Organizational Psychologist Shares 5 Tips for Building Resilient Teams

Organizational psychologist Dr. André Martin, author of "Collective Confidence: The Winning Formula of the World’s Best Teams," has outlined five essential strategies for building teams that can effectively handle significant challenges and disruptions. Martin, who has extensive experience coaching teams at major corporations including Mars, Target, Google, and Nike, emphasizes that current times demand more resilient and confident teams, asserting that motivation alone is insufficient for achieving this state. Instead, he posits that individuals need to understand their intrinsic value and contribution to the team's success.

One of Martin's core tenets is that the team, not the individual, is the sole unit of performance that truly matters in today's complex environment. He illustrates this point with the example of the "Cajun Navy" during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. When official rescue systems were overwhelmed in Houston, ordinary citizens utilized their fishing boats to conduct rescues. Operating without formal hierarchy or explicit leadership, these individuals organized themselves by dividing the city into sectors, monitoring water levels, and coordinating rescues via Facebook groups and walkie-talkie apps, ultimately saving an estimated 8,000 people. This spontaneous, self-organized effort highlights the power of collective confidence and shared belief in problem-solving.

Martin further addresses the increasing difficulty of leadership in the modern era, citing a public health epidemic of loneliness, with one in five employees reporting daily feelings of isolation. The pace and intensity of change are unprecedented, and a survey of executives in early 2025 revealed that 84% of companies feel unprepared for impending disruptions. This underscores the impossibility of thriving in isolation and reinforces the team as the critical performance unit. Martin draws on his own experience at Google during the pandemic, where his team rapidly transitioned an entire onboarding program to a virtual format without prior executive guidance, demonstrating the team's capacity to innovate and adapt under pressure.

While the provided text details the first two of Martin's five tips, the underlying principle is that building confidence and resilience within a team requires fostering a sense of shared purpose, enabling individuals to borrow "brilliance" from each other to perceive success as attainable, and distributing leadership responsibilities. This approach moves beyond traditional motivational tactics to cultivate a deeper, more sustainable form of team effectiveness. The full set of strategies aims to equip teams with the psychological and operational frameworks necessary to not only withstand but also thrive amidst constant change and uncertainty.