Team Resilience
Resilience is a key characteristic of life as a whole, and this trait can be used in both your personal life and at work. It can be very important for you to build resilience so that you can become more adaptable when the unexpected gets thrown your way. Of course, this can be very good for you in a work or in a team setting. It is for this reason that a focus on building team resiliency in the workplace has emerged. A resilient team can take a group through everyday challenges, as well as larger changes happening within a company.
Read on to learn more about team resilience, including what exactly it is and what it looks like, as well as how to build a resilient team at work and how this can be beneficial!
What Is Team Resilience?
First things first, what is team resilience? The definition of being resilient is being able to recover and bounce back more quickly than others when presented with challenges or difficult circumstances. Therefore, resilience when it comes to a team and how the team functions refers to a team that is able to do the same thing.
Team resilience is when a team is able to regroup after challenges and roadblocks. They are also adaptable and flexible, which can be good characteristics if the team is expected to deal with change— such as change that may be occurring within the company. Resilient teams are able to think on their feet, pivot, and work together to find solutions, rather than simply becoming disheartened or discouraged by these roadblocks as they crop up. Team resilience is linked to the success of the team within the company, and the success of the company as a whole. Those teams that are resilient will see much more success than those that are not and do not work on building resilience.
Benefits of a Resilient Team
Now, what are some of the benefits of having a resilient team? We have touched upon why it is so important to have a resilient team above, but we will go over some of the benefits you will see in greater detail further on, too.
Efficiency
A team that is resilient is able to bounce back faster from challenges, and this makes them more efficient as a result and also produces a stronger growth mindset. If you have a resilient team, then you will see heightened efficiency in the workplace every day! Of course, we always want our teams and team culture to be working more efficiently as this can correlate directly to more sales and income.
Cooperation
Teams that are resilient and work on becoming and staying so are also able to cooperate better with one another. This heightened cooperation can extend to cooperation with other teams, too. Cooperation in the midst of change within a company can be very important as well— as resilient teams are able to be adaptable, they can adapt to changes while maintaining this sense of cooperation at the same time.
Dealing with Change
As we discussed above when talking about cooperation, resilient teams are better able to deal with change. Change may be frequent within your company, depending upon the industry, and it is also important for many businesses to change and improve so that they do not become obsolete. Resilient teams are better able to deal with changes, as they can be flexible and bounce back from the challenges or issues that may come along with such changes.
How to Build Team Resilience
As we have explained above, resilience is a key characteristic of many successful businesses and successful teams. Below, we will discuss some tips, tricks, and proven approaches to building team resilience. These will help you to make a plan so that you can work at strengthening your team!
Develop Self Awareness with Shared Assessments
One of the key things to do when building team resilience is to have team members complete behaviour or personality assessments. An example is the DiSC personality assessment, which was designed specifically for building the best possible teams in the workplace. Team members and leaders can then get together to discuss the results of these tests, which can help to make each other more aware of people’s preferences, work styles, approaches, and more!
Evaluate Team Efficacy
Once teams have gone over their self-assessments and taken the time to let all of this information sit, then a great team exercise is to look at shared team performance using certain benchmarks. This helps the team build by allowing members to celebrate areas of shared strength while also identifying areas where more resilience and better performance may be needed.
Customize Support to Target Growth Areas
Now, after you have done self-assessments with your team and evaluated team efficacy, then you can sit down to create tailored, specific solutions which can address the individual needs within your team. Some examples of these approaches could be more learning opportunities around communication to improve this aspect within your team, or solving particular skill gaps that are causing holdups in day-to-day practices.
Promote Psychological Safety
There are also some general tips for building a resilient team, whether you are building a new team from the ground up or working on improving resiliency within an existing team. Either can still benefit from many of these practices! One thing that almost all high resilience teams have is a high level of psychological safety as well. Since the two are linked, then it makes sense to promote psychological safety within your team! When team members feel safe and supported, then they will be able to better deal with challenges and rebound from potentially stressful situations. This is a key quality of a resilient team. You can promote psychological safety by making the team and the workplace a safe space to share different perspectives and take risks. This also helps to encourage a resilience mindset!
Talk Less and Listen More
This is often said to be the number one trick to building a more resilient team— talking less and listening more, especially for team leaders. You should make sure that your team members feel heard and as if what they are saying is being properly taken into account or addressed. Members respect this type of communication. For instance, many leaders try to talk team members out of their feelings, instead of making them feel heard, safe and listened to. This hearkens back to making psychological safety a crucial tenet of your team, as being listened to makes team members feel more secure and heightens psychological safety levels. If you brush off the concerns of your team— even if you think they are wrong— then employees will feel disrespected, and resentful, and they will feel as though they can not have their opinions expressed. This will not help to build a resilient team.
Build Connections
Another important thing to do when you are working to build resilient teams is to work on your connections, communications, and relationships. This is because relationships are believed to be the most effective emotion management tool of all. Some people may think that this is a waste of time, and this is simply not true— especially if you want to build a resilient team. You should work on creating opportunities for team members to get to know each other and to bond, as this can build connections and resilience in one fell swoop. If you have introverts on your team, a more effective approach can be to create opportunities that team members to share trade tips and skills, rather than making it about a bigger social event like a mixer or party.
Help Others Reframe
Self-talk is something that can positively affect a person, or negatively affect them. Of course, this will depend upon the nature of said self-talk. Sometimes, a person may get down on themselves for mistakes made or when they are struggling. It is important to reframe any negative self-talk that may result, as this would not help with resilience in the sense of being able to bounce back quickly or get back to the drawing board! Plus, it can make team members discouraged or unhappy, which we never want to see. The core of resilience is mindset. This is why it is important for you to teach your team how to manage their self-talk. Ask them how they could be looking at the situation differently, in ways that still feel believable but are more positive.
Model Adaptability
The last method that we will be discussing here is to model adaptability to your team. Adaptability is a very important characteristic of team resilience. Use yourself as a benchmark to show yourself as an example to your team of how they should operate and adapt to challenges. A resilient leader should be able to keep their team on track, and should also strive to maintain a sense of optimism as they move forward to their goals, even in the face of challenges or hiccups. This modelled behaviour can prove to be inspiring to team members and can show them how to be more resilient, too.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is resilience in a team?
When it comes to your workplace, you will want to have a team that is strong, knowledgeable, and resilient. What do we mean by resilient? By definition, being resilient means a person is able to recover more quickly from difficult circumstances. This, then, can translate to your team. A resilient team is one that can bounce back and regroup more quickly when unexpected challenges or roadblocks come up. They are not discouraged and trying to give up, but can adapt and be flexible, as well as innovative! It is a valuable characteristic to have.
How do you build resilient teams?
Resilience is an important characteristic of a team, meaning that the members of your team are able to bounce back quickly and regroup when challenges arise. It also means that a team is flexible and adaptable, not only to challenges and roadblocks but to changes within the workplace. Oftentimes, a team will not emerge fully formed and perfectly resilient. No, it is something that you will need to work at. Some of the ways that you can build resilience in a team are to understand, first and foremost, what resilience in a team is and what it looks like— so you have reasonable expectations. Another tactic is to help your team members and others reframe, and model adaptability and resilience so that they know what it looks like as well. Talk less and listen more to your team, too!
What are the 7 Habits of resilient teams?
Resilient teams have some key habits or traits in common, and if you are looking to build a more resilient team in your workplace, then you should also be aware of these habits. In fact, implementing and modelling these habits within your team can go a long way toward building your and your team’s resilience. There are 7 main habits that we see very commonly in resilient teams. These habits or key tenets are as below.
- They have a culture of, and value, psychological safety.
- They clearly communicate their goals and objectives.
- They have low turnover.
- Their leaders have cool heads.
- They don’t avoid issues.
- They reframe challenges.
- They build and improve upon the right skills.
What are the 5 skills of resilience?
When it comes to resilience, there are 5 universal skills or pillars that make up this characteristic. The first is self-awareness, which encompasses traits such as having a clear perception of your personality— both strengths and weaknesses. The next is mindfulness, a state of open and active focus on and attention to the present. Number 3 is the skill of self-care, which is essentially taking care of one’s self— the specifics often vary from person to person. Next is the skill of positive relationships, this being our connections with other people, specifically those who care for us. Last, but not least, we have the skill of purpose. Purpose is the recognition that we are serving something bigger than just ourselves as an individual.
