if you have the conversation in advance, it's like, oh yeah, I knew this was going to happen. I know this is how certain people behave in these situations and I have a plan for it.

Speaker C: That's right. It feels like day and night. Often that that's what themes will say. And what you're describing is something I'm sure probably most people listening to you right now just nodded their head like, yeah, this is how we do as well. Right. But, but it is shifting our approach to one where we have way more agency, we have more influence. It increases engagement, it increases. Yes. Compassion towards each other and how we tend to respond. And so, uh, sort of better at, at all levels. And ultimately as we do these things, they, yes, proactively help with our resilience in that system. But we actually know from research it decreases risks of burnout. So it's not the only variable. There are many variables, a complex equation, but it is one of them. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, and we, we have time for this. Right? Like we, we need to make time for this. And it might feel like, let's acknowledge it might feel a bit corny and cheesy at the beginning, but you know, just try it, just try it once and, and see how it goes and see if you feel better. So let's shift to talking about cognitive behavior management. So, so the idea that our own thought patterns are often working against our resilience without us even realizing. So what are the most common cognitive traps you see in leaders specifically? And how do they show up at work?

Speaker C: Yes. Well, so, so many ways. The reality. Right, then just to start on that conversation, is that we all, everyone, leader, non leader, humans, basically any person will at times have thinking patterns that are not so helpful. A lot of the time they're helpful, thankfully. That's great. However, sometimes we spiral down. We spiral in anxiety, we spiral in frustration, in mood, going down, in guilt, shame, whatever, different emotions. And when that happens, and they all have their place, uh, these emotions, but sometimes the thinking actually makes them more intense, worse than they need to, to be, which then influences our feeling, feel worse than we need to feel, feel, and then we behave worse than we need to behave. So it will happen to all of us. In terms of professionals and leaders, I mean, most humans, again, I'm Going to start from all of us. We tend at times to do a bit of all or nothing. The way to identify this is we're going to have words that are fairly extreme like oh, this will never work or m, everything I try fails. Yeah. So it's like all over one at one end or the other, reminding ourselves that really most life is happening in the gray, not in those two extremes. Another tendency to have thoughts that are not so helpful, especially for leaders, is that tendency to personalize. So this is not working and it's all my fault. I screwed up. I didn't do this right. I failed on my team or you know, I failed period. And you see how some degree of uh, taking things personally, taking responsibility, actually part of what makes a great leader, taking it for the team, taking responsibility, being proactive, that's wonderful. But if we push this too far, not recognizing that in these situations there were other variables, there were other people, there were other parts of the context, then we may be putting on our shoulders an amount of responsibility like uh, personalizing basically that actually not realistic, not fair to us or the situation. And then not only it makes us feel worse, but it's actually not helping fix it. There is no, no positive, it's not helpful. So these are two examples that often leaders will, will experience.

Speaker A: Mhm. So what do you suggest leaders do instead?

Speaker C: I know what do we do right? And you know, I'll say it and you'll probably, also you and others are with us will probably recognize how sometimes we actually do this already. We just want to do it even more often and more proactively. A way to summarize what to do with this is often to number one catch that we're having that thought. Sometimes they happen so fast that we don't even realize we're thinking it. So paying attention to realizing that we are thinking it is a good important first step. Once we know this, then is asking ourselves, wait a second, do I know this 100% sure. So let's say the thought was this will never work. Then I asked myself, well, do I know this 100% sure. And of course the 100% is what catches you, right? You feel. I say yeah, but realistically, like really 100%? Well, no, uh, I don't see how it's going to work right now. I don't think, uh, there is a solution, but it doesn't mean there isn't. I've been surprised before, so I don't know how to solve this. There may be a solution. I'm going to go and talk to Naomi. Maybe the two of us talking will give me some ideas. You see how already just because I distanced myself a bit, still seeing that I don't know how to solve this right now, but now less rigidly at ah an extreme then it allows me to think and puts me in a better position to be resilient about it.

Speaker A: Great.

Speaker C: That's an example.

Speaker A: We're going to take that thought and apply it to HR because a lot of our listeners are HR leaders and are often the ones holding the well being agenda. While also you know the concept of need to put on our own oxygen masks before we help other people. We're a very burned out portion of the, of the organization at times. So what's the single most impactful thing HR ah can do to build more resilience for themselves and support building more resilience in their organization that they support?

Speaker C: Well, the single. It's a big question. And you know, because uh, and I'll say this, what I see in my work and what we know from research that often the actual one best next thing will be very specific to each context. So I have to say this first because it will depend. It's not always going to be the same thing. But if I look at but still to play along and answer the question I would say it's the modeling, it's what are you doing for yourself? But then turn it into a message for others as well. And that's true for HR leaders, it's true for other leaders and but it is very important for leaders specifically to do this because sometimes we're in a leadership role and we very much see ourselves as an equally important member of the team which is great that, that, that allows us to be like we're all together, all equally important that we are. Yes. At the same time the behavior of the leader of a team by the virtue of having that title. I know you know this as HR leaders, but do we do it? Not necessarily. So we have to remember the importance of uh, the model you're sending. If you're going on vacation saying I'm on vacation, taking time off and not reading emails, call me if needed. Don't read the emails. If you are looking at the emails, don't respond to the emails because if you do you've now undone what the boundary you were trying to set for yourself but also the message you're sending for your team. And so another more everyday example, if Monday morning you're checking in with someone and we're asking each other how was your weekend, for example? And let's say you went for a nice walk by the water or a nice walk, uh, in a park. And you mentioned this, you could just say that, right? Went for a nice walk by the park. What you could also do is say, you know, I went for a nice walk in the park and made sure I kept that walk as planned, even if I had so much to do. Because I know how many very exciting but still demanding things we have to work on this week. So I wanted to make sure I build my resilience even more. So now it's the same thing. Didn't take much longer, but now you've shared a bit more vulnerability to some degree and modeling and contributed to a culture where we do these things for ourselves as individuals, but but also as a team.

Speaker A: I really like that. I really like that a lot. And even bringing it into the workplace. Right. I went for a walk by the water and I know we have no water by here, but would you like to go with me on a walk for 10 minutes later to clear our heads?

Speaker C: Right. Yeah, exactly. Great example. Love it.

Speaker A: Let's do it. Well, we are getting to the end of our time together so uh, before we go, I would love to just give you the opportunity to share with our listeners how they can learn more about the great work you're doing.

Speaker C: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, they can go to theresilienceplan.com that's the name of the book but it connects with everything that I do and so you'll see everything there. You could Also connect on LinkedIn. Always love seeing what your conversations are about and then you'll see our conversations we can all share. So that's also a great place to connect.

Speaker A: Fantastic. And we will include that in the show notes and always end on a good note. So otherwise known as a feel good. So what are you feeling good about today? Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, one of the things that. Okay, mini background. Uh, when I worked on my book there was a moment where resilience was getting a bit of a not so good reception. Almost like in, especially in the workplace, it was like, well what now we have to build more fortitude or persistence and we're even less paying attention to the human. It was a misperception really, but that was a bit of that. But being the in part academic and also practical leader that I am. But it is the concept, that's what's important. Since then that sort of backlash has very much decreased thankfully. And what makes me very happy today is to see organizations move resilience not even from an important health related aspect, which in itself would have lots of value, but to see how it's actually become leadership infrastructure. This is what's needed for individuals and leaders to to bring their best decision making and judgment and and navigating the various demands that they're facing. Seriously, this makes me so happy because it also means we're going to at some point see less burnout as people deal with this even more. Not because it's all in the individual, it's a systemic concept, but with the concept getting better, appropriate understanding, it will, uh, save a lot of burnout. And that makes me very happy.

Speaker A: That's great. Yes. Cheers. To less burnout for sure.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, it was so great to chat with you today on the Foresight podcast. Mh. It was a delight to meet you. Until next time everyone. Take care. Thanks for listening to Foresight. If you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you. Leave us a review Wherever you listen

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