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The difference between a team that burns out and one that bounces back isn’t always workload. Sometimes, it’s the narrative you create.

In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoff Tumlin dig into the science behind “oscillating narratives” and how honest, full-spectrum storytelling builds resilience and helps develop employees. Leaders who acknowledge both setbacks and successes don’t just help their teams handle adversity better, they actually appear more credible. 

You’ll learn how overselling a job can set people up to leave, when sharing your own setbacks gives employees permission to seek help, and what breaks when work becomes someone’s whole identity. Together, these ideas offer a practical approach to building resilience at work: tell the whole story, prepare people for difficulty, and give them something beyond their job to draw strength from.

For managers building stronger teams, leaders deciding how much of their own struggles to share, and anyone looking to become more resilient at work, this episode is for you.

You’ll learn:

  • How “oscillating narratives” build psychological resilience at work and at home
  • Why overselling a role leads to rapid turnover
  • What helps teams see setbacks as something to work through
  • The identity trap: How loving your job can leave you less resilient
  • How to fix reward systems that unintentionally punish resilience

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Questions Answered In This Episode:

 How can I build resilience at work?

In this episode of Management Muse, hosts Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin recommend creating realistic expectations about difficulty, learning how trusted mentors have navigated setbacks, and maintaining sources of identity outside your job. Cindi and Geoff explain how these practices can help a work problem remain one part of your life rather than become a judgment about your worth overall.

Why does a setback at work feel like a personal failure?

When work becomes your primary source of identity and self-worth, a professional setback can feel much bigger than the event itself. This episode explores how relationships, hobbies, and other communities can remind you that you have value and abilities beyond your work.

How can managers help employees become more resilient?

When hiring for a role, Cindi and Geoff recommend setting RJPs, or realistic job previews to avoid overselling a role. Make mentors and peer support available, and share relevant examples of working through difficulty. Employees who know that respected colleagues have struggled may be less likely to interpret their own challenges as proof that something is wrong with them.

Should leaders admit fear or talk about their failures?

Relevant disclosures can help employees acknowledge difficulty and seek support. Cindi and Geoff emphasize the importance of establishing your authority and credibility before sharing too many mistakes with your team, but once established sharing setbacks can build resilience, increase both trust and connection, and boost morale.

Why don’t employees take vacation even when they have paid time off?

One reason is that organizational incentives can conflict. If employees earn bonuses based on production, taking vacation may mean giving up income. Cindi and Geoff discuss why managers should examine whether their reward systems support the time away they say they want employees to take.

Full Episode Transcript:

Geoff Tumlin (00:00)

Encourage your people to be more than just a great worker. Seems a little counterintuitive that we’re on a management podcast and we’re talking about to have better, more resilient people who bounce back, what’s one of the things you should do? Well, encourage them not to be all about work. Well that seems weird, but it works.

Cindi Baldi (00:18)

When you’re in a position where basically only your work identity exists, you’re perfectly happy all on your own doing nothing but following your goal. That is a very weak place to be.

Hey everyone, thanks for joining us today on Management Muse. I’m your host, Cindi Baldi, and that is Geoffrey Tumlin. And we are gonna talk today about resilience. 

Marshall Duke, we’re gonna start with him because he decided that he wanted to study what made kids resilient. But what came out was that the children who knew more about their family history, like how their parents met, how their grandparents met, you know, just the details.

Geoff Tumlin (01:02)

Include anything like

Cindi Baldi (01:04)

Both positive and negative. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (01:06)

did anybody has anybody been significantly hurt in a wreck? Has any of your family ever been to jail? So not just

Cindi Baldi (01:14)

Positive. Yeah. And so the individuals who knew more about their family history tended to be both the good and the bad tended to be more resilient overall. And and so

Geoff Tumlin (01:29)

But somehow somebody they were talking to said, why in the Korean War, American soldiers turned against the country. And so this was a a shocking thing for the United States military. Where after World War II, this problem didn’t happen to anywhere near the number and degree, it was happening a lot in Korea. And so the military tried to figure out why is this happening. And in Eugene Kincaid’s study, what he concluded is that the Koreans were very good at separating the Americans who had what you and I would call informally the kind of “mom and apple pie”

Cindi Baldi (02:36)

Flat perception. Very one dimensional perception of America.

Geoff Tumlin (02:44)

Yeah.

“America’s great.” I put my accent back on. “America’s great. Gotta love this country.” Whatever. And so these are the people they would target for their brainwashing or their whatever, re-education.

Cindi Baldi (02:58)

I think it’s actually probably de-programming in a weird way.

Geoff Tumlin (03:01)

Yeah. And not the people who would say, “Look, I’m from Detroit. I know America’s got good and bad. I know we have these warts. We’re not perfect. We’ve struggled with issues of race.”

Cindi Baldi (03:15)

“And I love it anyway.”

Geoff Tumlin (03:16)

“In spite of the warts, it’s less warty than any other place in the world in my opinion. And it may not be perfect, but it’s my country.”

Cindi Baldi (03:25)

Right. So it’s a much more three dimensional version of America.

Geoff Tumlin (03:31)

Yeah. The Koreans focused on the one-dimensional identity, America’s great. And those are the people that they would slowly introduce over periods of months all of the evidence that America had problems and had warts and wasn’t as great as they might think. And again, a lot of those people didn’t come off of it, but enough of them did to where it moved the needle and they they renounced America by the end of this, what do you call it deprogramming. Yeah.

Cindi Baldi (04:09)

I would call it that. Because colloquially. Because I mean, like what I’m saying with saying it’s deprogramming is in a way, with the one dimensional identity, like however you got there, somehow you’ve been programmed to only see the positive. Yeah. And there’s lots of evidence for the negative, because I mean, it’s a diverse place. America’s a diverse place. And somehow you’ve been filtering that out this whole time. And it’s probably because of the people and the groups you’ve been with.

Geoff Tumlin (04:39)

Yeah. And so those people tended to break more under the reprogramming. That’s why one of the main reasons the needle moved.

Cindi Baldi (04:49)

And they were using them to like denounce America publicly.

Geoff Tumlin (04:55)

Yeah, not our best look. And so that connection helped Marshall Duke and his wife, I think Sarah is her name, piece together. That’s probably what’s happening with these kids, is that the kids who have a flat view, “my family’s great, bad things don’t happen,” are less resilient than the kids who know, “my family is great and I love them, but we’re not perfect. And Uncle Billy went to prison and my mom got fired from a job because she was depressed and called in three days in a row,” or whatever. You know, age appropriate, but it’s that it’s that more in-depth understanding of their family so that when they face a setback. They don’t think that they’re the first one to ever fail.

Cindi Baldi (05:59)

Well, I think it goes with and I think these this research came out after, so it’s not what the Dukes put together. But I’ve seen research on like newlyweds and one of the main components in that is very similar. You know, do you have just a romanticized version of being married or do you have a more three-dimensional expectation? And that’s what it came down to was expectations. And so the people who had the romanticized version, their expectations were violated. And so that tended to lead towards divorce. They weren’t resilient within the marriage versus the people who were more three dimensional. They were like, Well, yeah

Geoff Tumlin (06:41)

I mean we’ve always known this was gonna suck.

Cindi Baldi (06:44)

No, not that not that you marriage Scrooge. but that, you know, like when something happens, like it’s for better or worse, right? Like that’s what we’re actually committing to. And the romanticized version sort of missed that whole worst part. So

Geoff Tumlin (07:05)

That’s Ted Houston out of UT came up that.

Cindi Baldi (07:07)

I think you’re right. And so I think that’s that’s one of the mechanisms is that with children who have a more three-dimensional version, well, like and and this actually happened at UT, this this particular example to illustrate it, like they’re not surprised. It’s not a violation of expectations, like, well, this happens. And so like when we were teaching at UT.

There were a lot of first generational students there. And they had a much higher dropout rate than the non first generational students. And part of the part like they really looked into this because UT didn’t like this stat at all. So UT wanted to counterbalance this. And one of the things that they found was, or that they discovered in interviewing students, is like there’s just a flat out difference when a first generational student calls home and says, you know, I got a a D on an exam or just whatever, a grade that they’re not used to. If they’ve been A students and they got a B, that can happen too. And the response of the family on the other end of the phone call is, Well, “come home. You don’t need this. I have never had it. I’m fine. Come home.”

Geoff Tumlin (08:25)

Right. And it’s this is novel. This student has been an A student up until UT and now they’re making C, so college isn’t for you. Yeah, just I didn’t need it. And they come home.

Cindi Baldi (08:34)

Yeah, you’ll be fine. Come home. Versus, and I can attest to this, like, you know, if I didn’t do well in a test and called up my dad, he’d be like, too bad. Get in there. Right? Because he’s been to college and

Geoff Tumlin (08:50)

He’s been to college. He made some C’s.

Cindi Baldi (08:53)

yeah. And honestly, my dad actually promoted. He was he generally was like, A B C, it’s all the top three. Just just bring it home. You know, like get in there.

And and so like that’s  the students who were not first generational, they had families more similar to mine where they’re like, well, yeah, that happens. Better get in there and talk to that professor and find out what you’re doing wrong, because clearly you’re doing something wrong, and pushed them back out the door. And and so, like, again, that’s like the difference in expectations leading you to either be resilient or not resilient.

And those expectations are partially built by seeing other people go through the stuff. And importantly, and I think this is what Marshall Duke and Sarah Duke put together, that part of the reason that it’s really useful to know the family history is that it’s not just in building the expectations, it’s that you have a model for how people come through hard times.

And that informs, it may not be a one-to-one ratio, but it informs and creates an identity around coming through hard times. And to the extent that like maybe it’s a similar event in your life, but it also creates an identity in the home. Yeah, like life isn’t perfect and things happen and sometimes we struggle and we get through it.

Geoff Tumlin (10:29)

Now let’s bring this into the manager’s realm.

Cindi Baldi (10:32)

Okay, well, so how would we apply this for managers? Ao you know, it’s not just kids, right? So part of helping other people succeed, so partly you could actually set realistic expectations before people come into the job. There’s like entire reams of research on the importance of realistic.

Geoff Tumlin (10:58)

RJPs. Realistic job previews. Yep. Yeah. RJPs. Decrease the chance that people exit early.

Cindi Baldi (11:07)

Right, because if you give them too romanticized of a view coming in, like you’re gonna disappoint them. Like you got somebody to come in, great. Now you’re paying to train them, great. Now, because you gave them unrealistic preview, they’ve taken the they’ve used up the money to be trained and then they’re out of there because they’re like, This isn’t what I signed up for. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (11:27)

Job’s terrible.

Cindi Baldi (11:28)

It’s not that you have to sit them down and be like, This is all the ways that the job is going to suck. That’s not really helpful.

But you can be like, listen, like these are the expectations. Sometimes, and I’m just spitballing here, sometimes there’s, you know, just a normal amount of work to be done and you’ll come in and you’ll get it done. But there are some times where like, you know, at this time of the year where you are going to work very hard and very long hours. And we make up for it the rest of the year, but don’t ask for Christmas off. Like,

It’s not gonna happen. That’s our Super Bowl. And, you know, like whatever it is, like you sit them down and you set that expectation for them. So then they get to make a choice. Do I want to sign up for this or do I want to like not sign up for this and find another job? And so when those people who come into the organization, then when something happens, they’re like, well, you know, we had feast, now we have famine, but we’ll have feast again. And they roll with that. And then when they’re in the job, having mentors or peer support, we’ve seen everything. Managers telling their story, having people who are established in their legitimacy and their role,

Geoff Tumlin (12:55)

Which is important.

Cindi Baldi (12:56)

Who are open about the less pretty things that they’ve had to go through, basically show the way for other people. And even if it’s not a direct comparison, like like we’ve been in organizations, you know, we’re with a lot of doctors. So like there have been doctors who’ve been like reported to boards and they’ve been very open about it. And so then when other people came in and other doctors came in and they had a board issue, they knew about that person’s board issue and they could come and they could ask advice. And that was very helpful. So there can be that direct comparison.

Or it could just be permission to acknowledge that okay, sometimes we go through bad things and it’s okay when it’s, you know, when it’s work related and it it’s okay to discuss it and to s to seek support and help and you’re not going to be looked down for it.

Geoff Tumlin (13:55)

Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of the story of Howard Prince told us when he was in Vietnam, he was a company commander, so he’s a captain and the battalion commander got killed and they were, you know, this was a during the Tet Offensive, and so there’s a lot of people getting killed and wounded, and he was, you know, obviously all these company commanders were trying to manage their fear and so were their soldiers. And so the battalion commander gets killed.

And so twelve hours later they they bring in a a guy who’d been working in the unit, but they were gonna now gonna promote and bring in a guy named Vaught. I forget his first name. He went on to be a general. So anyway, Vaught comes in. They knew him a little bit before because he’d been part of the battalion. He comes in, he’s their new commander, and so you know, he’s like gets flown in in the helicopter and they gather Howard Prince and the other company commanders, and so Vaught comes together with these guys and they’re in the middle of the jungle fight, you know, fighting and people are dying. 

And and he’s like, “all right, just want you guys to know straight out of the gate, I’m scared to death, and I assume you are too, but we’re gonna work through that. And so let’s let’s try to figure this thing out. All right, what’s going on?” And then started, you know, figuring out what’s going on with them and then what are we gonna do? And they put the plan together. And Howard would say, you know, a number of times you told me the story. Yeah, like this was liberating to have the leader come and they knew this guy from before.

Cindi Baldi (15:34)

Yeah, so they he had legitimacy. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (15:36)

And he had rank legitimacy too. He’s above them by a couple ranks. And like have this guy come in and just say out of the gate, I’m scared to death. And I assume you’re scared to death. And let’s let’s acknowledge that and let’s figure this thing out. And that sharing of the hardships and the burdens and being open enough about that.

Cindi Baldi (16:02)

Yeah, I think it takes off like a psychological burden as well. Like, I’m sure that probably most people in that situation with the Howard situation, I’m sure most people would have tried to have masked how afraid they were. And in and that eats up a lot of like your mental capacity when you’re actually going against how you truly feel. Sure. And and so, like, not only was it permission to be afraid, but it was also like you don’t have to carry that bag.

Geoff Tumlin (16:33)

Yeah. Yeah, or we’re yeah, in a way we’re kind of in this together.

Cindi Baldi (16:37)

Yeah, there’s that too. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (16:39)

Yeah, and it’s a very you know we don’t want our people I’ll if I can make a slight exaggeration, I would say as managers, we don’t want our people facing a hardship similar to what we’ve faced and feeling like they’re the first person in the world to fail like this or to go through this. And so you don’t have to tell, you know, I mean, obviously, we’re not suggesting that you tell everything that’s ever been a struggle, but when it’s relevant, it’s helpful.

Geoff Tumlin (17:16)

Yeah, you you you don’t want your people struggling with something that you’ve struggled with and have them think that something’s wrong with them because they’re going through this when you’ve gone through something similar.

Cindi Baldi (17:29)

There’s there’s that line and and that’s I think a a key part to the resilience that we as leaders and organizations can help people inside have a better chance of overcoming adversity. What we can do also as individuals is going back to like the one-dimensional, three-dimensional. And we see this especially in hospitals with like pay-for-performance systems.

Tends to tends to pop up where people can become one dimensional in having a work identity because basically that identity edges out all the others. You know, like you still may be married, but like you’re not really spending any time at home. you’re working so long and so many hours. You’re not really doing hobbies. You’re not really in other groups. And and we see that in the pay for performance because you know, I mean, money’s nice and the way you get it. Yeah, people chase it. Yeah, they chase it. And and a lot of organizations don’t put on the guardrails to try to give people permission to not chase it, which I’d I would encourage putting in the guardrails, like making people take their vacation time and

Geoff Tumlin (18:50)

Yeah. Or we also see, I’ll just I this is a small thing, but we’ve because we see it, I should point out. But we also see that their systems are disjointed. And so they’ll have a system that rewards longevity and service with more PTO and maintain a system where they pay you bonuses based on production. And so it the two don’t actually work together.

Cindi Baldi (19:14)

Right.

Geoff Tumlin (19:18)

In order to get the bonus here, I can’t actually use this PTO, which you’re giving more of to honor and recognize my which

Cindi Baldi (19:26)

Undermine reward.

It’s actually a reward that isn’t a reward at that point.

Geoff Tumlin (19:31)

Yeah, or it’s it puts them in a a dilemma of sorts of having to choose. Right.

Cindi Baldi (19:36)

Yeah. And so and like it like we’ve said a lot, compensation is very difficult, but that’s just one of the ways that it gets tangled up. And so anyway, I mentioned that because when however you get there, when you’re in a position where basically only your work identity exists and the other things have been marginalized or eradicated, then when something bad happens at work, it’s everything. Right.

Versus somebody who has maintained a more three dimensional version of themselves and they have a bad day at work, well, they go to their church group and the church group makes them feel like reminds them I’m not I’m not a disaster. I’m I have value.

Geoff Tumlin (20:24)

I have this other thing.

Cindi Baldi (20:25)

I have this other thing and these people like me and I’m good at it and and like it’s not everything that I am.

Geoff Tumlin (20:33)

Yeah, we’ve talked about this before under the rubric multiple role theory.

Cindi Baldi (20:36)

Right. I just wanted to put that in there because there’s an organizational component to that that’s like, you know, as a manager, like it’s great to have like a gung ho employee, but you have to make sure that they’re not becoming so one dimensional. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (20:53)

Yeah, be more than just a manager. Be more than just a mom. Be more than just a

Cindi Baldi (20:58)

And it goes with this conversation because again, all of this is about one dimensional and three dimensional identities. Whether you have the perception of America as a one dimensional identity or three dimensional identity, whether you have the perception of yourself as a one dimensional identity or multi dimensional and so having the ability to see both your strengths and your weaknesses is multidimensional. Having the ability to have different groups you belong to is multidimensional. And the multidimensional isn’t fragile. Or at least it’s less fragile. Yeah. And so it contributes to resiliency. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (21:47)

Yeah, I think a way of saying it another way of saying it may be, you know, it’s great if you can lose yourself in your job for a few hours, but it’s bad if you lose yourself for a year or two years. You know, it’s a the a lot of these high status professions have this challenge.

Cindi Baldi (22:12)

And I I think even if you love what you’re doing, you know, that there’s the pull for that. So it’s not just high status. It’s it’s because I mean like I’m very goal-oriented. And when you come back around, I have to talk myself. I have like so I’m very goal-oriented, very tunnel vision. Like I’m

Geoff Tumlin (22:40)

So I have a feeling I’m gonna learn something here.

Cindi Baldi (22:42)

I think you already know. All right. and so like, you know, like we’ll be on vacation and like I have a goal of going to a place. And when we first got together, like you’d interrupt that goal by making me see and smell flowers. And I would find that so irritating. And then I had to like, like, you know, you pick out good flowers and they are pretty and they do smell good. And so I literally used to have to talk myself down off the edge about not snapping because we’re not getting to my destination and that knocking the thing off my list. And so now like and so and so very quickly I learned to appreciate because Jeff basically makes me smell the flowers. And it’s the same thing I think when you’re in a job where you either have a lot of passion for it or you’re built like I am, where it’s like you have a goal and it’s tunnel vision and you’re going for the goal. 

And that can edge out everything else in your life unless you have like I like I literally forget to eat sometimes. That’s what my brother used to always do when we were running a business together. He would come in after hours and just throw food in the door and be like, eat, because like I wouldn’t even like register that I hadn’t eaten. And so it’s helpful to have the people in your life who pull you back.

And make you see other things that otherwise your tunnel vision wouldn’t let you do or your passion wouldn’t let you see. And that’s part of having these other aspects of your life that like a family, a church, hobbies, you know, friends, friends organ, whatever. Like, and and making sure you see them because if you’re inclined to be this way, you’re perfectly happy all on your own, doing nothing but following your goal.

And that is a very weak place to be. Yeah.

Geoff Tumlin (24:36)

Be more than just one thing. Try to for the manager side, encourage your people to be more than just a great worker. Encourage your people to pursue some of their things outside of work.

Cindi Baldi (24:51)

There have been a lot of examples of organizations that have done that. Yeah. You know, that just it that has had a huge benefit.

Geoff Tumlin (24:58)

Yeah, and I would say more fundamentally, we should do a whole thing on this of how hard it’s been one of the one of the most striking things in this work that we’ve done together the last twenty years for me has been how hard it is to get people to take their vacation. I know. And it’s just bizarre. but partly thinking about people being away from work, it’s usually good for them and that’s good for the company. And so it’s this idea of

These seems a little counterintuitive that we’re on a management podcast and we’re talking about to have better, more resilient people who bounce back and do better work and overcome obstacles. What’s one of the things you should do? Well, encourage them not to be all about work. Right. Well, that seems weird, but it works.

Cindi Baldi (25:48)

Right. Thanks for joining us on Management Muse. Should we ask them a question? Sure. What question shall we ask them?

Geoff Tumlin (25:55)

What’s something that they’ve learned about themselves in facing a challenge?

Cindi Baldi (26:00)

All right. Thanks for joining us on Management Muse. We appreciate likes, shares, comments, subscribes.

Geoff Tumlin (26:07)

Comments.

Cindi Baldi (26:08)

Well, I mean we

Geoff Tumlin (26:10)

The algorithm may like them all. We only like some of them. That’s all right. But go ahead, fire away. Resilience.

Cindi Baldi (26:13)

Yeah, that’s true. That’s Yep, that’s all right.

We expect a variety of comments. Anyway, thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.