Resilience has long been recognized as a pillar of professional and personal success, as it allows individuals to weather adversity and overcome setbacks.

It’s a quality organizations desire as well, with 57% seeing it as a critical skill that candidates must possess. 71% also view adaptability, a core component of resilience, as another essential characteristic.

The traditional perspective sees this concept as synonymous with “bouncing back”—a return to normalcy after conquering challenges. This, however, isn’t enough in today’s dynamic business environments.

Today, we’ll be tackling a more progressive stance: “bouncing forward”—a mindset that regards adversity as a catalyst for growth and innovation rather than mere recovery.

To help you understand this modern outlook, we’ll explore its nuances, then explore strategies that will instill this attribute into your workforce and organization.

What is bouncing back?

Bouncing back is the conventional understanding of resilience, referring to a return to the status quo after experiencing a business disruption. It focuses on restoring operations, stability, and productivity to pre-crisis levels.

Benefits of bouncing back

Despite being more traditional, this approach still has its advantages:

Restabilization

An emphasis on quick recovery helps teams regain their footing after difficult times, minimizing company downtime and maintaining customer relationships.

Rebuild employee morale, ensure operational continuity

Unprecedented professional setbacks induce high levels of stress and uncertainty, as one’s livelihood could be put at risk. The possibility of financial instability impedes worker well-being and performance as well. The National Library of Medicine found these to result in:

  • Productivity dips
  • Absenteeism
  • Less innovation

Reinstated systems and routines, however, offer a sense of comfort and familiarity, reassuring employees that their lives are returning to normal. They also ensure core business functions resume promptly, maintaining overall productivity.

Risk management

A break in your business’s continuity can cost an astounding $137 to $16 thousand per minute. By restoring regular activities, you contain the damages of adverse events, prevent further losses, and mitigate associated risks.

Drawbacks of simply bouncing back

Reverting to the status quo, however, does pose some downsides:

Limited growth, missed improvement opportunities 

A recovery-focused mindset prioritizes an immediate return to the previous state rather than progressing beyond it. Solely emphasizing this aspect, however, can cause you to overlook valuable lessons that point to improvement and innovation.

For instance, the Harvard Business Review reports finding decision-makers and organizations who approach failures the wrong way to fall into the trap of:

  • Investing in strategies that don’t help
  • Overlooking plans of action that do help
  • Not recognizing bad processes, especially when they drive good outcomes

Risk of complacency

As business environments continually change, so do the challenges associated with them. Companies that lean on bouncing back from adversity, however, encourage a reactive rather than proactive approach.

Since adaptability is known to help one bounce forward at work, those that don’t cultivate this quality risk losing their competitive edge and, ultimately, stagnation.

Employee burnout

All organizations want to restore stability after overcoming a tumultuous period. But, pushing personnel to quickly return to “business as usual” without considering the lasting impacts and potential improvements can have the opposite effect.

The American Psychological Association, for example, found 3 out of 5 employees reporting health problems brought about by work-related stress, including:

  • Physical and emotional fatigue
  • Difficulty focusing
  • Lower motivation
  • Mental health problems

The pressures workers face while restabilizing an organization post-crisis can be heavy, so instant continuity shouldn’t be the end goal. Rather aiming to merely survive, pair your efforts with a forward-thinking approach to foster resilience and attain long-term success.

What is bouncing forward?

Bouncing forward, on the other hand, underscores these cornerstones to continuous development:

  • Learning: Gleaning valuable lessons from difficulties
  • Growth: Using new insights as guides for the next course of action 
  • Transformation: Maximizing recent knowledge for overcoming future challenges

Basically, it aims to respond to and use adversity in a way that compels individuals and organizations to progress rather than just recover.

Why this new concept matches today’s business world

Research by Accenture indicates resilience is a measurable strength, and companies who possess it demonstrate:

  • Compared to their peers, 6% faster revenue growth
  • 8% higher profit margins

With technologies and markets constantly evolving, it’s plain to see that those who adopt a “bouncing forward” approach can better adapt and thrive. They aren’t just reactive; they take charge through approaches that facilitate continuous development.

Companies that exemplify bouncing forward

Bouncing forward entails adopting a future-oriented outlook. It may seem simple, but to paint a clearer picture of its complexity, we’ll walk you through organizations that have effectively used this mindset.

Case study: Starbucks

Starbucks faced public outrage after a racial profiling incident occurred in its Philadelphia store. It involved an employee reporting two men, who were waiting for a business meeting, to the police, ultimately leading to their arrest.

To quell the backlash regarding racism, Chairman Howard Schultz issued a swift public apology. Starbucks then took the following steps:

  1. Temporarily closing 8,000 stores to conduct racial sensitivity training
  2. Altering its policies to ensure the inclusive treatment of customers
  3. Encouraging employees to openly discuss ways to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace
  4. Investing in initiatives that ingrained diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into its culture

Case study: Microsoft

In 2014, Microsoft was enduring stagnation and uncertainty, as it lacked clear direction. On top of that, its acquisition of Nokia’s phone business failed. Satya Nadella, however, made drastic changes once he took charge as CEO.

Besides a major pivot to the cloud business, Nadella honed in on a key aspect: company culture. Microsoft was known to be internally competitive and contentious, which impeded collaboration and innovation. Due to this, the focus shifted to:

  • A growth mindset that emphasized learning and resilience, viewing failure as a step toward progress
  • Transforming internal dynamics through empathy, as this broke down silos and enabled collaboration
  • Innovation and risk-taking, as these help Microsoft stay relevant in dynamic environments

Why the shift in mindset matters

Although recovery may seem highly beneficial, taking on a more progressive outlook is more rewarding—we’ll dive into why.

Bouncing back vs. bouncing forward: Key differences

To start, these variables that set the two concepts apart:

  1. Recovery vs. growth: Bouncing back leans on restoring the norm, while bouncing forward emphasizes extending beyond past limitations.
  2. Reactive vs. proactive: Bouncing back entails responding to current events; bouncing forward involves anticipating and preparing for future challenges.
  3. Fixed vs. evolving mindset: Bouncing back implies fixed approaches to issues, but bouncing forward views change as an improvement opportunity.

Bouncing back has limitations

To sum it up, prioritizing simple recovery poses three disadvantages:

  1. Short-term focus: A quick return to normal doesn’t equip your organization for the long-term, as it hinges on damage control and reinstating established practices.
  2. Stagnation: Since this concept aims to restore the status quo, you may overlook root causes and potential organizational enhancements, thus hindering innovation.
  3. Employee disengagement: The demand for immediate operational restoration and continuity can overwhelm your workforce, eroding their morale and motivation.

These can trap your organization in a reactive cycle, as it addresses symptoms rather than underlying issues. Bouncing back also lacks forward-thinking, as it reestablishes what once failed, posing the risk of repeated setbacks.

How bouncing forward fosters long-term success

Adopting a future-oriented resilience strategy, however, promotes the following benefits:

  1. Proactive problem-solving: It compels leaders to plan and execute initiatives in advance, minimizing potential threats.
  2. Continuous learning: Highlighting growing from mishaps instills adaptability and agility among employees. 
  3. Innovation: Staying on top of emerging challenges opens up new solutions that give your company a competitive edge.
  4. Employee engagement: Valuing growth and development compels personnel to invest more in their roles. 7 in 10 of them, in fact, say learning improves their sense of connection to their company, while 8 out of 10 say it adds purpose to their work.
  5. Sustainability: Cultivating resilience empowers teams to face and overcome obstacles over the long-term. By establishing a sense of stability despite difficulties, you support personnel through their mental health struggles as well.
  6. Productivity: Overwhelmed employees can’t be expected to perform at their best. Ingraining resilience, however, equips them to handle pressure, focus, and fulfill their responsibilities.

How to cultivate a bouncing forward mindset

Nurturing new attitudes toward hardships isn’t easy, but there are some steps that can smoothen the transition.

Reframe setbacks

Many view failure as a hindrance to progress. To cultivate a bouncing forward mindset, this must be reevaluated and reframed as a component of growth and development.

For starters, you can take underperformers or individuals whose deliverables were riddled with errors through post-mortem reviews. Throughout the process, you can help them extract lessons from challenges and shortcomings, then provide constructive feedback.

Compel them to embrace change

Transforming people’s thinking can be a massive hurdle, especially when it shakes up the norm. The resistance you may encounter, however, can be attributed to two factors:

  1. 39% of employees oppose change due to a lack of understanding about its purpose
  2. 38% of employees hesitate to accept change because of doubts about its implications

This fear of the unknown can be countered by open and consistent communication. By being transparent about the need for a shift in mindset, you enable teams to see it as an opportunity.

Focus on learning

By cultivating an environment that hails continuous development, where mistakes are seen as learning experiences, you establish a culture that supports bouncing forward.

Mentorship programs, as well as cross-functional and adaptability training, can propel this mindset further. Rewarding innovative problem-solving through proper acknowledgement or small incentives is also helpful.

Prioritize mental health and self-care

True resilience isn’t just about your employees powering through adversity—it’s also about sustaining their well-being.

Today’s business environments have become sources of great stress for workers, and the World Health Organization (WHO) even touches on how it affects companies:

  • Because of depression and anxiety, roughly 12 billion working days are lost per year across the globe
  • This lost productivity also costs USD $1 trillion annually

These figures indicate a strong need to care for personnel’s mental health. However, mental wellness programs that give access to counseling, stress management workshops, and promote work-life balance can keep them emotionally healthy.

Build a support system

A shift in employee mindset can’t be achieved without leadership support and a constructive approach to addressing setbacks or failures.

Establish regular check-ins and other channels, like open forums, that allow employees to share their challenges, successes, and insights. Managers can then use the information to provide appropriate assistance when needed.

The key ingredient to resilience: Rest

Despite having thoughtful strategies at your disposal, employees can’t properly adopt a bouncing forward mindset when they aren’t at their best. The essential element that can complete the shift is rest.

How quality rest supports long-term resilience

Moments of respite are extremely valuable. Without adequate rest, various aspects that sustain your employees’ productivity suffer.

Cognitive clarity

Poor sleep can harm one’s intellectual performance, thus impeding creativity and productivity. Having enough, however, lets your workers avoid cognitive impairments, resulting in better memory and decision-making.

Better emotional stability and work dynamics

Insufficient rest also hinders the ability to understand emotional information properly. As a result, your workforce may respond inappropriately to stress and have unproductive interactions with their peers. In worse scenarios, workplace conflict may arise.

Opportunities to unwind let your employees maintain sound mental and emotional states, thus promoting a more harmonious environment.

Reduced stress, improved mental well-being and productivity

47% of employees say most or all of their stress comes from work. 77%, meanwhile, report work-related stress negatively impacted their mental health negatively. Not to mention, 17 million sick days are even lost annually due to stress, depression, or anxiety!

Allowing personnel to detach from their professional commitments mitigates these issues and sustains productivity. This also helps them avoid health issues tied to stress and, ultimately, burnout.

Practical tips for incorporating rest

In today’s fast-paced business settings, ample opportunities to recover are hard to come by. To make rest a part of your workforce’s regular routine, here are some easy steps you can take:

Encourage regular breaks and work-life balance

Simply having teams step away from their workstations periodically can help sustain their energy and productivity. However, when fatigue and stress become unbearable, time away from work offers a much needed mental and physical reset.

That’s because such opportunities allow personnel to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy their hobbies. 31% of employees even named mandatory paid time off (PTO) as a top benefit they want from employers, ranking ahead of mental health assistance.

Have employees prioritize sleep and offer flexibility

Healthy sleep habits should become an integral part of your personnel’s daily lives, but some may overlook this aspect due to the demands of their professional and personal lives. Since employees typically look to their leaders as examples, model the necessary behaviors.

When necessary, also allow them to take on flexible hours or work from home. Fluid schedules that offer room to get a full 8 hours lets them function better.

Mindfulness and relaxation exercises

Supplementing good rest patterns with stress management techniques will greatly assist employees, especially when experiencing difficulties at work. Some practices that can be seamlessly included in their daily regimen include:

  • Mindful breathing: Focusing on the rhythm of one’s breathing can regulate heart rates and reduce stress.
  • Meditation and yoga: These involve mental and physical techniques that promote calmness and relaxation.
  • Mindful eating: This entails fully immersing yourself in your meal, steering your attention away from stressors.
  • Visualization: This requires forming mental images of successful outcomes, helping reduce anxiety when faced with a tough situation.

Wrapping up—Bouncing forward builds resilient individuals, teams, and organizations

Resilience has evolved beyond simply returning to the norm after a setback. Now, organizations are embracing a train of thought where recovery isn’t the end goal, but rather emerging better equipped for the future.

By adopting a bouncing forward mindset, you create environments where failures aren’t obstacles, but opportunities for development instead. This empowers employees to continuously take charge, learn, and innovate, ensuring adaptability in today’s ever-changing world.

Supplementing it with growth-oriented strategies and sufficient rest, meanwhile, allows your workforce and entire organization to not only endure adversity, but also thrive for the long-term.