You can also connect with us on:
Leadership Solutions: Executive Coaching and Leadership Development specializing in Strategy Development and Implementation
  • Home
  • About
  • Coaching
    • Coaching Offer!
    • How I work and why you should work with me
    • The Benefits of Coaching
    • Effective Teams
    • Executive Coaching
    • Coaching and Mentoring: Developing Managers as Coaches & Mentors
    • Difficult Team Conversations
    • Choosing a Coach
  • Strategy
    • What is Strategy? >
      • What it takes to make a good Strategy
      • Diagnosing the internal environment
      • Figuring Out How to Reach the Promised Land
      • Strategy: External Analysis
      • The Competitive Environment
      • Defining the Challenge and Creating the Guiding Policy
      • WIGs, Scoreboards and Tracking Progress
    • Strategic Leadership >
      • Strategic Thinking
      • Strategic Thinking (cont.)
      • Strategic Acting
      • Strategic Acting (cont.)
      • Strategic Acting (cont.)
      • Strategic Influencing
      • Strategic Influencing (cont.)
      • Strategic Influencing (cont.)
      • Strategic Leadership Teams
      • Strategy as a Learnining Process
      • Summing Up Strategic Leadership
    • Strategic Thinking >
      • What is Strategic Thinking?
      • Strategic Thinking as a Discipline
      • Where to Play and How to Win
      • Bucking an Industry Norm
      • Replicating Pockets of Excellence
      • Questions about Strategic Thinking
  • Leadership
    • Developing Business Leaders
    • Personality and Business
    • Self-Leadership >
      • Selling when you are not a Sales Person
      • Meetings! Bloody Meetings! Be Mindful
      • Resilience. How Resilient are You?
      • Resilience: Build your Own
      • Build Your Team's Resilience
    • Leadership >
      • #UselessLosers
      • Leadership is Exercised One Conversation at a Time
      • Presenteeism - Doing more harm than good
      • 5 Steps to Develop your Leadership Skills
    • Culture Change
  • Clients
    • What Our Clients Say >
      • What a Massive Shift
      • Our small part in the fight against Corruption
  • Articles
  • Contact

Building a Resilient Team

6/13/2022

0 Comments

 
The past couple of years have taken their toll on both individuals and teams. I’ve written a lot about resilience in individuals, but we also need to look at cultivating resilience in teams. I believe that the remote working of the last 2 years has not been good for teams. It takes a very specific and deliberate approach to even create a sense of “team” when team members work remotely. Building team resilience takes great presence of mind and quite a lot of attention from both the team leader and the members of the team.
A resilient team is one which easily adapts to change and embraces that challenges that the world of work presents them with. In a resilient team, there is a high level of self-management, people are self-motivated to achieve work objectives, and they strive for continuous improvement. These are exactly the characteristics that have been required during the Covid-19 pandemic in order for teams to continue to do well. But remember what I’ve said before: resilience is like a parachute – you’d better have one when you need one or you’ll never need it again.
Resilient teams have eight key characteristics:

1. Coping Ability
Perseverance and inner strength mark the resilient team. Challenges are seen as opportunities to grow. Members believe the best in each other in spite of weaknesses, and recall the many examples of endurance and success in the past. They work through communication impasses and try alternative approaches to work when necessary. They also minimize distractions to stay focused on their work, and regularly use resources outside of the team for ongoing training and coaching. 

2. Commitment
Aim at everything and you'll hit nothing. Resilient teams have specific goals, clear strategies, and defined relationships into which they invest themselves. Members are resolutely dedicated to each other’s well-being and to accomplishing the team's purpose. Members feel like they belong to and can influence their group. The goals of the team are highly valued and prioritized, yet with due regard for members' responsibilities to family, friends, the local community, and other groups.

3. Appreciation
Team members regularly and easily express their appreciation for each other. Thanking one-another and acknowledging each other's contributions add much to group cohesion. Appreciation is both an attitude and a behavior, so cultivate both!

4. Communication
Members of strong teams have good communication skills, including conflict resolution. They listen well and can empathize by reflecting back what they hear, and they validate others' feelings. They value self-awareness, taking time to step back and reflect in order to step forward and connect with others. Genuine efforts are made to explore and relate together in culturally-sensitive ways. There are also clear written and verbal channels for exchanging information and updates about life and work. 

5. Time Together
Teams need quality time together, and a lot of it. This is especially true during significant transitions: when teams bring in new members, during crisis situations, or during the early stages of team life. Intimacy with a few members but congeniality with all is a reasonable goal. Resiliency also results from periodically having "fun" times together - simply enjoying one another's company - plus from building mutually supportive friendships. 
This has been the greatest negative during the work from home period we’ve been through. Many organisations have decided to either continue to allow working from home or to implement a hybrid working arrangement. This either means working some days at home and some days at work, or it means that some people work from home and some people come to the office.
We need to be very clear that there is no virtual substitute for teams spending time together. Regardless of the working model adopted by your organisation, you need to make sure that there are regular opportunities for your team to spend time together. Some people have become very comfortable working from home, and are resistant to efforts to bring them back to the office, but you need to make certain team together-time non-negotiable. And it is not “everyone in the office” for its own sake. It is important to use that time purposefully for things that the team needs to work on together. This includes:
  • Talking about how people are doing;
  • Talking about the work and how it is progressing;
  • Progressing projects, making decisions and solving problems together;
  • Talking about how the team is doing as a team;
  • Taking time to express appreciation to and for each other;
  • Spending “social” time together over lunch or coffee just chatting and connecting.

6. Understanding
Henri Nouwen observed that one of life's hardest realities is that "love and wounds are never separated". Healthy teams will experience tensions and hurts. There are times when our darker sides will emerge. And there are times when our just being different will create friction. To lessen the impact, team members look at their different "styles" and preferences: personality, leadership, decision making, learning, work, communication, and spirituality. Focus is more on "fitting together" than on identifying someone's weaknesses. Team members thus try to genuinely understand and accept one other's "way of being", while also being free to give one another feedback. Resilient teams are able to let go of things and move on rather than bearing grudges.

7. Structure
Resilience requires regimen: clear roles for leaders and other members, well-defined decision-making methods, agreed-upon accountability and conflict resolution guidelines, and in many cases a written agreement or "memo of understanding". Everyone has designated and chosen responsibilities, so people know how they fit and where they belong. Structure brings a sense of security. 

8. Learning
Resilient teams are learning teams. They take the time to learn from both their mistakes and their successes. When they address problems, they do not look for blame, they look for real causes – and they address these causes. They share ideas with each other and regularly brainstorm options for doing things better.

Challenge
Why don’t you share this article with your team and have them assess how resilient they think they are. Ask them to make a judgement about how the last 2 years have affected their resilience as a team. Then, in one of your team meetings discuss this and make some decisions about what you and your team need to do to bolster the team’s resilience.

Contact Me
If you recognise that you need to take the lead in developing your and your team’s resilience, email me on [email protected] and let’s discuss your coaching programme.
 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    20Plenty
    Accountability & Responsibility
    Adaptability
    Authentic Conversations
    Belinda Davies
    Celebrate Success
    Change
    Coach
    Coaching
    #coaching
    Conversation
    CPD (Continuing Professional Development)
    Culture
    Culture Change
    Decision Quality
    Diversity
    Emotional Regulation
    Empathy
    Empathy Is Not Intuition
    Employeeengagement
    Employee Engagement
    Employee Survey
    Endurance
    Engagement
    Ethics & Ethical Dilemmas
    Focus
    #goals
    Gratitude
    Grit
    Health
    Influence
    Inspiration
    Inspirational Leadership
    Inspiring Others
    Leaders As Coaches
    Leadership
    #leadership
    Leadership Development
    Leadership Skills
    Leadership Solutions
    Life Is Difficult
    Management
    #management
    Managers
    Managers As Coaches
    Managers-as-coaches
    Mental Health
    Mental Toughness
    Motivation
    New Beginnings
    Optimism
    People Who Thrive
    Performance
    Performance Under Pressure
    Personal Leadership
    Planning
    Professional Supervision
    Reinvent Yourself
    Relationships
    Relationships Matter
    Resilience
    Rules Of Engagement
    Self-acceptance
    Self Awareness
    Self-awareness
    Self Care
    Self Leadership
    Self-Leadership
    Self-love
    Self Mastery
    Self-mastery
    Self-worth
    Servant Leadership
    Staying The Course
    Strategic Leadership
    #success
    Team_resilience
    Teams
    The Discipline Of Leadership
    Thrive
    Trust & Trustworthiness
    Values
    Victimhood
    Victim Mentality
    Victim Mindset
    Vision
    Winning Mindset

    Archives

    March 2024
    February 2024
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    February 2018
    April 2017
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed

Whats Next?

Leadership Development
Executive Coaching
Business Strategy

What my clients say

Articles
    Work We've Done
    Self-leadership
    Strategic Leadership
    Strategic Thinking
    Strategy

Call me! 082 5519504
Picture
Picture
Picture

    What improvements or changes do you seek?

Submit