It’s natural for businesses to face various ebbs and flows in their growth path. What matters is the tenacity and resilience of the teams working during those times. Resilient teams work together to resolve all kinds of challenges quickly. They can easily recover from temporary setbacks with vigor and help the organization grow again.
According to Harvard Business Review (HBR), there are four things resilient teams do best that differentiate them from other teams:
- Resilient teams collectively believe that they can complete tasks together effectively.
- They are aligned on their roles and responsibilities and coordinate with each other smoothly. This gives them a clear picture of what’s expected from them and enables them to respond to challenging situations in the right way.
- The teams can quickly handle all types of adversities through improvisation and adjustment to new situations.
- They trust each other and are willing to take risks as they don’t fear failure or criticism.
These characteristics help resilient teams overcome all business challenges together and enable organizations to achieve their goals successfully.
But what strategies can organizations use to build resilient teams? Let’s find out.
1. Create a Psychologically Safe Space
Workplaces that build a psychologically safe space for employees report 76% more engagement and 50% more employee productivity. A psychologically safe workplace encourages employees to share ideas, concerns, and criticisms without fearing punishment or humiliation. It makes the team members feel valued and increases their overall engagement.
This safe space encourages employees to innovate without the fear of failure or criticism. They become so resilient that they quickly embrace the failures, learn from them, and proceed to the next goal. It also increases accountability among the team members and enables them to face all kinds of challenges easily.
2. Keep Communication Lines Open
Effective communication is essential to foster resilience within a team. Teams that communicate efficiently and solve challenges quickly are more likely to succeed. Communication has become even more critical in today’s hybrid work environment, where teams work from different locations. It helps team members align on roles, responsibilities, and goals and regularly update one another on recent developments and roadblocks. This level of transparency helps to prevent miscommunication and solve problems immediately.
Leaders play an essential role in fostering regular communication among team members. Employees should feel comfortable sharing ideas and discussing issues freely without any inhibitions. Hence, leaders must focus on building a safe space and encourage team members to have an open line of communication between themselves and leaders. This will help teams to face all types of challenges and adapt to changes quickly.
3. Coach the Team Members
Resiliency is not a mere trait that everyone inherently possesses. It requires consistent nurturing and guidance. To create highly resilient teams, leaders must proactively coach and equip team members with the necessary skills to successfully overcome challenges. They can provide 1:1 and peer coaching sessions to build a team that is well-equipped to tackle complex problems, resolve conflicts, and overcome any roadblocks to achieve a common objective.
With planned coaching, regular progress tracking, and constructive feedback, leaders can ensure that the team is always prepared to tackle any challenge that comes its way with confidence.
3. Establish Common Goals
Team resilience is built on a deep understanding of the mission and vision, a shared objective, and a sense of purpose that motivates team members during challenging times. Team leaders have a critical role to play in this process. They must communicate the mission, vision, and goals effectively to their team members.
Leaders must explain the ‘why’ behind achieving the goal. This helps the team grasp its significance, understand the value of their contributions, and overcome any obstacles to achieve it.
4. Encourage Collaboration
Silos between different teams can lead to unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings and prevent the team members from becoming resilient. Teams that can’t reach a consensus delay decision-making and stop the organization from growing.
To overcome this problem, leaders must break the silos and promote collaboration between different teams. This can be accomplished through continuous team communication, establishing feedback mechanisms, and proactively resolving conflicts.
More importantly, as mentioned above, a shared goal will automatically foster a strong connection between different teams and motivate them to work towards achieving it. The onus lies with the leaders to ensure the teams work cohesively and overcome challenges with resiliency.
How Can Organizations Prepare Leaders to Build Resilient Teams?
At a time when businesses struggle to keep pace with the increasing demands of customers, organizations have to ensure that all teams are prepared to face various challenges. More importantly, they must be resilient enough to fail quickly, learn, and advance. That’s possible only when leaders set an example by demonstrating resiliency.
Organizations must ensure that the leaders possess the skills to build and lead resilient teams through all challenges.
At Numly, we understand the organizations’ need to have a pool of resilient leaders and teams. We have built a peer coaching platform called NumlyEngage™ to help leaders improve their leadership skills and build resilient teams.
Through our 60-day pilot program of NumlyEngage™, leaders will learn critical skills like communication, leadership, and problem-solving that will empower them to build a culture of resilience and adaptability within the organization. It’s also an ideal platform for employees to mentor each other online and guide them through new situations and environments.
Contact us to learn more about NumlyEngage™ and how it can help you build resilient leaders and teams.
