Bouncing Back: A Trainable Skill

Mar 23, 2021 | Articles, Employee Training and Employee Experience Design, L&D Leadership & Culture

It’s college basketball playoff season in the US – otherwise known as March Madness, where the country’s top teams in men’s and women’s hoops duke it out for the champions’ titles. As such, it was irresistible to not make reference to “the way the ball bounces” in some clever way this week as the excitement builds and the brackets narrow.

The March Madness tournament is famous (perhaps notorious) for shocking upsets. Teams ranked far lower than their opponents can appear out of near obscurity to throttle a top-ranked team or even knock a well-known basketball dynasty out of the running in the first round.

Another thrilling element of NCAA basketball is the possibility for jaw-dropping comebacks. Squads suffering double-digit deficits can come roaring back to win the game in the final minutes. It’s one of those sports where it’s truly not over until it’s over.

Both of these sporting scenarios bring to mind the essential quality of resilience. Teams suddenly knocked off their pedestals must pull themselves together, graciously accept the loss, and prepare to rally in the next season. Teams down by 15 at the half must refocus, re-energize, and not allow negative thinking to drag them down through the remainder of the game. In both cases, it’s all about “bouncebackability.”

What’s bouncebackability? 

Bouncebackability is a term coined in 2004 by ex-soccer player (footballer for our non-US friends), Iain Dowie, to describe how the Crystal Palace team he managed overcame a poor start to the season – battling relegation – to win promotion at the season finale.

It’s as simple a coinage as you could hope for: the ability to bounce back and recover from less-than-positive circumstances.

Outside of the context of sports, “bouncebackability” can be applied to our own career paths and to employees whose development we help manager. As any self-help book, life coach, or inspirational poster will tell you: “It’s not about what happens; it’s about how you react to it.”

By helping teams harness bouncebackability, managers can ensure their teams have the confidence and adaptability to face challenges head on and come out of the other side with stranger skills and a more positive perspective.

But how can managers embrace this ethos? By training for resilience of course!

Strengthen your team’s bounce-back muscles with Litmos Training Content
Much of bouncebackability is pure mindset. It requires re-harnessing one’s mental state out of disappointment, disturbance, and even despair into a place of strength, optimism, and hopefulness.

It may not be natural at first for many of us to do this. Let’s face it; it’s hard to get back in the game when the scoreboard is screaming defeat. But it is entirely possible to improve one’s capabilities in this area and slowly but surely over time retrain the brain to bounce back with greater speed and consistency.

Give it a shot by sharing these courses with your employees:

Remember that bouncebackability isn’t just some innate trait that most people have. It’s a learned practice for the majority of those who get good at it – a combination of mindset and applied skills that can be achieved with the right intention and information.

And if you’re interested in exploring the Litmos award-winning catalogue of 80,000+ training courses, start by signing up for a free trial today.