No one business department is immune to crisis—especially marketing. A crisis (and its severity) can vary depending on many factors. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this article, a crisis is an unexpected event or unintentional mistake that either disrupts a marketing team's ability to fulfill its responsibilities, impedes a brand's revenue generation, damages its reputation, or negatively affects other business metrics.
Discussions around this topic mainly focus on what marketing leaders should do during a crisis, such as remaining calm and adapting strategies quickly. While marketing leaders no doubt play a pivotal role throughout a crisis, their ability to build a resilient team can help minimize or outright prevent one from occurring in the first place.
What Are the Core Qualities of a Resilient Marketing Team?
Before marketing leaders can build resilient teams, they must understand what makes a team resilient. Many features define a resilient marketing team. LHH, a global leadership training firm, and Ferrazzi Greenlight, a global teams consulting and coaching firm, identified four typical characteristics that encapsulate resilient teams: candor, resourcefulness, compassion, and humility.
Resilient teams are capable of open and honest discussions—they aren't afraid to voice their opinions and receive feedback. Teams that can collaborate and have tough conversations are better suited for identifying and resolving challenges as they arise.
Similarly, despite being short-staffed or having limited budgets, resilient teams can find creative workarounds to deploy innovative solutions amid crisis.
These teams are also compassionate and have empathy. They care for one another and aren't as concerned with individual recognition as they are about the group's success. Empathy is also critical from a leadership perspective—but more on that later.
Lastly, resilient teams are humble and aren't afraid to raise their hand when they need help. Imagine someone accidentally emailed the channel newsletter to the wrong database; rather than praying no one will notice, this person immediately lets the team and leadership know they messed up to begin working toward the swiftest resolution possible. Humble teams not only accelerate the resolution of crises but also help prevent them from happening again.
Transforming Existing Teams Into Resilient Ones
Building a resilient marketing team starts with an honest evaluation of current employees. Do they possess all, some, or none of the core qualities of a resilient team? After this evaluation, leaders can help nurture their existing people through empathy, trust, and constructive criticism, molding them into resilient teams capable of weathering any storm.
Research shows that empathic leaders who understand and acknowledge what a team is going through can help decrease burnout and increase engagement and positive work experiences. Engaged teams find their careers rewarding, reducing unexpected turnover. Moreover, these teams won't break during a crisis and will often emerge stronger.
Leaders can also enable their teams to become more resilient through trust. Those who do not trust their employees are likely to micromanage. Micromanaging makes staff more dependent on leadership and less willing to take risks. Allowing and encouraging employees to make mistakes prepares them for crisis.
Similarly, marketing leaders can build resilient teams by investing in their professional development without fearing their inevitable departure. Through trust-centered training, marketing leaders can create a more well-rounded and resilient team skilled enough to fill gaps when someone leaves unexpectedly or is out temporarily.
Finally, there is constructive criticism. Psychologists classify criticism as constructive or destructive. Marketing leaders must avoid destructive criticism, which can emotionally damage employees. However, leaders should not neglect using constructive criticism to help teams recognize shortcomings, adjust behavior, and learn new skills.
How To Hire a More Resilient Team
Hiring efforts can also help build a more resilient team. In particular, leaders should prioritize candidates with resilient characteristics as well as those from diverse backgrounds. Marketing leaders should dispense with the mindset that diverse teams fill quotas or check boxes. Research indicates that teams of people from different age groups, genders, and ethnicities can enhance organizational resilience.
In a paper titled "The role of diversity in organizational resilience: a theoretical framework," researchers argue that diversity can help develop different capabilities underpinning the three stages of the resilience process, which they define as anticipation, coping, and adaptation. In other words, diverse teams allow businesses to foster resilience capabilities to manage unexpected disruptions more effectively.
Additionally, as marketing leaders hire for a resilient team, they should prioritize data specialists. These individuals can use data to identify issues from a distance, allowing for corrective action before a crisis (and its consequences) manifests. For example, a data specialist could discover mid-quarter that the marketing team is behind on lead generation; leadership adapts accordingly and avoids an end-of-quarter crisis.
The Ultimate Benefit of a Resilient Team
Regardless of how level-headed and competent a leader may be, at the end of the day, they are just one person. A team of resilient individuals can enable your marketing department—and your entire organization—to quickly resolve and even avoid crises altogether.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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