Team resilience is an asset in maintaining performance in the face of adverse events. Improving your team’s ability to manage through adversity is critical. A review of literature suggests a three-step approach (Prepare, Manage, Mend) to operationalizing this as a manager.

Research suggest that different resilient team processes are required at different times during teamwork. Prior to an adverse event, teams may take a proactive approach in identifying any potential risk factors for adversity and minimizing risks by either removing the source or preparing to adequately manage them. Preparation activities aid the development of adequate response sets when faced with adversity and may simultaneously lower the risk of detrimental effects of adverse events on the teams (e.g., McEwen & Boyd, 2018; Pollock et al., 2003). During the disruption, resilient teams assess the situation in a timely manner, execute or revise plans where appropriate, develop new strategies if situation change occurs, and adjust their processes when necessary (i.e., engage in team adaptive processes; Maynard et al., 2015). Accurate team mental models help the teams to identify appropriate strategies to determine what adjustments to team processes should be made, such as changes in team member tasks or roles. For instance, a team task simulation study with 20 teams found that teams with high mental model accuracy showed higher adaptive performance (before and after an unforeseen simulated system breakdown) than those without high mental model accuracy (Sander et al., 2015).

Consciously help teams through adversity: Prepare: Spend 15-20 minutes with your team conducting a pre-mortem. Ask them: What do you think could be challenging about X situation (e.g., upcoming pitch)? How might we circumvent that? Manage: Help teams gain situational awareness and adjust processes when necessary — such as changes in team member tasks or roles. Mend: Create space to guide your team in reflecting and learning from the situation: What did they notice about the challenging situation? What did they notice about themselves? What might they learn from the situation?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2041386620919476