Come back stronger: 6 Ways Leaders Can Rebuild Teams in a Hybrid World

90% of today’s workers say they spend 1/3 to 1/2 of each day working in teams. Yet 86% of executives cite lack of effective teamwork as the source of workplace failures. Recent discoveries in neuroscience provide key principles for maximizing the brain’s capacity to work effectively in teams and create psychological safety, a cornerstone of the best teams. Leave this interactive session with new strategies for high-performing teams across all functions of your organization.

I’m going to start with what teams look like today, we’re going to talk about the six ways which are address burnout, onboard with care, create inclusion, Our brains are programmed to focus on our place within the group. Because we live by remaining in our tribe, there are parts of our brain that are continually monitoring our social standing and friend network. Because of this, we are especially sensitive to marginalisation. Therefore, we are really sensitive to it and it actually affects us biologically if we are being pushed to the margins, if we are showing signs of being rejected, shunned, or marginalised in any manner. The neuroscientists who study this were actually rather surprised to realise that in order to understand what exclusion does to the brain, they had subjects undergo MRIs and observed things that weren’t expected., aligned to purpose, and celebrate effort and progress. I’d love to know where you’re joining from.

The L&D landscape

We are aware that organizations now have the ability to have teams all over the world and can now link teams working all across the world. However, during the epidemic, when we were all locked down, teams that are currently working from home seemed a little odd. But it’s crucial to understand that we devote a lot of our time and personnel to this. In fact, 90% of workers claim to spend between a third and half of each day working in a team. And 91 percent of both employees and management agree that the success of their company depends on its teams. Sadly, despite this, 30% of workers have thought about quitting their jobs due to unclean team settings.

I’m sure you’ve been on a team that you loved, where you enjoyed the people you were working with, and where you showed up to work every day energized and excited. You’ve undoubtedly also been a part of teams where it wasn’t enjoyable. Being with these people or doing this work wasn’t fun, and it may break your spirit. I’ve been a part of teams similar to those within the same company. Teams are therefore quite effective. We used to get together and work more in person, but of course, the pandemic has altered everything.

Address Burnout

People are simply worn out, and workplace burnout is at levels we have never seen before. Since there has been so much change in the past 24 months, people are starting to feel fatigued by it dealing with this pandemic and shifting our focus to how we cooperate. I’d want to discuss the signs of change weariness with you because you might experience them in your company on a daily basis, but I can assure you that you’re already experiencing them. Disengagement is the initial one. People simply lose emotion and become apathetic. It also creates Lack of motivation blankly looking into space while working, tardiness, leaving early, or taking more sick days, uncertainty, poor judgement, and friction between individuals and teams. Finally, cynicism boosted resistance and scepticism to complaints. 77 percent of respondents to our Moodle survey indicated that they were experiencing zoom or slack fatigue. And the reason is that we were not really made to speak with one another through brief images; rather, we were made to interact in person. To communicate on a screen, we actually have to work harder biologically; we have to pay closer attention to the clues that indicate how someone is feeling. Quite a bit of body data, body language data, and other information has been lost.

Dr. Tasha Urich is a specialist in this field. According to her, organisations have a financial incentive to fight burnout due to the high expense of healthcare related to it in the US. And that’s just the US, which was close to 200 billion before the pandemic. And it signifies that you now have a large number of flight risks in your organisation. In fact, we are aware that a record number of people are quitting their jobs as a result of the Great Resignation. And that makes it difficult for the hiring staff to look for and hire replacements for these employees. in the spring, we learned that 20% had already changed jobs and 2020 and 40%. Were considering changing their job and 2021. We now know it’s worse than that. In fact, it’s estimated that 55% of workers are planning to change their jobs in the next 12 months. Burnout is real and if you’re not helping your workers recover from it. If you’re not planning for the heavy burden on HR to do this hiring and training of new employees, you’re going to be really struggling.

Onboard with care

The most important way which we can currently rebuild teams is by carefully onboarding new members. First and foremost, all of these folks will be onboarding into our organisation. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a book by Patrick Lencioni. Therefore, we are aware that teams might become dysfunctional. This demonstrates that the first two stages—when we bring people together and onboard them—make a difference in the success of the team or the organisation. So let’s just discuss how significant this is. They must first be integrated into the project and the group in their assigned position, and we must also set their trajectory toward positive norming. We also need to support them in developing stronger relationships. We also need to support them in developing stronger relationships. As such, onboarding them takes place in a hybrid world where we can add more human connection, where we can pair someone with a mentor, where we can spend a little more time discussing their likes and preferences, all of those things that might occasionally happen. We also need to incorporate those casual discussions into onboarding. The resources and equipment needed for employees to perform their jobs must now be provided. And this is becoming a little more difficult due to supply system problems. Therefore, we want to be certain that we position people for success.

We should surely consider developing positive norms. So pay attention to how people interact with one another and whether somebody is being left out. We want to foster a culture where everyone feels comfortable speaking with each other, understanding everyone’s area of expertise, and knowing how they can lend a hand. You can all of these things when you’re conversing, whether it’s in person or online. And we aim to support people in forming wholesome connections. Carl Bruner once stated, “People will never forget how you made them feel; they will forget what you said; they will forget what you did.” And this is really true now more than ever, especially when we’re bringing new people into our organisation.

Create Inclusion

Our brains are programmed to focus on our place within the group. Because we live by remaining in our tribe, there are parts of our brain that are continually monitoring our social standing and friend network. Because of this, we are especially sensitive to marginalisation. Therefore, we are really sensitive to it and it actually affects us biologically if we are being pushed to the margins, if we are showing signs of being rejected, shunned, or marginalised in any manner. The neuroscientists who study this were actually rather surprised to realise that in order to understand what exclusion does to the brain, they had subjects undergo MRIs and observed things that weren’t expected. They were surprised to see that exclusion activates the same brain regions as physical pain. Consider that. Our brain interprets being left out as painful when it occurs. The researchers were so taken aback at this point that they conducted numerous more types of trials, and they discovered that it made no difference if you were rejected by someone you didn’t like. Whether you were getting paid for being rejected didn’t matter. It is still categorised as pain. According to a Harvard research, 61% of employees experience pressure at work to hide some aspect of their identity. This indicates that they don’t feel entirely accepted for who they are.

The increase in this value depends on the identities. This is how 83% of LGBT individuals feel. 79 percent of black African Americans; while this study was conducted in the US, I’m sure the percentages are the same elsewhere. A whopping 66% of women 63% of Chicano, Latino, and Latinx people 61 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander people and even 45 percent of heterosexual white men, who frequently hide a physical or mental ailment.
Long-term exclusion is detrimental. We are aware that persons who have been excluded for a while perform less well when faced with challenging tasks. They struggle with impulse control, poor sleep, reduced immune systems, feelings of melancholy, worry, and depression as well as a sense of worthlessness and powerlessness. Long-term exclusion is so detrimental that many eventually give up.

People began to realise they felt left out and detached when we conducted our hybrid workplace report. Because we placed everything online, 40 percent of people felt a loss of coworker engagement and human connection. 48 percent of respondents thought their voices were frequently ignored. As a result, we are under pressure, and one of the difficulties of a hybrid workplace is that we will need to discover a better way to operate remotely while retaining relationships than we currently do. And for this reason, I believe hybrid will be preferable. This way, we may profit from working remotely while resuming in-person interactions when necessary.

Psychological Safety

It will consume a lot of your time to constantly think about how you can be safer if you operate in an environment or a sector that is inherently dangerous. There is also psychological safety. Bullying at work is one of the ways it is endangered. We don’t really talk about this much. But because it’s more common than you might believe, it’s crucial to talk about it. It is described as abusive behaviour that has a consistent reputation, a long history, and escalates with rising aggression. More often than you might imagine. In fact, bullying at work has an impact on 75% of employees, either as a target or a witness.

Everyone in the team is accountable for our actions. We can confront one another when anything annoys us. Before the epidemic, someone said, “I don’t have to put on a mask at work; I can be myself.” They’re saying that I don’t need to protect myself or hide a part of who I am. But with everyone donning masks, its significance has changed. We also know that people, who feel secure enough to do so, talk about their troubles and failures as well as their accomplishments. Additionally, it appears that humour and sincere laughing are encouraged at work. Therefore, we’ll need to consider ways to foster employee and psychological safety.

Align to Mission

Paul on aligning to mission asserted that purpose and trust both extend the release of oxytocin. Therefore, oxytocin is the molecule that makes us feel connected to and trustworthy of others, which results in happiness. Therefore, working with a trusted team on purpose-driven projects brings happiness to the workplace. We therefore want to consider, you know, what your organization’s purpose looks like. And what is each person’s sense of purpose?

When we can use our talents and contribute, it makes us feel better as people. Therefore, having discussions about how we can support one another and who has what strengths is important because when we can help the tribe and feel like our efforts will have an impact, we decompress and worry less about being rejected because we know we are demonstrating our value. Therefore, we must spend a lot of time discussing the contributions that each person makes as well as their skills and triumphs. It’s now interesting. Although psychological safety was the most important characteristic of strong teams, Google’s analysis discovered a total of five other criteria

Celebrate Effort and Progress

When we can use our talents and contribute, it makes us feel better as people. Therefore, having discussions about how we can support one another and who has what strengths is important because when we can help the tribe and feel like our efforts will have an impact, we decompress and worry less about being rejected because we know we are demonstrating our value. Therefore, we must spend a lot of time discussing the contributions that each person makes as well as their skills and triumphs. It’s now interesting. Although psychological safety was the most important characteristic of strong teams, Google’s analysis discovered a total of five other criteria.

We truly have natural opioids in our brains, which makes understanding the second neural transmitter crucial. And the like chemical is this. This is how we feel happy, satisfied, and rewarded. Dopamine provides the drive to perform, and opioids provide the sense of accomplishment after we complete our task. Therefore, when we accomplish anything, this like chemical, you know, gives us that sense of pleasure and delight.
Finally, there is oxytocin, which I have already highlighted as the neurotransmitter that connects us and makes us feel linked. Our bodies release the baby in enormous pieces so that we can bond with the tiny being. The habenula, a different brain structure, is the second thing I would mention. It keeps note of our mistakes and pays attention to them, using chemical guardrails to direct our future actions. Therefore, when we make a mistake We frequently experience an emotional response that makes us think, “Oh, we don’t want to do that again.” Well, what happens is that when there are significant changes and things, like what we’ve been going through, or even when there are significant initiatives at work, we frequently have meetings where we only discuss our failures. So when we have a meeting, all we speak about is how far behind time or over budget we are. We can acknowledge that we are running behind schedule. In order to accelerate this process, we must first recognise and appreciate our efforts and advancements. And then we may still perform the challenging task of determining what we need to change. Although we might hold people to high standards, we frequently fail to acknowledge or reward them. There are numerous options. I advise you to experiment with what makes sense and even find out from your staff what is important to them. However, there are many methods for doing this at work, and emails or handwritten notes from a boss or leader matter.

Dr. Britt Andreatta

Dr Britt Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader who creates brain science-based solutions for today’s challenges. As CEO of 7th Mind, Inc., she draws on her unique background in leadership, neuroscience, psychology, and learning to unlock the best in people and organizations. Britt has published several books on the brain science of success including her most recent book, Wired to Grow: Harness the Power of Brain Science to Learn and Master Any Skill.

As the former Chief Learning Officer for Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning), Britt is a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience.