Resilience: Does Your Team Have What it Takes to Overcome Adversity?

You are winning and winning big! Just when you think everything is going your team’s way, something bad happens. COVID-19 strikes which created a significant decrease in business for the restaurant and hospitality industries. A valuable team member leaves for a competitor. A customer does not renew their contract with your company. One of your vendors gets hacked and your system and data is compromised. Something negative is published about your company in the press or social media. Severe financial penalties are imposed against your company by a branch of government. If you are a sports team, a valuable player is hurt and lost for the season.  In each of these situations, the wind may be knocked out of your sails and the natural tendency is to lose hope and positive momentum.

Great leaders and great teams know when adversity knocks, that is their moment to show what they are made of and really shine.  

The following 9 tips will help leaders and teams stay focused on doing the right thing when faced with adversity.

Stay vision focused: Positive visions provide both direction and hope. Even when adversity strikes, although there are new problems that need to be resolved, the vision is still the same.  Life changes for the good and bad. The only thing we have total control over when life changes is our attitude. And our attitude, we can change in a heartbeat. Developing a positive vision complete with a list of actions to turn the vision into a reality is a plan that has the greatest chance for success.

Write out a plan: Write a good definition of the problem and a strategic plan to solve the problem. Writing helps you to put distance between you and the problem and it also allows you to think and capture additional possibilities to solve the problem. Many people think it takes too long to write down a plan. It will actually help you save time because you are not talking about the same topics and ideas over and over to different people without getting the information formalized.

Focus on what you can do: In the beginning of COVID-19, when everything in California was locked down, I said to myself that our business would seriously decline because our clients were no longer allowing team members to come to work or meet in groups. When crisis hits, our mind tends to pull us to the negative aspects of the situation. In the middle of the negativity, it is easy to focus on what is not working and what you cannot do. Ask three questions to stay focused:

• Where do we want to be?
• What actions will we take to get there?
• How can you personally help to improve the condition of your team or your client’s team?

It was the focus of these three questions that allowed us to move all of our training and coaching sessions online. Even when the vaccine achieves massive success, some parts of the changes we have made during COVID-19 will never return to the way things used to be and that is a good thing.

Over communicate: When adversity or crisis strikes, things change quickly. Some leaders make the mistake of not communicating to their team until they know more…or all the details. In crisis, details change moment by moment. Without the most updated information, team members cannot make the best decision. You may need to communicate every 15 minutes, once an hour or twice a day. In adversity, you cannot over communicate.

Maintain endurance: The length of the COVID-19 crisis has tested us all. Anyone can maintain endurance for an hour, a day, a week or maybe even a few months. A crisis that lasts for more than a year is a different type of endurance. What will help is to stay focused on what actions you can take in the next hour or the next day. If, each day, you are able to take some type of action that will improve the condition of the crisis, you will find it easier to endure.

Tell the truth:  When things go bad, people want to know they can trust you with the information you are being told. One of the guides that will help you in communicating the truth, even when it is difficult to do so, is to ask yourself, “If it was me, would I want to know the truth.” Almost in every situation, the answer is yes. When you tell the truth, you have the opportunity to build even stronger relationships with team members and customers than if no crisis had ever occurred to begin with.

Set new goals and take action quickly: In times of crisis, seldom do things improve on their own. Quickly bring the team together and review the vision, communicate reality, acknowledge what is still working and then get to work on setting new goals and building an action plan to adjust to the new reality. When the most recent recession struck, the companies who are the strongest today are most likely the companies who reacted to the crisis the fastest by taking the necessary actions to survive a rapidly deteriorating economy.

Re-recruit the cream of the crop:  When crisis strikes, some team members may feel the easiest thing to do is to find another team or job. Make sure that team members know you highly value their contributions and need their input and support to keep the ship sailing in the right direction through the storm.

Be grateful:  This point sounds contrarian but it is important to remember that we are all lucky to be alive and be able to experience this life. Taking on an attitude that you are grateful for your team members, grateful for you customers and maybe even grateful that this crisis is going to make your team better and stronger, and you an even better leader.

It has been stated many times that there are only three things that are certain in life: we are born; we will die, and life will change. And, with significant change, comes adversity. Adversity can deliver a gut punch or it can beat us up over time. Put these nine tips into action and you will experience the greatest opportunity to not only maintain resilience, but to help others find their resiliency.