Tips for building a resilient team

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Serve as a resiliency role model. How you respond is how you teach your team to respond, so make sure you showcase your resiliency in the best possible light. Though you may have strong personal opinions or reactions to a variety of situations, control your emotions and focus on how to overcome the challenge. Your resiliency is contagious!

Let your team make mistakes. Building a resilient work team means giving your team the freedom to make decisions and make occasional mistakes. Let your team know that mistakes are acceptable, as long as solutions follow. Balance giving your team permission to make mistakes with clear expectations: they must own up to them, fix them, learn from them – and take measures to ensure the same mistakes do not happen again.

Introduce change. Change is inevitable, and often catches people off guard. According to Managing through Change, a manager's manual by the UC Davis Academic and Staff Assistance Program, change involves themes of loss, uncertainty, and control, while adapting to change involves resourcefulness and a strong support network of both personal and professional relationships. Create a dynamic work environment where change is a constant and your team will learn how to adapt, and may even look forward to the next change. For example, you might change the seating arrangement in your office every few months or have each team member take on a different role for a week. These activities can build new relationships, expose team members to different functions within the organization, and encourage adaptability. 

Use positive language. Instead of saying ‘No’ or ‘I can't’, find ways to say ‘Yes’ or ‘I can’. This doesn't mean giving into an unreasonable request; it does mean re-examining the situation to find a way to make it workable, if possible. For example, if a team member wants to attend a pricey logistics management seminar that is out of the budget, your answer is likely going to be no. However, there may be alternatives that you could say yes to. Is there an online video feed at a reduced price that your employee could watch in the office rather than going to the seminar in person? Is an online logistics management training course available that covers the same information?

Present challenges as growth opportunities. Where some see obstacles, others see opportunities. Obstacles and opportunities both require hard work, but your perceptions frame how you feel about that work. If you think of a mountain as an obstacle that gets in your way, you are bound to be miserable as you climb over it or detour around it. On the other hand, if you embrace the challenge and recognize the opportunities ahead, you may enjoy the climb – or even actively seek out similar experiences.