Team Resilience - The Military Way
In an uncertain and turbulent future, resilience is an essential prerequisite for corporate performance. Resilience is defined typically as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma and tragedy.” However, today’s leaders need to take lessons from the military mindset, which treats resilience as a trait not just to react and adapt but instead to be forward looking to seek opportunities in adversity.??How do military leaders develop resilience and permeate it through large teams??
Firstly, military leaders learn early in their careers that teams succeed or fail together. This makes us develop strong bonds and working relationships based on trust and supporting each other. Military leaders get teams to pull together when individual members are struggling to keep up. A team that collaborates, looks out for each other, and goes the extra mile will develop the resilience as an innate characteristic to overcome hardships.?
Secondly, military leaders see teams as living organisms. They understand team energy as the fuel for mission success. The physical and mental rigors of military training imbibe the practical aspects of connecting team energy to team performance. Special Forces build this energy on the foundations of candor, where teams have open dialogues and share honest feedback. Military teams communicate in a 360-degree manner to ensure that early indicators of adversity are picked up and that the team responds in a coherent, synergized manner.?
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Thirdly, military leaders have astute foresight capability. A fall out of operating in a constant environment of risk, military planning is based on contingencies and foreseeing scenarios beyond the plan. This skill of foresight enables leaders to anticipate, plan and guide teams through high-risk environments, with resilience. This leadership trait strengthens the overall risk appetite and performance of units in uncertain times.
During the pandemic, resilience has been quoted by Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, as the “essential part of how we navigated this year [2020].” For enterprises to navigate the choppy waters ahead, they need to develop team resilience and the way forward would be to incorporate into their lexicon of risk - lessons on resilience from military playbooks.?
Snr SLP manager
2 年Very well articulated Tushar. I also believe that while a well interlocked team is crucial for resilience, equally important is how different teams communicate and share information. Unfortunately working in silos leads to gaps and results in incoherent response. Military communication is key, which binds different services and teams and completes the Jigsaw.
Case Management (Coroners Court New Zealand) Ministry of Justice
2 年Tushar Asirvadam - nicely said. Resilience offers a good spectrum of human interactions and experiences
Business Transformation/ Digital Leader. Ex-Accenture. IIM Lucknow, BITS Pilani, Indian Air Force
2 年Amazingly put across Tushar. These is really good. Businesses across sectors could learn soo much about resilience from Military leaders. This could really be the winning formula for organizations. Team resilience is indeed extremely critical to wade through troubled waters and yet emerge victorious.