Rethinking Resilience

I’m sometimes asked if, as a stress management coach, I’m Zen all the time.

That’d be lovely, I’m sure, but hardly functional.

The nervous system isn’t designed to float around on a cloud of Zen. It’s purpose is to drive performance. Stress is there for a reason – you’re not supposed to just switch it off.

Do not get me wrong, yoga sessions and mindfulness absolutely have their place, but they rarely shift behaviour or reduce stress at scale.

Most workplace wellbeing initiatives are built on an assumption that 'stress management' is relaxation, not capacity building.

Employees don’t need more ways to “calm down”.

They need systems, skills, and support that increase their capacity to handle pressure, adapt to change, and recover quickly – before burnout shows up.

This is where a new lens is needed. We need a shift from 'perks' to an understanding of stress. From coping to capacity.

A big part of what we do at The Adaptable Human Project is to provide knowledge and understanding, with that, self-awareness can grow and behaviour can change

However, information alone doesn’t change behaviour if it’s not supported by the organisation.

Telling overwhelmed staff to “just look after themselves” can quietly communicate “the pressure is your responsibility.”

In reality, resilience is interactional. It’s a relationship between:

- The individual

- Their skills

- Their environment

- Their leadership

- Their organisational norms

If these systems aren’t aligned, no amount of positivity can compensate.

Capacity, Not Calm: The Better Goal

Resilience isn’t about avoiding stress, it’s about recovering, adapting, and regulating under stress.

This means organisations must focus on building:

- Cognitive capacity (clarity, predictability, reduced friction)

- Emotional capacity (regulation skills, psychological safety)

- Physical capacity (sleep, rhythm, energy management)

- Operational capacity (workload design, meeting architecture, boundaries)

This is resilience as capability, as a skill. It’s something that compounds over time and becomes part of culture, not a calendar event.

You can build capacity at scale through a framework that connects knowledge, behaviour and environment.

One that HR can actually implement.

Introducing TREAT: A Behavioural Framework for Organisational Resilience

Our TREAT model works because it builds stress capacity from multiple angles:

T – Theory

Give people the simple science behind stress, overwhelm and recovery.

Not complex neuroscience, just enough understanding to demystify what’s happening in their bodies.

When people understand stress, they stop personalising it.

R – Research

Evidence-based practices outperform wellness trends. Employees trust interventions more when they know:

- why you're doing them

- what they’re based on

- how they’ve helped others

This builds buy-in and reduces scepticism.

E – Education

Training should teach skills, not provide lectures. HR needs education that is:

- Applied

- Interactive

- Scenario-based

- Contextual to roles and workload

- It should feel practical enough to use that afternoon.

A – Awareness

Culture shifts when people can spot their own, and each other’s, stress signals.

Awareness training helps employees:

- Notice cues before burnout

- Understand triggers

- Communicate needs earlier

Awareness is the bridge between knowledge and action.

T – Tools

This is where capacity lives. Employees need friction-free tools they can use immediately:

- Micro-resets

- Mindset shifts

- Boundary setting

- Simple physical actions

- Behaviour tips

- Pre-burnout checklists

Tools make behaviour change possible and turn theory into reality.

They’re learnable skills, and the benefits will compound, increasing shared organisational capacity hugely.

Not only does the Adaptable Human Project deliver CPD certified training, we work with clients to improve capacity over time.