Building Teams That Thrive in Disruption
The campaign looked bulletproof. Budget approved, creative signed off, channels aligned. Then, overnight, a competitor launches something that changes everything. Maybe it's a new product, perhaps a platform shifts its algorithm, or the world decides to care about something completely different—your strategy crumbles.
The immediate reaction is always the same: "How do we get back on track?"
But what if getting back on track is the wrong move?
Think about what that phrase actually means. You're trying to return to a place that just proved itself vulnerable. If one algorithm change or market shift could derail everything, the problem wasn't the disruption. The problem was believing you were on stable ground in the first place.
Most teams spend their energy trying to rebuild what broke. They treat disruption like weather—something to endure until conditions improve. But disruption isn't weather. It's information. And instead of fighting to get back to where you were, you could use that same energy to go somewhere better.
The difference between bouncing back and bouncing forward changes how teams experience crisis entirely.
When crisis hits, the instinct is always restoration. Increase ad spend to chase vanishing returns. Find someone to blame. Push everyone to "fix the numbers" and return to the old metrics. This feels productive because it feels familiar.
But think about what you're actually trying to restore. A strategy vulnerable enough to break at the first sign of turbulence. A position that required perfect conditions to function. A normal that, if you're honest, wasn't working as well as you pretended.
The disruption didn't create your vulnerability—it revealed it.
Teams that bounce forward ask different questions. Where does this disruption want to take us? What was this crisis trying to teach us? What opportunities are hiding inside this setback? They stop resisting the current and start following it toward possibilities they couldn't have planned.
This isn't optimism in the face of disaster. It's recognizing that disaster often carries intelligence you couldn't access any other way.
Watch teams navigate major disruptions, and you start to notice patterns. Some crumble at the first sign of turbulence. Others hold steady but never really evolve. But a few seem to get stronger with each hit. They don't just survive uncertainty; they collect it like fuel.
These teams have built something deeper than process or structure. They've developed institutional courage—the collective ability to move toward uncertainty rather than away from it.
Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety reveals the first piece of this puzzle. Teams need the shared belief that they can take risks without fear of punishment or humiliation. In practice, it's simpler than that. It's being able to say "I don't know" or "I was wrong" or "I have a half-formed idea" without feeling like you've just painted a target on your back.
Without this safety, disruption becomes a blame game. People hide problems until they're unfixable. They wait for clear instructions instead of proposing messy solutions. Information flows upward slowly and gets filtered heavily. The team might look calm from the outside, but underneath, they're paralyzed.
When psychological safety exists, something fascinating happens. Teams start moving toward problems instead of away from them. They share information quickly, even when it's uncomfortable. They propose ideas before they're perfect. This honest exchange becomes the foundation for breakthrough solutions.
The second piece builds on Carol Dweck's growth mindset research, but applies it collectively. Teams need the shared belief that abilities aren't fixed—that they can learn their way out of anything. A fixed mindset asks, "Why did this happen to us?" A growth mindset asks, "What does this teach us?"
But there's something subtler happening here. Teams with adaptive mindsets don't just believe they can grow—they expect disruption to force that growth. They've made peace with the fact that their current capabilities won't be sufficient for their future challenges. So when disruption arrives, they're not surprised. They're ready.
The third piece is where safety and mindset convert into action. Instead of waiting for instructions, teams start running experiments. Instead of analyzing problems to death, they prototype solutions quickly and cheaply. They take ownership of finding the way forward.
These three elements create teams that don't just tolerate uncertainty—they mine it for opportunity.
When disruption hits, every instinct tells you to become more directive. Tell people exactly what to do. Tighten control. Make the decisions yourself because that feels faster and safer.
This instinct will sabotage everything you're trying to build.
During a crisis, your job isn't to have all the answers—it's to create conditions where the best answers can emerge from anywhere in your team. The person closest to the customer might see something you can't from your level. The newest team member might ask the question that unlocks everything.
Building psychological safety starts with your own vulnerability. The next time something goes wrong, resist the urge to project confidence you don't actually feel. Try this instead: "My assumption about X was completely wrong. Here's what I learned from that mistake."
Watch what happens. When you admit you don't have all the answers, you give your team permission not to have all the answers either. And paradoxically, this makes the whole team smarter because people start sharing what they actually know instead of what they think you want to hear.
Frame new initiatives as "experiments" or "learning bets" instead of "solutions." This slight language shift removes the pressure to be right the first time. An experiment that doesn't work isn't a failure—it's successful research.
When things do go wrong, focus your conversations on systems rather than people. Instead of asking "Why did you do that?" try "What was your thought process? What information would have led to a different decision?" This keeps the focus on learning rather than blame.
Language shapes reality more than we realize. A "disaster" can become a "plot twist." A "failed campaign" becomes "expensive education." A "crisis" becomes "forced evolution." One team started listing three things they were grateful each disruption forced them to learn or change. It sounds cheesy until you see how it reframes the entire experience from loss to gain.
Celebrate learning alongside winning. When someone runs an innovative experiment that fails but generates valuable insights, praise them publicly. Ask "What did we discover that makes us smarter for next time?" This shows your team that you value the process of adaptation, not just successful outcomes.
Getting teams to act proactively requires giving them autonomy. Instead of prescribing detailed solutions, define the desired outcome and let them figure out how to get there.
Old approach: "Our organic reach is down. Post three times a day on platform X and use these specific hashtags."
New approach: "Our organic reach is down. Find one new way to engage our audience that doesn't depend on this platform's algorithm. You have a month and this budget. Keep me updated on what you learn."
The difference is profound. In the first scenario, you're asking someone to execute your solution. In the second, you're asking them to solve the problem. The second approach takes longer to explain but moves much faster once people understand they're empowered to think, not just do.
You can also run "disruption drills"—hypothetical scenarios that let teams practice proactive problem-solving when the stakes are low. "What if our biggest competitor cut their prices in half tomorrow?" "What if the platform we depend on shuts down next month?" The goal isn't to predict the future but to build the muscle of moving toward uncertainty rather than away from it.
Last year, Apple's privacy update devastated many teams' paid social campaigns. Some companies lost 40% of their leads overnight.
Teams that tried to bounce back increased ad spend, fighting the algorithm changes with brute force. They blamed Apple. They pressured their people to restore the old cost-per-lead numbers. Morale cratered as everyone fought a battle they couldn't win.
But watch what happened when other teams bounced forward instead.
Jessica, a marketing director at a mid-sized SaaS company, gathered her team the morning after their campaign performance fell off a cliff. Instead of demanding explanations or solutions, she started with acknowledgment: "This is significant, and it's outside our control. The old playbook doesn't work anymore."
Then she reframed what had happened: "This forces us to do what we should have done years ago—build direct relationships with our audience that don't depend on any platform's permission."
Rather than assign blame or demand immediate fixes, she divided her team into two small groups. The first group had one month to build a first-party data strategy—newsletter, community, anything that created a direct connection with their audience. The second group got the same timeline to find profitable channels that weren't affected by iOS changes—podcasts, influencer partnerships, whatever worked.
Six months later, Jessica's team had a thriving community of 3,000 engaged subscribers, rich customer data that informed everything from product development to content strategy, and three new lead sources that were actually more profitable than their old social campaigns.
They weren't just back where they started—they were in a fundamentally stronger position. The crisis had forced them to build capabilities they would never have prioritized otherwise.
Meanwhile, the teams that tried to bounce back were still throwing money at diminishing returns, blaming external forces for problems that required internal evolution.
Teams that master bouncing forward develop something Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls "antifragility." They don't just survive disruption—they gain from it. Each crisis becomes a stress test that reveals weak points to strengthen and hidden opportunities to capture.
This shows up in ways that compound over time. These teams attract stronger talent because people want to work where they can grow rather than just execute. They outperform in volatile markets because they adapt faster than competitors who are still trying to perfect last year's playbook. They build sustainable advantages because their capabilities evolve continuously instead of getting locked into outdated approaches.
Maybe most importantly, they operate with curiosity instead of anxiety. When you know your team can bounce forward from anything, uncertainty stops feeling like a threat. It starts feeling like information.
The next major disruption isn't a matter of if—it's a matter of when. And when it arrives, you'll face a choice that will define your legacy as a leader.
You can build fragile teams that break under pressure. You can build robust teams that withstand pressure. Or you can build antifragile teams that gain from pressure.
This choice happens in small moments, how you respond when someone admits they don't know something, whether you celebrate smart failures alongside obvious wins. How much autonomy will you give people to solve problems rather than just execute solutions?
Your legacy won't be determined by whether you faced disruption—everyone faces disruption. It will be determined by what you taught your team to do with that disruption, whether they learned to hide from uncertainty or harvest it. Whether they spent their energy trying to restore the past or build the future.
The disruption is coming regardless. The only question is whether you'll teach your team to bounce back or bounce forward.
