Building effective and resilient teams
Effective teamwork is a defining feature of a mentally healthy workplace. Effective and resilient teams can problem solve, respond well to challenges, and provide important social and instrumental support to team members.
Part of the Creating an environment that supports thriving module.
What is an effective and resilient team?
Effective teams can emerge organically, but, often they need to be purposely cultivated. Key inputs of an effective and resilient team include team-level resources, complementary knowledge, experience and abilities of members, effective leadership and strong organisational support. Inclusion, respect and trust are also key features.
Team resilience is a group’s capacity to respond to change and disruption in a flexible, emotionally safe and innovative way. Organisations can also develop resilience. Organisational resilience refers to a business's ability to adapt as the global market is evolving, respond to short-term shocks (e.g. natural disasters or changes in market dynamics) and respond to long-term challenges.
Resilient teams have processes and resources to support them. Building a resilient team moves beyond focusing on individuals, and instead focuses on groups and systems.
How to build an effective and resilient team
Two areas of research with emerging evidence for both performance and mental health outcomes in teams are psychological safety and psychological capital.
Not all team building activities result in positive outcomes. Organisations need to invest in meaningful activities that are supported by evidence and improve workplace mental health.
Team psychological safety
For a team to be engaged, resilient and effective, all members must feel safe, included and respected. People must be comfortable sharing ideas, speaking up about issues of concern and presenting alternative or different views, without descending into dysfunctional conflict.
‘Psychological safety’ is more than fulfilling legislative obligations to assess and control psychosocial hazards—it is important not to confuse the 2. Instead, psychological safety refers to “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”.1
A lack of psychological safety is a common contributing factor to critical group decision making failures. That is, someone felt something was not right, but did not speak up for fear of being wrong, or because they felt uncomfortable questioning an authority figure.
But, when psychological safety is high, teams engage in healthy debate and value respectful questioning. The result is positive outcomes including innovation and enhanced team and organisational learning.
Here are some practical ways to develop psychological safety in your team:
- Uncover the ‘norms’ in the team related to speaking up and group processes (e.g. ground rules, being engaged/focused, participative and respectful) and re-set these norms where needed.
- Actively coach and role model participatory and inclusive behaviours (e.g. ensuring everyone is engaged). Demonstrate it is safe to share and reflect on mistakes.
- Ensure team leaders do not demonstrate favouritism towards particular members or create ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ within the team.
- Consider the broader organisational environment, especially if you are part of a large organisation. Worker voice is more active when people perceive lower levels of organisational politics and higher levels of support for speaking up.
Team psychological capital
‘Psychological capital’ refers to the extent to which someone possesses hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism—resources that help people deal with challenges in their working life.
Psychological capital can be observed at a team level and is described as a “shared belief in a team’s conjoint capacities and probability for success.”2 You can develop your team’s psychological capital by:
- setting team goals collaboratively related to current challenges
- generating multiple pathways to achieve the ‘sub goals,’ and overall team goal
- identifying potential obstacles or challenges that may prevent goal achievement
- identifying the available team assets and resources to aid goal achievement
- identifying and reframing negative expectations within the team about the likelihood for success.
You may be able to include some of these ideas informally in team activities and operations, or more systematically via structured programs.
The principles related to psychological safety and psychological capital apply to all workplaces, including start-ups, small businesses and networks of contractors.
1 Amy C. Edmondson & Zhike Lei (2014). Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1 (1), 23-43. Read here.
2 Dawkins, S., Martin, A., Scott, J., & Sanderson, K. (2015). Advancing conceptualization and measurement of psychological capital as a collective construct. Human Relations, 68(6), 925–949. Read here.