Tag Archive for: True Grit: How My Team Learned To Thrive In The Face Of Adversity

It’s easy to feel a bit bipolar at times. Some days you’re on top of the world, and other days you’re just trying to stay alive. How a team manages these swings, and the periods of adversity in particular, is what separates successful businesses from failures.

Every business encounters adversity. It’s one of the few constants that you can count on and it can be all too easy to allow these setbacks to get you down, discourage your efforts, and extinguish the fire that keeps you going. Good leaders recognize this fact but find the courage and wherewithal to help their teams avoid these pitfalls.

I’m not an expert on many things, but one area where I have plenty of experience is dealing with adversity. At BodeTree, my team and I have had our fair share of failures, strikeouts, and unfair situations. Despite these setbacks, however, we always keep moving forward. We’ve learned to use adversity to our advantage, and it all comes down to one trait: grit.

Remember that character is king

Grit is just another word for strength of character. An individual or team who displays grit is someone who can take a hit and just keep on going, no matter what. It’s this resilience that enables successful teams to avoid the pitfalls of depression, lethargy, and apathy that people tend to run into when faced with adversity. It may seem like grit is an innate virtue that people people either are born with or not, but this isn’t the case. Grit can be developed, just like any other skill.

Developing grit in yourself is difficult; trying to develop it in others is even harder. It takes equal parts understanding, compassion, and dedication. Over the years at BodeTree, I’ve learned that grit starts with intellectual honesty and the ability to face your fears. Leaders looking to foster gritty teams can start by fostering an environment of transparency and trust. When team members know how they’re being judged and what the expectations are, they’re more willing to be honest about shortcomings and face their fears. If team members feel as though their next mistake will be their last, anxiety sets in and people tend to crumble in the face of adversity. Leaders must create an environment that encourages grit and resilient thinking across the board.

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Turn anger and frustration into something productive

If you’ve developed a gritty team,  you can use adversity and challenges to your advantage. There are only two ways to handle bad situations; you can accept what happened and roll over, or you can get mad. I’ve found that turning the other cheek is rarely productive in business. Instead, I like to work to focus the collective anger and frustration of my team into something productive and transformational.

We’ve faced some difficult situations at BodeTree over the last few years, including deals and partnerships falling through at the 11th hour. The news can be devastating at first, but it can also be motivating. We’ve learned to let our feelings of self-pity give way to righteous indignation. We channel our anger into productivity and let it renew our passion to bring about change. For us, succeeding in our space is no longer a matter of business or strategy; it’s personal.

I’m fortunate to have such a dedicated and gritty team. The adversity we’ve faced could have derailed us, robbing the team of its drive and dampening our will to move forward. Lesser teams would have crumbled, but we’ve managed to turn adversity into an advantage. Our anger and resilience pushes us forward and gives us purpose. We’ve become a team hell-bent on advancing constantly, uninterested in anything short of total market dominance.

I hope that our experience can serve as an example for other teams. You will face adversity in your endeavors no matter what they are, that much is certain. Just remember that success isn’t determined by whether or not you encounter challenges, but rather by the way you respond to those challenges. Leaders of teams must work to developing grit, both in themselves as well as the people they lead. The resilience that results will enable individuals and teams to transform anger and frustration into a powerful motivator that can you forward, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Forbes.com | February 15, 2016 | Chris Myers

Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a web application designed to help small businesses manage their finances.