Raised by Resilience
Owen Wyatt, DC Thomson
I want to ask you all a question. And the question is, are you resilient people? Hands up if you are, if you feel you are.
And has anyone ever asked you where that resilience comes from? That question sent me on a journey recently when I was going through one of those times in life where both work and personal life were very difficult at the same time. And that journey of considering that question gave me real superpower strength to then come through what I was going through and out the other side because it reminded me about who had played a role in doing that.
And those of you here that are in leadership positions or in HR positions will be tasked today, in the most volatile world that I can remember in my 40 years, with embedding resilience into your organizations. That can either be on a strategic level; like for those of you in the food and beverage sector here, how much of your supply chain is near rivers, because flooding’s a thing and there’s going to be more of it; but also for those of you in people partner roles, it’s about what you’re doing to help give those individuals the space to be resilient.
So my thought about where my resilience came from, it actually starts on a ship that was built here in the Clyde, which does a good line in ferries, I’m told now, right out here.
So my grandfather set sail on that ship during the Second World War and was torpedoed and sunk for the third time in his merchant navy career. So torpedo hit ship, boats hit water, and people drift. Look how happy this 19-year-old man is at the end of the Second World War to be alive and in Buenos Aires. He had made it through all of that and out of the other side.
So when I was asked that question about where my resilience came from, it’s something … I had always thought family. A lot of you will think that. But then when you look back into who in your family, what connectivity did you have with them, what were they like, it takes you to a very, very interesting place.
And when it comes to organizations and companies, culture flows through, doesn’t it? And I look at this picture; the haircuts are bad. Let’s not get hung up on that; but there he is. That’s Grandpa Jeff. And there’s my mum Jane with her hands on me. And that resilience and positivity and spirit flowed through Jeff to Jane and then to me. And as leaders in businesses, that is what we do too. There is a custodial responsibility to be there for our people.
And I kept thinking about this resilience, “Where is it coming from?”, and then I realized that I had the superpower combo. Because my father, who travelled a lot with work, when he was around, which wasn’t all that often, but when he was around, he is an eternal optimist.
So Chief Growth Officers, you cannot be one unless you are optimistic, right? The job title is Ronseal. If you don’t deliver it, if the graphs are going down, you’re not doing your job. And I just looked at these photos and thought, “Wow.”
So there’ll be some photos of my grandfather playing behind me now.
And I think resilience on an individual level is not something that you can force through. Some of these topics that you guys have touched on today, those of you who are in HR as a profession, you can’t mandate it, can you? “Be more resilient. Get on.” But when I thought about this topic, I thought about allowing people to have the space to be at their best, right?
It’s absolutely unrealistic beyond belief to expect that all of us are going to be at their best all the time. I think a lot of toxicity driven through organizations in other decades came from that place of like, “Oh, you’ve got to be on form, or what?” No, no, come on now. This is life we’re living, people, isn’t it? We’re going to have ups and downs and left and right.
But inside us all, probably stemming through influences to people that we loved and that loved us, there is a resilience there. All of us have lived through COVID. None of us in this room have got any Benjamin Button syndrome, have we? We all lived that together. And here we are on a Thursday night talking about careers and future. We’re resilient.
This is a letter that was written from the ship’s captain on that ship that was built here to my grandfather that talked about the last and final shipwreck where the boats went down and they drifted in the mid-Atlantic for eight days with nothing but a couple of casks of water and a few boxes of biscuits. And what the letter says is that as things were getting very bad on one of the lifeboats because morale was low and people were dying, they looked for volunteers to go from the lifeboat that was okay onto the lifeboat that was not okay. You can imagine the scenes. And the ship’s captain calls and my grandfather’s hand went up at age 19, suffering from shock and death. That kind of resilience; I hadn’t thought about it until someone had asked me about it.
I found that letter in his top drawer. He’d intercepted it and never given it to his parents. You remember that generation? They weren’t big on that kind of thing. After I came through the pandemic, I went to look at a memorial for those that had passed.
So when he died, I met my wife Rose not that long after. That’s her there and those are my three kids. Where am I getting my resilience from now? I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but Rose grew up in Lebanon during wartimes. And when I talk about my childhood in Richmond upon Thames versus hers in Lebanon, things that seemed a problem to me, just like with my grandfather, just aren’t … You know, it’s all perspective. If you’ve survived three torpedo shipwrecks and two wars in the Middle East; Rose was in Lebanon and in the Iraq War; you look at things very differently. And I draw so much resilience from her.
And they are very similar people. Like when I was dealing with my grandfather’s death, I talked to someone very candidly about the emotional journey I was going on to get me through the other side. And I talked about Rose, and that made me realize, of course, that I’d met someone that had filled that gap in my life.
This is a shameless plug for LinkedIn, okay? But I’m told these slides are going to go back around the other side. I have no idea if I’m at my five minutes or not. Can anyone tell me?
Oh, I’m at my five minutes. Yeah.
So basically, after this experience, Wendy, you invited me to do this, me going on that journey of reflection about resilience, this is something I’m 100% going to talk more about on LinkedIn. Like anyone not using it, it’s such a powerful tool for networking and connectivity. Everyone has that awkward feeling at the beginning about, “Am I going to do it or not?” But it’s a hundred percent worth it. So do give me a follow on there.
And heading away tonight and avoiding the news, because let’s face it, it is not a pretty place to be right now, do think about how, in a world where the only certainty is uncertainty, you are going to build resilience into your companies.
Thanks for a wonderful evening, everyone.
