Are Your Teams Surviving or Thriving?
During the COVID season, I've heard friends and colleagues describe themselves as surviving — not thriving. Many people are juggling increased childcare responsibilities, not seeing family members, and fearing getting sick.
When people are in survival mode, you can see firsthand how it impacts behavior and feelings about what's possible. It causes people to initiate a protective posture which means thinking smaller, tightening social circles, and taking fewer risks.
This phenomenon can also be observed in companies every day — not just during a pandemic. When the behaviors and practices of a culture (whether implicit or explicit) make certain people feel unsafe or excluded, it kicks in our survival instincts. It causes people to protect and ultimately disconnect, which is bad for the individual and bad for business.
Thriving environments are characterized by free-flowing information, healthy risk-taking, and high levels of growth and development — a recipe for innovation and growth. So how do you know if your teams are surviving or thriving?
Here are behaviors to look out for:
One of the most significant factors that influence whether a person or team is thriving is whether they feel safe. COVID provides an extreme example of this — a situation where people literally fear for their health and safety. In non-COVID times, the factors that make someone feel safe at work can be more subtle.
Here are examples of cultural practices that could contribute to someone not feeling safe at work:
Office politics causes someone to fear they will be "thrown under the bus," so they choose to protect information instead of sharing.
Environments where failures are punished result in hyper-conservative behavior where people don't take risks required to innovate and grow.
A company that celebrates individuals with dominant personalities causes other people to feel their voice is not valued and they stop speaking up.
All of these examples result in people moving to a protective posture and reducing their level of engagement. If someone is in survival mode, you aren't getting the most out of their talents, perspectives, and effort.
People are the most important asset of many modern companies, so investing in building an environment where diverse teams thrive is a business imperative.
