WORKING WITH ADVERSITY

Watching England win their game on Saturday at Murrayfield in the wind, rain and cold, got us thinking about what it takes to overcome adversity and keep a winning mindset when things aren’t going to plan.

We are doing more and more of our team and leadership development work outdoors now, as people are seeing the benefit of experiential learning over classroom based learning. Sometimes it can feel like the weather is against us, but our motto has always been “no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes!” The key is, what you do when it rains or things don’t go according to plan, how you respond and the attitude you take makes all the difference to a positive outcome.

Stood in the stadium on Saturday, watching England battle it out against Scotland, the elements and a lot of booing from the Scottish fans, highlighted again that there is real parallel with sports and business. Early last year, we wrote about the book Legacy where we shared what we are learned from reading about the All Blacks and how they rose to become a world class team.

So, how do you train your team to change, to recover when things don’t go your way? How do you coach your team to be resilient when the plan goes wrong? Here’s our top tops for overcoming adversity:

• Have a strategy for change. The ability to adapt is what will set you apart. Then, take people with you whenever you change direction – communicate regularly and clearly.

• Provide a clear sense of purpose, direction, vision and values to help keep the team engaged and bought into the team – having this helps people to manoeuvre through adversity.

• Create an environment where people can take risks and try things out without fear of blame.

• Help your team to have a strong sense of identify and respect for themselves and others and encourage them to be authentic and real.

• Prepare yourself and your team to be emotionally resilient – commit to developing them, help them to push out of their comfort zone to get true learnings and provide them with the right tools to help them keep a positive mindset.

We are always here to help people and teams going through adversity, whether it is through some 1:1 coaching, team building or some leadership development. Working with you we can help to understand your challenges and will support you in whatever way we can.

If you would like to have a chat please get in touch.