Jon Watkins, CEO of multi-award winning Jersey-based business Resilience Development Co, delivered two workshops drawing on his real-world experience of building resilient teams and cultures across sectors.
A former commando in the Royal Marines, Mr Watkins served in Afghanistan before undertaking a four-year stint in the special forces.
After leaving the military due to serious illness, he began exploring his passion for leadership and management in a professional capacity, eventually joining Resilience Development Co in 2016 and becoming its CEO two years ago.
Having completed the company’s training before joining, Mr Watkins said he now looked back on his military career differently.
‘With how I define resilience now, I wouldn’t describe me as being resilient back then,’ he said.
‘There were resilient aspects, but I wasn’t as resilient as I could have been, I didn’t have the skills I do now.’
In terms of the core content being demonstrated to those attending the workshop, Mr Watkins said rumination – the practice of repetitively focusing on negative thoughts and feelings – was the biggest driver of stress.
He delivered examples of rumination in action and spoke about how to beat it through skills, breathing techniques and taking breaks.
‘If you think of the challenges you face at work or at home, most of them are mental, emotional and social, not technical.
‘How much training have you had that’s given you the skills to navigate those moments? Zero, so that’s what these sessions are about.’
He put participants through a practical example where he convinced them that one of them would have to give a presentation to the rest of the group if there was an X taped under their chair.
‘I told them to look for the X, and their hearts exploded out of their chest.
'I hadn’t actually put an X down, but it was a great example of how rumination works in the real world.
‘As soon as you recognise rumination within yourself, and that nobody else causes you stress but you, you can find ways to beat it.
‘A good starting point is to ask yourself “will it matter in a week, a month or a year?”, because most of the time the answer is no.’
Statistics show that the company’s training programme does work for clients, he said.
Mr Watkins said 48% of people reported low levels of stress after completing the programme, compared with just 27% beforehand.
Those reporting risk of burnout decreased from 44% to 18%, while those experiencing moderate to severe anxiety dropped from 23% to 12%.
‘There’s so much stuff online now in terms of technology and stuff on social media, but it delivers nothing, you have to have somebody in front of you training you how to do these skills,’ Mr Watkins said.
‘If you want a tick box, then tech will do that, but it will not drive change and results like people will.’
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