Post Pandemic Team Building

Overall, many organisations have coped well with remote working.  But the time to return to the office – at least some of the time – is upon us.  Here are a few thoughts about how you can make this a success.

Purpose first

The last 18 months have been all about tasks and survival.  Both accomplished, it’s good to spend some time thinking about what the team is here to do.  The mission may have changed somewhat.  Take a tip from the world of psychological resilience and re-visit your overall sense of purpose.

Reflect

Now is an excellent time to think about what’s gone well in 2020/1.  What have people learnt about themselves, about their ability to cope and in many cases how they have lived and worked better?  Take some time out to capture this and don’t forget to celebrate success.

Embrace real diversity

And that’s diversity of thought, style, values, and approach.  It’s what makes us unique as human beings and brought together in a coherent way, what drives creativity, flexible problem-solving and team excellence.  There’s a paradox here:  working remotely has resulted in many people at work knowing each other better.  We’ve virtually visited each other’s homes, met each other’s family and pets and talked to each other at a much more human level.  This has got to be worth keeping!

Be humble

None of us know what’s round the corner but one thing’s for sure, leaders who have faced up to this fact and talked about it have increased the psychological safety in their teams – if they have also listened and shown real appreciation of others at the same time.  If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that the world is truly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous but that it shouldn’t be so daunting that we fear the future.

Embrace the new

Your organisation is probably considering how it uses physical space, in one way or another:  whether that’s how to make hybrid working effective or how to come together in a building, collaboratively, to get things done.  But the transition won’t always be easy and none of us have been here before:  great reasons for keeping the dialogue open.

Consider facilitation

Talk to us if you’d like help with this.  We are business psychologists with many years of experience of helping individuals and teams perform at their best.  For us, all of this really is just another day in the office!

Article Info:
Published: Tuesday, September 28th, 2021 at 10:47
Category: Change, Feelings and Emotions, Stress and Pressure