My name is Jason Harris and I’m the founder of ITOpenly.

I want to talk briefly about resiliency: what it is to us personally, and what it is to others, and how we can quantify it in the workplace.

Resiliency to many of us is the same thing… we can feel it clearly on the inside. We know that it’s the ability to keep doing what we do in spite of adversity or failure. I generally believe it’s knowing that inside ourselves, we have what it takes to achieve something.

Now that being said, how we feel and knowing what’s inside of us does not translate to our business relationships. Our customers can’t look at us and know we have what it takes to stick with it and succeed. We have to provide that information to them in a format that’s meaningful.

In our professional lives the idea of “What does resiliency mean to others” isn’t a common theme, but it is very important professionally because one of the issues that we all run into is, “How do we convey our resiliency to a customer, employer or peer?“

My answer to that is: in order to convey this, we have to quantify it. Quantifying it is the fastest way to create the understanding in others that we are involved and interested in the outcome of their goals.

So how do we do this? How do we quantify? There are lots of answers, and the answer can vary from project to project but here are three basics that can give you a specific measure for your resiliency in the workplace.

First is: Versioning – Any document or process that you are revising for yourself or a client should have versioning in it. This gives a linear and quantitative number to our efforts on any particular project, capturing how many times we have worked on a single thing and generated new iterations is critical to showcasing our value and longevity. You can do this manually, and often times, many project tools have this function built. Use it. It is good best practice and can benefit you professionally when it comes time for promotions and annual reviews.

Next is: Standard metrics Or KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) – Most companies have standard metrics for any process or procedure, or anything that requires a quantifiable result. An example would be if you’re in a call center, they have average handle time, which is the time to complete a phone call with a customer from beginning to end, and that’s how they gauge individual and departmental success. Capture those metrics for your own use. They’ll provide you with hard data on a primary job function that shows your progress. It shows your resiliency. It is literally the road you have been down, in hard numbers.

Last would be: Quality or satisfaction surveys – This one I feel is important because it can capture and quantify what’s called “intangibles.”  Your likability, your soft skills, and the things we don’t normally attribute numbers to. These things can be quantified through customer surveys. They can be scored.  Whether you define or build your own on a site like Survey Monkey, or if you employer already has survey in place, be sure to capture that data. It too is hard data and tells your story where you are and where you were, and then also showcasing where you are going. 

You might say, “This is all fine, but what does this have to do with being resilient?” My answer to that is, if you cannot quantify what you have done, you cannot demonstrate what you’re going to do. 

Providing data and context allows your “customer,” whether it’s your boss, a peer, or an actual client, the ability to see and visualize your efforts and that is what translates to resilience. Providing them the impression of who you are and what you are capable of in numbers.

If you do not quantify your efforts, you can’t quantify your resiliency. It’s all just hearsay.