All of us know that no matter how hard we try, no matter how well we’ve planned, and no matter how much we know…sometimes the you-know-what has hit the fan, and that fan is on high speed.
Whether it’s in sports, academics, work or relationships, sometimes a day, week, year inevitably turns out a lot different than you had planned.
So, how do great team builders continue to inspire their employees during those tough times when the stress level is high, react to changes and roll with the punches in a way that allows them not only to have hope but also embrace setbacks as a chance to learn, excel, and become more resilient individuals and teams?
When it comes to building team resilience, the most important thing is to start with the right mindset and attitude.
Building Resilience by Seeing challenges vs. roadblocks
Their attitude was the main reason I preferred racing with the Australians and the New Zealanders. My Aussie friends always say, “No worries, mate!” And regardless of what was going wrong, my New Zealand teammates’ favorite expression was, “Aw, she’ll be ’roiiit.”
You could be telling them, “Mate, your leg’s half off!” and the response would be, “Aw yeeeah, she’ll be ’roiiit, just a flesh wound.”
Every day was like a Monty Python movie with these guys. With my favorite teammates, a ten-day race across the most remote places on Earth with the circumstances changing minute to minute was always an interesting and challenging journey, a long series of problems to tackle and obstacles to overcome together. With the wrong teammates, everything is a deal breaker, a race-ending catastrophe, and brainstorming comes to a standstill. I loved the Kiwi and Aussie way because nothing was ever a lost cause in their minds. It was always going to be okay somehow. Whether they were faking their way through that degree of confidence was irrelevant because confidence begets hope, and hope is what keeps us mentally in the game to brainstorm solutions. When someone tells you, “Hey, we have a challenge here!” there’s a feeling of rising to the occasion, a feeling that what lies ahead is just another opportunity to prove ourselves.
Conversely, when a teammate gives up hope and says, “It’s over. There’s no way out for us,” brainstorming is shut down, and entropy takes over our souls. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t master the tactical agility to make a U-turn whenever necessary, because that’s an important skill. But the best teambuilders have a skill of positioning even a U-turn in a positive light, as merely a new set of challenges.
The hope of success vs the fear of failure
When we are faced with a challenging situation, many of us operate out of fear of failure. We focus our attention on and stress over not falling short, on trying to stay just one step ahead. But the most resilient leaders think differently. Sure, they are cognizant of the possibility of failure, and they prepare to deal with the things that go sideways, but their main focus during those stressful situations is on doing what it takes to win versus simply not lose. There is a subtle yet profound distinction between the two that underlines the difference between the world champions and the rest of the field.
Resilient leaders understand that teams that operate from a place of safety, security and comfort can undoubtedly make it to the finish line consistently and have an incredibly long and successful career, but more often than not, the podium spots are reserved for the brave, resilient people, whether by default or otherwise.
A resilient leader never lets the pursuit of perfection hinder progress
Change and challenge is really the only thing that’s going to stay the same in our lives. So, it’s how we respond to change and huge hairy challenges that dictate our long-term success.
Sometimes your goal may be out of reach due to a challenging situation or circumstances beyond your control, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a finish line still out there for you. Oftentimes, the revised finish line ends up being just as meaningful as the original. The art of the resilient leader who never lets the pursuit of perfection hinder progress is to find that new finish line, that new challenge to strive for, and to help the team see that light and reach for that star. World-class adversity managers understand that building resilience is about knowing how to create a new win out of an old lose. They rewrite the rules for what it means to win and mobilize their employees toward that vision.
For each challenge we encounter in life, we must consciously choose to stand up or sit down. It’s easy to tell yourself that something is too hard and give yourself an out or an excuse to sit down. But is it really too hard? In the arena of sports physiology, endurance athletes are told that our bodies are capable of twenty times more distance and effort than we believe they are. I wonder if the same isn’t true of the mind and the spirit. It’s only in the toughest of times that we find out what we’re truly capable of. And in that way, these trials (mostly in retrospect, granted) are among the most valuable life lessons and character builders imaginable.
