#dysfunctional teams

[tsianphiel]

Dysfunctional Companies

I did some digging lately into both project management and company management. One of the things I found that were seriously problematic, but also emblematic for the games industry is dysfunctional companies and dysfunctional teams. The hallmark of a dysfunctional company/ team are the following five traits. They’re a theory created by Patrick Lencioni. Lack of Trust There’s no trust between…

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[humanengineers]

DYSFUNCTIONAL TEAMS

By | Sakalya Holistic HR Solutions | Services across HR Consulting

Most corporates bemoan dysfunctional teams impacting organizational morale, organizational climate and organizational productivity. Teams are littered with people who seem dysfunctional to each other thereby creating major organizational downers like Communication Gaps, Trust Deficits, Power Dynamics, Low Morale, Lack of Ownership…

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[joleenarchibald]

Why Teams Fail

A recent talk from Dr. Tan at Claremont McKenna College has got my wheels turning on how important teamwork can be not only in organizations, but also in sports or in a classroom. Teamwork in the workplace offers a company and its staff the opportunity to become more familiar and to learn how to work together. The incorporation of teams into the workplace has become a powerful organizational…

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[pmo-lessons-learned-blog]

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Project Team

Patrick Lencioni is a consultant with some sage thoughts on group performance. Patrick suggests that there are 5 dysfunctions that are common to project teams and sports clubs:

Absence of Trust.

Fear of Conflict.

Lack of Commitment.

Avoidance of Accountability.

Inattentiveness to Results.

Sound familiar? Join us after the cut for an explanation of this  list...

Lencioni's first notion of dysfunction is Absence of Trust. As he describes it, Absence of Trust is where individuals fear being vulnerable within the group...people do not want to show weakness, confess lack of knowledge, admit responsibility for a mistake, or openly ask for help. Commonly, this fear is due in part to low self-confidence. More often, though, this fear is closely tied to low faith in the safety of the environment. And yes: this lack of safety is a direct failure of leadership.

Secondly, Fear of Conflict is Lencioni's descriptor where teams seek artificial (superficial) harmony over meaningful debate. Fear of Conflict stems from a perception that it is unsafe in the team to have differing opinions. Intimidation, reprisal, alpha members devaluing others publicly... these are some of the symptoms of a group that frightens people into tense silence instead of promoting meaningful and honest debate.

Thirdly, Lencioni describes Lack of Commitment as the third common team dysfunction. People will outwardly seem to buy into group decisions, but their engagement is feigned, and they unconsciously seek to do the minimal possible work because of fear, disinterest, or a hopeless sense that their will not be recognized.

Fourthly, Avoidance of Accountability: this dysfunction is a corollary of Lack of Commitment, as it describes people purposely shirking personal responsibility, and purposely allowing mediocrity to continue around them unchallenged and unquestioned. This Avoidance of Accountability is a type of viral despair, transmitted person-to-person by laziness and fear. Unless a charismatic leader steps up to model accountable behaviour, this avoidance behaviour will fester as a team standard of expectation.

Fifthly, Lencioni describes Inattentiveness to Results as being the fifth and most dangerous dysfunction of a team. Inattentiveness describes when individuals become preoccupied with personal success, recognition, status within the team, satisfaction of their own ego, and power-tripping. In each of these neurotic cases, the individual is on a personal agenda and elevates himself over the team, the customer, and the project.

Read more about Patrick Lencioni's consulting work here.

So: what is a leader to do about these problems? Well, friends, that's a big discussion for a separate blog post. But if you'd like to share your experiences, do tell if you've experienced these dysfunctions before. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[petersioen]

“I am surrounded by idiots” - 26th April 2012

(This is the second part of a two-part blog on respect at work)

I disagree with premise in articles like the one in the Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c208baa-79b6-11e1-b87e-00144feab49a.html#axzz1qsBYYW90 trying to give tools on “how to work with a boss you don’t respect”. You shouldn’t be looking for tools on how to work with a boss you don’t respect; Iin my opinion you should be respecting your boss. In all fairness, it is something they do touch upon in the article. John Hoover’s book “How to Work for an Idiot” is interesting, because he actually advises to go look for your own inner idiot. In my own professional life as well as a coach and previously as employee wellbeing director I have come across many, many employees complaining about their bosses and/or colleagues. Complaints and criticisms about how colleagues and managers function is not whistleblowing, it’s whining. If you have a complaint, there better be a very good reason for it and there are grievance procedures now in every company to deal with them. Friends, colleagues and even clients complaining about how useless their co-workers and bosses are will always be surprised to find me atypically impatient. I feel such complaints and the linked attitude are wrong, have a very negative impact on professional teams and harm individuals.

Criticising your boss or colleagues, assessing them negatively is just plain wrong. It’s also not your job. Key is that you don’t have the assessment tools and full information. At any time, keep the organisational structure in mind and remember where you are sitting. Leave the assessment in the hands of those who it belongs to. Obviously, all your colleagues and managers will have strong and weak points and you will have to work with those. Criticising is a waste of time; every second you complain is a second not worked, whether you complain to yourself in your head or to colleagues. Accept people the way they are and trust your bosses to do their jobs as it is expected of them. It’s their manager’s task to see flaws and intervene where necessary. Not yours.

By criticising, allowing yourself to be irritated and arrogant, you poison your own work environment. Whereas you think you have detected a problem, if you whine and complain, you are soon becoming the problem and are actually distracting managers’ attention away from the problem you wanted to see addressed. I have dealt professionally with many dysfunctional teams and found always a negative element that rendered the team ill; often that was just one person. That is in line with psychological theories and therapeutic practices on dealing with troubled groups. Don’t allow yourself to become that negative element. You take the fun and job satisfaction away for everyone and you let it erode for yourself.

I have seen too many people allowing themselves to criticise a bit at first and before they knew it they were on this criticising-trip that took over their lives and made it sour, quite frankly. The lives of these people got hijacked by their own professional negativity. It had impact on their own professional pleasure and dreams, but it also interfered with their private lives, their family lives and their health. I was asked once to try and remedy a very ill-working team. I diagnosed that there was one person in particular who had a very negative impact. She also had chronic back pain for which medical professionals couldn’t find any cause. I strongly feel that it was her very negative and very overblown attitude at work that kept on causing those recurring pains. Don’t make yourself ill.

Respect in the work environment is a basic attitude that deserves some reflection. It is about accepting your colleagues and managers as they are. It is also about accepting the company structures as they are and roll with it, do the best job you can within the given reality.

Because chances are that if you feel that you are the one seeing all the problems, you in fact might be the problem.