Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back—it’s about moving forward with strength.
In this article, I’ll walk you through a workshop designed to help both individual contributors and leaders build resilience in their roles.
You’ll gain practical strategies to manage stress, adapt to challenges, and create a resilient work environment.
Work is demanding. Deadlines pile up, setbacks happen, and pressure is constant.
If you don’t actively build resilience, stress will take over—leading to burnout, disengagement, and declining performance.
But when you strengthen resilience, you don’t just survive challenges—you thrive through them.
Resilience is not just a personality trait you either have or don’t. That’s wrong. Resilience is a skill.
And like any skill, it can be developed with the right strategies.
Most people fail because they rely on willpower instead of practical, repeatable techniques that work.
“Teams Don’t Break From Workload—They Break from a Lack of Resilience.”
A resilient team can handle pressure, setbacks, and uncertainty without falling apart.
Without resilience, even the most talented individuals crack under stress, lose motivation, and disengage.
The best organisations don’t just hire great people—they help them build the mindset and skills to sustain high performance over time.
What Participants Will Gain from This Workshop
By attending this workshop, participants will:
- Develop a Resilience Mindset – Learn how to shift from seeing resilience as an inborn trait to a skill you can actively build.
- Master Practical Stress Management Techniques – Walk away with actionable tools to handle daily work pressures, stay focused, and maintain a problem-solving mindset.
- Reframe Setbacks Effectively – Use the 3Ps model to shift negative thinking and bounce back from challenges faster.
- For Individual Contributors: Gain strategies to stay productive, adapt to change, and manage stress without burnout.
- For Leaders: Learn how to recognise early signs of stress in your team, provide meaningful support, and foster a culture of resilience.
- Create a Personalised Resilience Action Plan – Leave with a step-by-step strategy to apply resilience techniques immediately in your work.
This workshop isn’t just about theory—it’s about equipping you with real-world skills to navigate challenges and thrive in any work environment.
It uses insights contained in the bestselling book Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, which explores how to navigate grief, overcome adversity, and build resilience.
Let’s get into it…
Building Resilience for Individuals and Leaders
Duration: 2.5 - 3 hours
Objective: Equip individual contributors and leaders with practical, actionable strategies to build resilience, manage stress, and create a resilient work culture.
Workshop Outcomes
- Individuals leave with tools to manage stress and maintain focus.
- Leaders gain strategies to build resilient teams.
- Everyone shifts to seeing resilience as a skill, not just a trait.
- Each participant has a clear action plan for immediate implementation.
Workshop Agenda
1. Welcome & Workshop Goals (15 min)
Icebreaker:"What does resilience mean to you?"
- Participants write their definitions on sticky notes or in chat (if virtual).
- The facilitator highlights key themes.
Framing the Workshop:
- Resilience is a skill, not just an inherent trait.
- The aim is to leave with practical strategies and a personalised resilience plan.
2. Understanding Resilience: The 3P Model (30 min)
Insight from Option B: Overcoming adversity is more straightforward when we challenge unhelpful thought patterns.
Explanation of the 3P Model*(from Martin Seligman, highlighted in Option B)*:
- Personalisation – "This is all my fault."
- Pervasiveness – "Everything is going wrong."
- Permanence – "This will never get better."
Activity: Reframing Setbacks*(10 min individual + 10 min discussion)*
- Think of a recent workplace challenge.
- Write down initial thoughts.
- Challenge them using the 3Ps.
- Share in small groups how this shift changed their view.
Discussion: How can leaders help teams challenge these thought patterns?
3. Practical Strategies for Daily Resilience (40 min)
Insight from Option B: Resilience grows through small, daily actions.
A. Managing Stress with "Small Wins" (15 min)
Concept: Finding small wins helps counter setbacks.
Activity:
- Participants list 3 things they can control in a high-pressure situation.
- Share in pairs.
- Discuss how small wins shift focus from stress to action.
B. The Power of "Joy Moments" (10 min)
Concept: Gratitude and positive experiences help counteract stress.
Activity:
- List three small moments of joy from the past week.
- Share one with the group.
- Leaders discuss ways to integrate joy into team culture.
C. Self-Compassion: The Friend Test (15 min)
Concept: We are harsher on ourselves than on others.
Activity:
- Write down a work mistake or setback.
- Write the advice you’d give a friend in the same situation.
- Compare the difference.
- Discuss why self-compassion is critical for resilience.
4. Building a Resilient Team Culture (40 min)
Insight from Option B: Leaders play a key role in fostering team resilience.
A. Recognising Signs of Stress (10 min)
Small group discussion: What signs indicate a team member is struggling?
Share insights: Facilitator consolidates key signs.
B. Psychological Safety & Support Strategies (15 min)
Key Concept: Teams thrive when they feel safe to speak up.
Strategies:
- Leaders should normalise conversations about setbacks.
- Model vulnerability (e.g., "I struggled with this too, here’s how I handled it").
- Offer practical support (flexibility, workload adjustments, listening).
- Small group discussion: What other strategies would work well for us?
C. Activity: Scenario Role-Play (15 min)
- In pairs, practice responding to a team member struggling with burnout.
- Rotate roles (leader/team member).
- Debrief key takeaways.
5. Personal Resilience Action Plan (30 min)
Insight from Option B: Resilience is built intentionally, not accidentally.
Activity:
- Write down personal resilience strategies to implement immediately.
- Leaders: Write team resilience strategies to apply this week.
- Share with a partner for accountability.
- Final Reflection: "What’s your favourite strategy?
6. Closing & Next Steps (15 min)
- Recap key takeaways.
- Check to see if workshop objectives have been met.
- Encourage continued resilience practice.
- Optional: Follow-up session in 4-6 weeks to share progress.
Conclusion
By using this workshop, you’ll never have to struggle through stress, setbacks, or uncertainty without a clear strategy.
Instead, it becomes a simple process of recognising challenges, reframing them with resilience techniques, and taking practical steps to regain focus, confidence, and momentum.
Well, that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed it.
See you next week.