The world is moving at a faster and faster pace. Organisations and their teams are bombarded with challenges (who saw COVID-19 coming?), market forces are changing rapidly, technology is developing at a rate we couldn’t conceive of fifty or even twenty years ago.

All of this means we are now living in a time that has been termed VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We used to have much more stability, certainty, and predictability, and yet the way we need to do things is far from that. This situation has placed stresses and strains on teams and this has led to a variety of symptoms.

The Challenge of Modern Teamwork

Some of the symptoms of having to navigate these choppy waters include stress and anxiety, low employee engagement, confusion, lack of guidance, clarity, and stagnation. Ultimately it can lead to extinction. Who would have thought that a brand as ubiquitous as Kodak would ever go out of business? Josh Bersin quotes an article in his book ‘Irresistible’ that says “The average age of an S&P 500 company in less than 18 years, compared to 61 years in 1958. In 2027, three quarters of S&P 500 companies will have disappeared”.

Teams need to develop greater resilience and agility in order to manage the fluid and VUCA landscape in which they operate. And yet, humans are inherently averse to change. We like stability and certainty, as for all our existence, the unknown and different is where threat comes from. We assume a default position of resistance to and fear of change. 

People in teams at work need to overcome these instincts – which is possible. It might not be very easy, but you can develop greater comfort with different or difficult circumstances and generate greater resilience and agility for your team to be able to overcome some of the hurdles that will get placed in your way.

It’s OK to Speak Up

One of the first and most important things you can do is to get things out in the open. How are people doing? How are they feeling about what’s going on? Increasing the comfort level with being open and honest about how we are doing will mean you can help deal with things people are going through. If people on the team are struggling with stress or anxiety, you need to do what you can to help. 

Acceptance of Vulnerability

It is a dangerous misconception under which we labour that vulnerability is weakness. People are afraid to appear vulnerable for fear of being judged or ridiculed. You must increase comfort with vulnerability. This means talking about things but also showing by example. Leaders especially need to model this and show the way for others to follow.

If/Then Thinking

This is a tactic that studies have shown great teams use. Basically, it is anticipating potential roadblocks: ‘if this happens, then we do that.’ List the things that could derail your team. If they show up, what do you need to do? How will you behave? You can’t anticipate everything – again, who saw COVID-19 coming! – but we can put coping strategies in place for when things get tough.

Override the Hard Wiring of Fear

As I have mentioned, we are human animals, who work with an inherited hard wiring that is resistant to the unknown and change. We have powerful, in-built ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response to potential threat. The need to be more agile and resilient means we will have to consciously override these systems and processes. This is not easy – the instinct is incredibly strong – and you will not be able to do it all the time. But, through talking together, allowing each other to positively critique each other when we have fallen into freeze mode, for example – means we can change patterns of behaviour that are not necessary.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Teams that want to be resilient and agile need to feel OK being uncomfortable. Life is only going to get more VUCA. I am of course going to be an advocate for team building activities and experiences, but they do work. Do things together where you can practice and simulate existing in an uncertain, scary world that means you have to be agile and resilient – where the stakes are low. We often fear the consequences of incorrect action at work – in a team building activity you can make mistakes safe in the knowledge that the consequences of failure are low. These Team building activities are great learning opportunities about how your team performs under pressure, deals with adversity, and learns the coping skills necessary to take back to their real world. Oh, and shameless plug time – I run a Flight Simulator Teambuilding Program where you can do exactly this – check out the program on this link: 

Contextualize Everything

When I am coaching teams or running team building programs, I get a good insight into how that team operates. One of the benefits of team coaching and team building is that I as the coach can see the team in a way that the team can’t see itself, because they are too deep ‘in’ their situation. One of the things I am often struck by is how seriously the team members take everything. I do understand it is their jobs and livelihood, so they have to take it seriously – but sometimes it’s healthy just to take a step back and put everything into context. What’s really going on here – is anyone’s life on the line? Is anyone losing an arm? What really matters.

It can help to reduce the enormity of what the team is doing. ‘We are just selling xxx products – lives are not on the line.’ OK, some teams do things where lives are on the line, but sometimes it’s good to just take a moment to think it’s not as big and scary as we think!