Whether St. Brendan crossed the Atlantic in the 6th century or Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo were the first to deliberately row across it in 1896, the idea of a small team navigating a massive, turbulent ocean in a tiny boat epitomizes human resilience.

In today's turbulent and fast-changing business world, personal and team resilience—the ability to keep going through adversity, deal with stress, and bounce back to high levels of performance after setbacks—is an essential competence and a characteristic of successful leadership

To gain insight into the nature of resilience, researchers at Henley Business School, led by Dr. Caroline Rook, conducted a study based on the experiences and reflections of four professionals who took part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge 2018. The aim is to learn more about how resilience levels develop during challenging times and to recognize the factors that influence resilience.

Through a better understanding of the self-management behaviours that enhance emotional, cognitive, and physical capacity for resilience during the extreme challenges faced by the four rowers, the study highlights the key components of resilience. It also reveals several strategies for personal and team resilience that are relevant to challenging times in organizational contexts.

The dynamics of personal resilience

Personal resilience levels during the challenge differed between the individual rowers and oscillated up and down for each rower throughout the race. Beyond the obvious mental and physical stress involved during the 51 days at sea, the rowers reported these specific factors that caused levels of personal resilience to be lowered:

• lack of sleep. “I’ve never experienced it before, but it’s like a crossover between dreaming when you’re in your sleep and being awake,” said one rower.
• Relationships. Relationship pressures with the rest of the team and feeling responsible for, but separated from, those at home.
• Illness. The symptoms of seasickness were surprising and overwhelming for some of the team.
• Uncertainty. Uncertainty of what challenges lay ahead, the weather, and the changing feelings around the actual duration of the race.

Then there were specific factors that raised levels of resilience.

• Experiences of success or prepared rewards had an impact on the resilience levels felt by the team. As one rower observed, “I’ve just had the best meal, one of those freeze-dried meals, just a nice one that I’d been hoping would be good for Christmas Day, and it was. Things are going well. Ask me again tomorrow when there have been a couple more challenges, and we’ll see.” going well. Ask me again tomorrow when there have been a couple more challenges, and we’ll see.”
• Feeling that the team is functioning and having positive social experiences were associated with higher reported levels of resilience: “… strong support from everyone in the team for everyone else in the team whenever they need," said another rower.
• Successfully managing adversity had a positive impact on experienced resilience levels: “It was so bad it was almost funny, and we both helped each other through it. Feel good for having gotten through that, so resilience is up at about 8. I just want the sun to come out now!”

The study highlighted four coping mechanisms the rowers used to help them through and to build resilience. First, getting into a routine to get a sense of control and achievement and so as not to feel overwhelmed. Secondly, seek support from others to work things through. Thirdly, focus on the goal to be able to push through. And finally, taking time out in their happy place to recharge.

The dynamics of team resilience

An individual team member can be resilient, but their team might not be, as team resilience depends on the decision-making process of the team about how to address particular challenges or how to deal with setbacks and adversity. The essential characteristics of a resilient team are:

• Commitment to the goal. The whole team has to be committed to the goal for team processes to work well. As one of the rowers said, "little niggles that have built up and built up and built up, and then eventually one of us has a bit of a vent... and then getting on with it and remembering the bigger picture.”
• Team potency. The team’s shared belief that it can be effective is key to its resilience. “And the team, I think, is in pretty good shape, by and large. We’re getting along remarkably well. So far, 21 days in, there hasn’t been a single serious spat between the four of us, which is quite impressive given the space we’re living in, and the tiredness and stress we have been under the whole time. We rely on [Rower] very heavily for this sort of stuff. We would be stuffed without him," said one rower
• Team mental model. A clear understanding of each other’s roles and the overarching roles of the team is key to effective teamwork and becomes particularly important when challenges become chaotic and fast reactions are needed. “The team is getting along pretty well. Dealing with challenges tends to follow a pretty clear format now. There’s no deviation from [Rower] being skipper, so he’s the final decision-maker, but other people are contributing to resolving issues, which is good,” said another rower.

Capacity to improvise. The ability to come up with new solutions and keep adapting is key to keeping team performance high.

STUDY CONTEXT

Heads Together and Row is a mixed-four crew that took part in the 3,000-mile Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge 2018. They rowed the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Antigua in a time of 50 days, 22 hours, and 38 minutes. Team members Toby Gould, Jeremy Reynolds, Alison Wannell, and Justin Coleman were raising money for mental health charities Mind and Combat Stress as part of the Heads Together campaign, a mental health initiative spearheaded by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They also raised money for the Marine Conservation Society. A total of 27 teams completed the race, which began on December 12, 2018, and was organized by Atlantic Campaigns. It is said to be the world’s toughest ocean row.

• Team psychological safety. Admitting mistakes, voicing concerns, and raising divergent opinions are important to keep personal relationships functioning and to effectively deal with challenges. As one rower observed, “I think we’re all trying to get the best out of each other, and changing that negative talk, which I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing but mixing it up with a bit of positive reinforcement as well.”
• Sense-making and strategizing capacity. The team needs to have the ability and processes in place to analyze challenges and come up with solutions.

The study highlighted three coping mechanisms for the team as a whole. First, monitor and detect discrepancies in team processes and adverse events in advance to react effectively. Secondly, sense-making and finding strategies to resolve challenges by adapting ways of working or persisting. And thirdly, restoring broken processes to stay on track toward goal attainment. It also stressed that a resilient team needs to engage in situation analysis to enable learning. Through learning, the team can engage in procedural modification for future teamwork, and the team gains confidence by knowing what helped overcome adversity.

Admitting to mistakes, voicing concerns, and raising divergent opinions are important to keep personal relationships functioning and to effectively deal with challenges

In extreme environments, team mental models, a clear understanding of each other’s roles and the overarching roles of the team, and relational dynamics are key to resilience. Successful mental models and relational dynamics can be fostered by preparing the whole team together to build clear roles and team processes, including psychological safety; then, during challenging times, sense-making can be encouraged through encouraging open dialogue and reframing adversity as an opportunity to learn. After the challenge has subsided, give the team time to recover and the capacity to learn to increase their resilience.