How can we build Resilience in Our Teams (and lives!) - PART THREE

This is part three of my blog series on resilience. If you have not read the previous two blogs (“What is Resilience” and “Why is Resilience Important” you can find them here).

I am a passionate advocate of developing resilience. To me, it is the single most important thing we can develop within ourselves and within our teams to help us manage the crazy world we live in. A resilient person or team is a person or team who can acknowledge their own emotions, pick themselves up, find solutions, draw a line and draw some learnings, while maintaining a positive outlook. Resilient people truly understand the age-old adage of “this too shall pass” and can weather storms which will inevitably come regardless of the weather report!

Over a series of three blogs I have broken down the topic of Resilience – what it is, why is it important and how we can build resilience in ourselves and our teams! The links to Part One and Part Two can be found here and here respectively.

How you can build resilience within your teams?

The good news? Resilience can be learned! Coaching can be an extremely powerful tool in any leader’s toolkit and by building our own understanding of resilience we can build it within our teams.

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”

With that in mind, here are some steps to start building your resilient foundation:

1. Pay attention to your Health and Wellbeing:

People are more resilient when in good physical health. While physical health supports resilience, resilience also leads to better physical recovery. It’s a win-win!
To improve your physical well-being and boost your resilience levels, you and your team should focus on:

  • Getting adequate sleep

2. Encourage and practice relaxation techniques

Part of developing resilience is training the mind to stay relaxed, even in the face of stressful situations.

Here are a few ways you and your team can practice to assist relaxation:

  • Find activities that help you relax, like drawing, gardening, exercising, cooking or spending time with family (careful, for some this can be more stressful!)

  • Try out relaxation, mindfulness and meditation apps or podcasts

3. Practice reframing threats as challenges / Minding our Mindset

My husband has a delightful phrase he has repeated to me multiple times in our relationship, usually, when I am panicking or catastrophising – he says “rechoose your attitude”. His meaning is that I need to reframe how I am viewing an event or situation. If we can “rechoose our attitude” and reframe our thinking to see challenges as opportunities for growth, we tend to feel we have the resources to deal with the said situation (or at least we feel more positive trying). Maybe we even start to feel more energised and excited by the challenge. We are mobilised and ready to problem-solve. Becoming aware of mindsets that don’t serve you or your team is the first step to changing them. Is our cup half empty, or half full? A shift in mindset can make all the difference!

4. Get connected

No man is an Island!. It can be extremely important for individuals to utilise the social support network that surrounds them. A person’s social network can provide a valuable buffer to stress and can assist in solving challenges – this includes building strong relationships with their colleagues and you, a manager can help with that. It’s interesting to note that more extroverted people tend to be more resilient and this may be because they are more like to seek out the help of others when they need it.

5. Watch your stress levels

Even the most perfectly resilient person gets stressed from time to time and, dare I say it, a level of stress can be positive – it can focus us, if we can manage it. But getting overwhelmed can impact resilience. It’s important to build self-awareness of our own stress levels with an aim to take note of how you react to stress and what can help “de-stress” you so you are able to keep yourself in check.

6. Unpack the Impacts

If something challenging is on the horizon, gives others a heads up! We don’t need to have all the answers to every challenge immediately but we can often be our own worse enemy when it comes to panicking and imagining the worse. Share information as you can to reduce fear of the unknown and allow your team to be able to reflect and create a plan of action. Giving autonomy can strengthen resilience.

7. Talk Less, Listen More

If ever there were words to live life by, these are them. Listening is the single most useful management tool in building resilience in those we work with. Don’t try and talk people out of how they feel. This makes them feel misunderstood. Just listen. Listening will build respect, show you care, which almost immediately makes someone feel less overwhelmed  - a problem shared is a problem halved! At the core of resilience is mind-set, so if you can, listen and reframe so your team can build more solution-oriented thinking!

8. Model what you want to see in others

In my efforts to build my children’s resilience, my husband and I have often talked about modelling - showing them what resilience looks like (sometimes it works!). Resilient leaders maintain a sense of optimism despite their challenges and set an example for their teams. The more they show their optimism to others, the more others “pick up” what they are “putting down”.

9. Now keep going!!

The most difficult tip of them all; maintain the above efforts long-term! Remember, building resilience is like building new muscles – it’s an ongoing effort.

Stress has, without a doubt increased exponentially within the workplace (and within the home!) due, in part, to the extremely challenging reality of the last two years. Initiatives such as global wellness programs can certainly be beneficial to employees but they often do not have the components or structure to support the development of meaningful and lasting behaviour changes.  

Building a coaching and mentoring mindset as a manager, encompassing all of the above tools and taking active steps to build resilience within your business or team is crucial to your business productivity and building an agile workforce. Your team will thank you for it – with increased resilience, employees learn how to not just adjust to change but also thrive!

Our HR Business Partners would love to help you build resilience in your leaders and teams so they are ready to grow and thrive within your business. Contact us by emailing info@corehr.co.nz to discuss your requirements!

 

Angela Porfiriadis-Walker
Senior HR Business Partner

 

 

Core HR