Resilience is often seen as an individual trait, but both New View Safety and Organisational Coaching present it as something much broader. For safety and coaching professionals, understanding how resilience can be built within systems and through interactions with environments offers a rich perspective for improving performance, well-being, and safety outcomes.
New View Safety: Systemic Adaptation and Resilience
New View Safety shifts away from traditional safety models, focusing on how systems function in everyday operations rather than solely preventing errors. This approach places a strong emphasis on understanding how people adapt to challenges within a system and how their adaptability contributes to success, not just failure.
Key Concepts in New View Safety:
- Variability: Human performance is variable by nature, and recognising this variability helps to understand both successes and failures.
- Context: The work environment plays a crucial role in how individuals make decisions and adapt to challenges.
- Resources: Effective adaptation requires access to the right resources, which systems must be designed to provide.
For example, a shift from "accident investigation" to a "learning review" within New View Safety highlights the focus on adaptation and learning from events, moving away from a blame-centric model.
Resilience in Organisational Coaching: Supporting Growth in Context
In contrast, resilience in coaching takes a more personal approach but also recognises the influence of wider systems. Coaching helps individuals navigate challenges by focusing on resourcefulness and adaptability, often helping clients develop internal strengths and leverage external support networks.
Key Concepts in Resilience Coaching:
- Resourcefulness: Coaching equips individuals with tools and resources to manage adversity.
- Adaptation: Coaching fosters the ability to respond flexibly to changing circumstances.
- Systemic Perspective: Coaching acknowledges that individual resilience is shaped by factors like work environments, relationships, and broader societal structures.
For instance, a coaching program might assist an individual in identifying their strengths and accessing support systems during a challenging work transition, allowing for more effective adaptation to their circumstances.
Shared Insights and Key Differences
Both New View Safety and Organisational Coaching reject a blame-and-punish mindset in favour of building capacity for adaptation and learning. However, the primary distinction lies in their scope:
- New View Safety focuses on systems, especially in high-risk industries, to prevent accidents through understanding adaptation at a broader level.
- Organisational Coaching focuses on individual growth, aiming to enhance personal performance and well-being across a variety of contexts.
Despite this difference, New View Safety principles can enrich coaching practices. Coaches can integrate system-level thinking by helping clients understand the broader context of their challenges, fostering a learning-oriented mindset, and advocating for systemic changes that support resilience.
Integrating the Two Approaches
Safety professionals and coaches alike can benefit from merging these ideas. By considering the system's role in shaping individual resilience, professionals can foster more effective, supportive environments for adaptation. This holistic view allows both individuals and systems to thrive, ensuring that resilience is not just a personal trait but an embedded feature of a resourceful and adaptive workplace.
Wrap-Up
Resilience in both New View Safety and Organisational Coaching is about more than just individual traits; it's about how people and systems interact, adapt, and grow in response to challenges. Whether you're focused on safety or coaching, building resilience through context and resources is key to fostering sustainable performance and development.
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