Team Resilience and Sustainable Performance Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Team Leaders, Line Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-130

Before you join: Participants should have experience managing, supervising or coordinating people, projects or operational work.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Teams are often asked to maintain service quality, delivery speed and sound judgement while workloads rise, priorities change and resources remain constrained. When pressure becomes routine, warning signs can include rework, absence, missed hand-offs, silence in meetings, conflict and declining discretionary effort. Leaders need more than individual wellbeing advice: they need practical ways to shape workload, working norms, psychological safety, recovery and accountability so performance can endure.

This course equips managers to diagnose the conditions affecting team resilience and act on them. Participants use the Job Demands-Resources Model to identify harmful demands, protective resources and capacity risks. They learn to set priorities, clarify roles, conduct workload conversations, create psychologically safe team climates, manage conflict, support recovery and lead through sustained change. The course also addresses hybrid working norms, escalation routes, delegation, team rhythms and measures that show whether interventions are improving conditions.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with sector-based cases, facilitated group analysis, communication simulations and structured planning. Cases reflect issues faced by public services, financial institutions, project teams, operational units and professional services functions. Participants leave with a completed team resilience action plan, demand-resource map, working agreements and a 90-day review structure for use with their own team. The five-day instructor-led course is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, with 08:30-16:30 training days and a certificate of completion.

The course is suited to managers who lead teams under continuing delivery pressure and need to improve performance without normalising overwork. It is particularly useful where teams are experiencing frequent change, competing priorities, staff fatigue, reduced engagement or strained working relationships.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose team pressure using Job Demands-Resources mapping and performance indicators
  • Identify early warning signs of overload, burnout, disengagement and declining work quality
  • Create psychological safety through leader behaviours, meeting norms and speaking-up practices
  • Apply MoSCoW prioritisation, RACI matrices and work-in-progress limits to control workload
  • Conduct structured workload, boundary-setting and performance-support conversations
  • Manage conflict using Thomas-Kilmann modes, interest-based negotiation and repair conversations
  • Design team operating rhythms that support coordination, learning, recovery and accountability
  • Produce a 90-day team resilience action plan with measures, owners and review dates

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A clearer method for identifying workload risks before performance deteriorates
  • Greater confidence leading difficult conversations about pressure, priorities and boundaries
  • Practical language for encouraging challenge, dissent and early risk reporting
  • Stronger judgement when balancing delivery demands with sustainable team capacity
  • A personal leadership routine for reviewing team energy, workload and support needs

For your organisation

  • Earlier identification of capacity risks, rework patterns and harmful workload practices
  • More consistent manager responses to sustained pressure and changing priorities
  • Improved speaking-up behaviours around errors, blockers and operational risks
  • Clearer prioritisation and escalation of work that exceeds available capacity
  • Team action plans linked to observable performance, retention and absence indicators

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish team resilience from individual coping and identify conditions affecting sustained performance.

  • Resilience defined as capacity, recovery, adaptation and sustained contribution
  • Distinguishing individual coping from team conditions that shape performance
  • Performance pressure, strain and burnout signals interpreted through job demands
  • Systems thinking identifies feedback loops between workload, behaviour and results
  • Resilience myths that shift responsibility away from leaders and systems
  • Team resilience baseline using observable behaviours, risks and protective factors

Participants can map team demands and resources to identify priority capacity interventions.

  • Job Demands-Resources Model maps workload, autonomy, support and learning
  • Classifying hindrance demands, challenge demands and available team resources
  • Demand-resource mapping separates controllable issues from escalated constraints
  • Capacity indicators: overtime, error rates, absenteeism, rework and queue age
  • Resource deficits diagnosed through role clarity, tools, skills and authority
  • Prioritising interventions by performance impact, feasibility and ownership

Participants can recognise overload patterns and support recovery through practical management choices.

  • Stress response physiology linked to attention, judgement, memory and behaviour
  • Recognising early warning signs of overload in self and colleagues
  • Recovery cycles: detachment, rest, movement, sleep and social connection
  • Micro-recovery practices fitted around meetings, travel and deadline peaks
  • Energy management distinguishes sustainable effort from prolonged depletion
  • Manager conversations address workload before wellbeing becomes a crisis

Participants can establish team conditions that encourage challenge, reporting and constructive learning.

  • Edmondson's psychological safety concept distinguished from comfort and agreement
  • Speaking-up climate assessed through questions, dissent, errors and bad news
  • Leader fallibility, curiosity and framing uncertainty encourage informed voice
  • SCARF model identifies status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness threats
  • Blame-free learning reviews separate accountability, intent, process and outcomes
  • Meeting norms protect respectful challenge, inclusion and decision transparency

Participants can control avoidable overload through clear priorities, roles and escalation decisions.

  • Work-in-progress limits expose overload before quality and morale deteriorate
  • RACI matrices clarify decision rights, hand-offs and escalation responsibilities
  • MoSCoW prioritisation tests commitments against capacity, deadlines and consequences
  • Weekly capacity planning matches available hours to critical deliverables
  • Stop-doing decisions remove low-value work and protect recovery time
  • Escalation briefs state demand, impact, options and required leadership decision

Participants can set workable boundaries and hold structured conversations about pressure and support.

  • Boundary management sets response expectations, availability windows and handover rules
  • Assertive communication uses DESC: describe, express, specify and consequences
  • Delegation levels match task risk, capability, authority and support
  • Manager check-ins distinguish performance support from personal counselling
  • Workload conversations use facts, trade-offs, options and agreed actions
  • Remote and hybrid norms reduce interruptions, ambiguity and coordination fatigue

Participants can pace change and maintain trust when teams face continuing uncertainty.

  • Change saturation assessed through concurrent initiatives, disruption and recovery capacity
  • Sensemaking conversations connect strategic change to local operational realities
  • Adaptive leadership distinguishes technical fixes from behaviour and belief shifts
  • Transition curve responses guide communication, support and pacing decisions
  • Scenario planning prepares teams for plausible demand, resource and priority shifts
  • Leader visibility maintains trust during uncertainty, setbacks and changing plans

Participants can address conflict constructively and restore working relationships after pressure events.

  • Conflict styles assessed using Thomas-Kilmann modes and situational consequences
  • Interest-based negotiation separates positions, needs, options and objective criteria
  • Crucial conversations structure addresses facts, stories, feelings and requests
  • Repair conversations acknowledge impact, restore trust and agree next steps
  • Peer support protocols prevent isolation without creating dependency or gossip
  • Referral boundaries identify when occupational health or specialist support is needed

Participants can design team routines that maintain coordination, reflection and shared accountability.

  • Team charters define purpose, priorities, roles, norms and decision rules
  • Daily huddles surface blockers, dependencies, workload and changing risks
  • After Action Reviews examine intent, results, causes and improvements
  • Retrospectives convert delivery setbacks into specific process adjustments
  • Recognition practices reinforce effort, learning, cooperation and valued behaviours
  • Meeting architecture balances coordination, reflection, problem-solving and focused work

Participants can track resilience indicators and produce a focused 90-day implementation plan.

  • Leading indicators track workload, recovery, voice, errors and team sentiment
  • Pulse survey questions measure psychological safety, capacity and manager support
  • Trend reviews distinguish normal variation from emerging performance risks
  • Team resilience dashboard combines quantitative measures with qualitative evidence
  • 90-day action plan assigns interventions, milestones, owners and review dates
  • Personal leadership commitments translate course methods into weekly management routines

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Job Demands-Resources team mapping template
  2. Team resilience diagnostic checklist
  3. Workload and capacity review template
  4. Psychological safety meeting norms model
  5. Escalation brief and priority decision template
  6. 90-day team resilience action plan

Who should attend

  • Team Leaders — need practical methods to sustain delivery and protect team capacity
  • Line Managers — manage workload, performance conversations and day-to-day working norms
  • Operations Managers — balance service targets, staffing constraints and quality requirements
  • Project Managers — coordinate pressured teams through changing milestones and dependencies
  • Department Heads — establish consistent resilience practices across multiple teams
  • HR Business Partners — support managers with evidence-based approaches to workload and wellbeing

Skills and tools covered

Team resilience diagnosisWorkload prioritisationPsychological safety leadershipConflict repairSustainable performance planningCapacity risk management

Tools and standards

Job Demands-Resources Model, Edmondson's Psychological Safety Framework, SCARF Model, After Action Review

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce models, followed by facilitated case analysis, small-group problem solving and communication simulations. Participants examine realistic workload, change, conflict and service-pressure scenarios, then apply the methods to their own team context. Structured reflection connects behaviour to team conditions and performance outcomes. Trainers provide feedback on demand-resource maps, working agreements, escalation briefs and action plans. Time is reserved for individual application planning and peer review of practical approaches.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing, supervising or coordinating people, projects or operational work. They should be familiar with normal workplace pressures such as deadlines, competing priorities, staffing gaps, change initiatives and performance expectations. No formal qualification in psychology, occupational health or human resources is required. Participants do not need prior knowledge of resilience models or wellbeing frameworks. The course focuses on the manager's role in shaping team conditions, rather than providing clinical mental health training or treatment advice.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience leading, supervising or coordinating people and work. No prior study of psychology, wellbeing or resilience frameworks is required.

Bring an example of a current team challenge involving workload, change, engagement, conflict or delivery pressure. You may also bring non-sensitive examples of team measures, work plans or operating routines.

It is designed for managers, team leaders, project managers and operational leaders with responsibility for team delivery. It also suits HR business partners who advise managers on workload, retention and team functioning.

Personal resilience courses focus mainly on individual coping habits and stress management. This course focuses on the manager's role in workload design, priorities, team norms, psychological safety, conflict and operating rhythms.

You will leave with templates and a 90-day action plan based on your own team context. The methods can be used in regular workload reviews, team meetings, performance conversations and planning cycles.

The course runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided across ten teaching modules, case work, group analysis, simulations and individual application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

Related courses in Leadership Development