A Structured Reset Process to Benefit Team Resilience

Abstract

The concept of teams recovering from disruptions or challenging performance episodes has been termed “team resilience” and shares similarities with, but is distinct from, individual resilience. Empirical research on this construct is sparse and remains largely theoretical in the peer-reviewed literature. Recently, a theoretical framework of team resilience has been proposed in which a reset phase serves as a period of restoration and reflection for teams. Using this idea of a reset phase, two main objectives of the current research were to better understand and organize the actions teams engage in that might promote a more effective reset phase, thus improving team resilience, as well as examine the impacts of these actions on performance outcomes, including a team’s self-reported level of resilience. Teams were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions where each team would experience a challenging situation during a computer-mediated simulation task designed to degraded team performance, after which, a reset phase was started. Survey data were collected to examine differences across groups on various outcome measures. Supplemental analyses identified team learning as one area for further study.