#101 Developing sustainable team resilience to thrive with Julian Roberts

"Role modelling is the most powerful way to influence people and cultures ..."

In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, resilience has become a buzzword, but how do we move beyond buzzwords to action? 

Julian and I do a deep dive into the heart of organisational resilience, unpacking strategies that can help your teams to do more than just survive, we focus on building resilience through fostering well-being, growth, learning, and vulnerability. We discuss the transformative effect of creating a workplace where challenges are shared openly, and optimism is balanced with a healthy dose of realism.

We also touch on the critical role vulnerability plays in team dynamics and how it ties back to character and attitude. We discuss the essence of authentic leadership and the importance of role modelling in catalysing and strengthening collective resilience. 

How can we create these conditions in a hybrid workplace ? 

How can we intentionally cultivate workplaces where people and teams can thrive ? 

Julian shares his research, experience, stories and insights from his ongoing work with leaders and teams.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

• Thriving is the flipside of surviving – like a plant that thrives with the right food, soil, environment, water and sunlight, in an organisation this means people feel they can learn, grow, excel and make mistakes.
• It is an ambitious concept for organisations as constant high performance is unrealistic and can lead to a culture of toxic resilience, i.e. constant optimism, overachievement and ultimately burnout.
• The middle ground between thriving and surviving means being open about challenges; being real (with people); being optimistic, i.e. rooted in the now but with an eye on the future; and being realistic.
• Organisations should provide check-in times for teams and a comfortable environment in which to share – resilience must be operationalised and it can be developed and grown like a muscle (through discipline and practice).
• Given the diverse profiles in a team, it is important to scale the mindset and create collective resilience - having a mission lifts the team, gives energy from positive purpose, and offers a path forward with innovative solutions.
• There are processes to ‘reduce, regulate and repair’: scenario planning, iceberg drills, collaboration, mitigation ideas, debriefing through difficulties and successes, reflecting on lessons learned.
• Clear roles and responsibilities are required for collective understanding, as are discipline (i.e. a commitment with structure yet flexibility), consistency and messaging – the processes must serve the people, not the other way round.
• Authentic leadership improves team resilience through self-awareness, balanced processing, internal moral perspective, and openness and transparency – very important for interaction.
• Psychological safety is paramount and the responsibility of the leader, with self-awareness the most significant of all as it has the biggest impact on creating a resilient team.
• Hope and optimism are very good things to have in organisational constructs – leaders with hope retain staff, raise profits and have thriving teams with optimistic intentions for the future of both the organisation and the people.
• Role modelling is the most powerful way to influence people and cultures in terms of bringing in pessimists as it offers inspiration but not toxic positivity and grounds people in reality.
• Leaders must create conditions for people to thrive in a hybrid environment through connection and communication, e.g. virtual townhall meetings, in-person get-togethers (with social elements, not always work-based), and open-door policies (also via Zoom).

Find out more about Julian and his work here :

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julesroberts/

https://www.julianrobertsconsulting.com/

Podcast: https://www.linkedin.com/company/helping-organisations-thrive-podcast/