3 Things You Can Do Now to Build a Resilient Team Culture
When I think resilience I immediately go to the personal challenges I have faced and persevered in. Resilience is not something that only exists within the personal stories, but exists at the corporate culture, the non-profit, and small business as well. How? Resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges and it isn’t just an individual asset — it’s a team advantage. When leaders create a culture of resilience, they empower teams to face challenges collectively, adapt quickly, and grow stronger together.
In the spirit of this month’s theme, “Growing Together,” here are three practical ways you can start building a resilient team culture right now.
Normalize Challenges and Setbacks
One of the most impactful things a leader can do to build resilience is to normalize setbacks as part of the team’s growth journey. Often employees and team members struggle on their own and are left to their own accord to solve a problem they have. This kind of culture is in survival mode not resilience mode.
Leaders: speak openly about challenges — acknowledging the struggles and framing them as learning opportunities — this sends a powerful message: challenges are natural and no one is alone in facing them.
Sharing struggles in the mindset of sharing to learn, sharing to grow, sharing to find solutions should be a normal conversation in every business and should be encouraged by the leaders.
Try this: In your next team meeting, take a moment to talk about a recent setback and how you approached it. Invite team members to share their insights or offer advice. This open conversation can demystify challenges and make resilience a shared, team-building experience.
2. Encourage Peer Support and Collaboration
One of the things that many work places struggle from is the misunderstanding of collaboration. Putting people together in a room without guidelines isn’t collaboration. There is so much more I would like to say about what is NOT collaboration, but let’s keep it for a different time.
We are each built in unique ways and have our own strengths and challenges and when we get together, the beauty is we learn from each other. However, this doesn’t happen from simply being together with others in the room. So what to do then?
Leaders: Make it a common practice to pair and/or group team members on projects to put their skills to use. Also, make it a practice to give and receive feedback in a non-evaluative way so they feel safe to grow and are encouraged to seek advice. This makes resilience a collective strength.
Try This: Set up regular team huddles where team members can offer each other feedback or help with projects. It could be a dedicated “Peer Support Friday” session once or twice a month. This encourages a culture of mutual support, where team members feel empowered to help each other succeed.
3. Celebrate Small Wins to Build Momentum
Most of the time we hear from our bosses when something has gone wrong and needs our attention. We hear about this so often that we are ever so surprised when they talk about something that went right. We don’t need a special meeting to do either of these things. And we definitely don’t need to wait to the end of the month to celebrate. This needs to be a regular practice, where every small win is recognized and celebrated. Because every small win contributes to the team’s overall resilience.
Leaders: First of all get out of your offices and walk amongst your people. So when your team members see you, they don’t thing you bring bad news. Unfortunately, that has become the norm so let’s break out of it and make a new norm where you’re there and present.
Try This: Take a page out of Long John Silvers’ book where celebration is loud and requires a bell at the door. Ok, you don’t need a bell, or maybe you do. Make it yours but make it a regular thing to announce wins no matter how small.
A Personal Insight: Learning Resilience Through Others
I’ve found that resilience is as much about learning from others as it is about facing my own challenges. On one particularly challenging project, tight deadlines, high expectations, and limited resources made the task seem overwhelming. But what kept us moving forward was the collective energy, support, and determination of everyone involved. Resilience isn’t about bearing the weight alone; it’s about distributing it across the team, each person contributing their strength to keep us moving.
Creating a resilient team culture doesn’t happen overnight, but every small step counts.
