>> Welcome once again to our series,
The 10 Principles of Crisis Leadership for Frontline Leaders.
I'm Dr. George Everly, and again,
as always, joined by Dr. Carolyn Fowler.
We're reviewing the seven principles
in a little more granular detail.
Now we're going to look at number seven,
cohesive groups do better in times of stress and challenge.
That first observation were from a scholarly perspective,
was actually made in the 1850s by Charles Darwin.
He found that cohesive groups
did better under stress and survived,
where other groups under stress perhaps didn't.
Carolyn, cohesion is important, isn't it?
We've been talking about it in some of our other principles,
but we decided to pull it out and make it its own principle.
It's that important.
>> It is, George. Absolutely it is.
It gets back to what we've been talking a
lot about in terms of connections.
But I think here the principle of cohesiveness goes beyond
just feeling connected to
your immediate team and your immediate people.
That's super important.
I think it's also important for people to feel connected to
the bigger picture, the organization,
our organizational legacy,
our history of excellence and
compassion and the fact that we are stronger together.
I mean, really, sometimes it sounds like a cliche,
but it's true that we're stronger together.
Having people both connect at that local granular level,
but also to feel wrapped in
the bigger sense of us being together as an organization and
moving through this with
support and with a long history of success.
>> Many years before Darwin,
Aristotle talked about the concept,
it's called synergy,
that when people come together in a group,
they are more powerful
collectively than the sum of their individual parts.
I think that's what you're tapping into here.
There is a challenge in times of high stress and adversity.
It's sometimes called us versus them thinking.
That's the opposite, isn't it?
That's something we should, as leaders,
be very sensitive to picking up early and doing something about.
What would you recommend?
>> Well, firstly, paying attention and
listening for this language when people are saying,
well, they, this,
and putting people into the third person.
This is really important to pay attention to because what
it gets back to is when we are afraid or when we're threatened.
It gets back to that evolutionary need to
protect ourselves and our community.
When we're threatened we close the gates,
we put up the barriers.
We hold the resources for ourselves.
We hold the information for ourselves.
We go into this basic self-preservation.
That us versus them is code for we're closing the gates.
If we want to preserve cohesion,
we have to continue to focus on,
well, actually, we.
We are in this together.
We are stronger together.
That when we share our wisdom and we share our resources,
we share our insights and we share our successes, we'll thrive.
>> The collective terms such as we
and us are important because words matter, don't they?
>> Oh, they matter so much.
>> We want to learn more. Where would we go?
>> Well, we'll go to the Office of Well-Being,
which is the coordinator for all of this work.
The website is just such a great resource
for additional information and support for this series,
as well as for information on mental,
emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being in this time.
Of course, we'd love to hear from you.
So please e-mail comments, questions,
suggestions to us at the Office of Well-Being e-mail,
which is right here.
>> We're in this together?
>> We are indeed.
>> Thank you, Carolyn, as always,
and I thank you for listening to that.
>> Thank you, George,
and thanks to all of you.