Announcing Q4 results that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, Apple CEO Tim Cook identified resilient, high-functioning teams as a key element that fortified the company in the midst of the pandemic’s unprecedented challenges.
“Even though we’re apart, it’s been obvious this year that around the company, teams and colleagues have been leaning on and counting on each other more than in normal times,” Cook said. “I think that instinct, that resilience has been an essential part of how we have navigated this year.”
The pressure for teams to be resilient is more urgent than ever as we’re entering a new year with new quarterly targets and milestones.Unfortunately, for every Apple there are just as many — if not more — examples of organizations that discovered, after the pandemic struck, that their teams did not have the necessary skills. That has left many business leaders wondering what they can do now to build resilience.
To start, leaders need to ask some tough questions to determine whether their teams have what it takes to qualify as truly resilient.
