"The storm that makes you, or the storm that breaks you."
We often view resilience as a solitary act of grit - the leader standing alone at the helm, weathering the gale. But my research suggests that the difference between "making it" and "breaking" isn't found in individual strength. It is found in the connective tissue between us.
In our 2023 study, we used video observation to analyse an elite yacht racing crew navigating a 72-hour race. We watched as they faced sudden, volatile "storms" both meteorological and interpersonal.
The deciding factor was not the severity of the weather, but the quality of the crew's pre-existing relationships. We identified this as "relational tensility" - the capacity of the team’s connections to bend under strain without snapping.
When the pressure mounted, it was this tensility that allowed the team to absorb the shock of adversity and recover their performance. As we noted in the paper:
"The ability to de-escalate the situation, determine a new navigation strategy, and get back on track demonstrated the value of high-quality relationships to team resilience. Without it, they may not have been able to recover from the disrupted dynamic triggered by shifting types of adversity across the duration of the race" (King et al., 2023, p. 258).
The Perfect Storm Matrix
The storm is inevitable. The variable is the quality of the relationships you build before the clouds roll in.
When the waves rise, are your relationships brittle, or do they have tensility?
Reference
King, E., Branicki, L., Norbury, K., & Badham, R. (2023). Navigating team resilience: A video observation of an elite yacht racing crew. Applied Psychology, 73(1), 240–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12474
