Research from Harvard Business Review has shown up to thirty percent better results by people working in effective teams. What would an extra thirty percent mean to your team?
In this series of two blog posts we will look at two key elements that detract from or contribute to effective teamwork
- Factors that inhibit and how to deal with them.
- Principles of building better teams, simple guidelines.
This week we will look at:
Factors that inhibit teams and how to deal with them.
Teamwork is about creating synergy. Team members, working together, contributing, sharing, and focusing on the greater goals of the team rather than purely individual aims.
There are three factors that undermined this
- Conflict.
- Dominance
- Escape
Conflict can be a productive force. Robust questioning of the ideas of others often leads to better solutions. If there’s an overdose of democracy, that decision may be the most popular or democratic, but not necessarily the best for the team as a whole. To avoid destructive conflict, critique ideas while confirming competence. The issue in the spotlight are the ideas and not the people who have them. Seeking to understand, explore, and question will promote positive controversy rather than emotive personality clashes.
Strong personalities may look to dominate a team. They may be vocal and assertive and very difficult to reason with. This can be divisive and undermine motivation. Taking a very proactive approach to chairing of meetings will keep this in check. When working on tasks together. Try to structure resources so cooperation is necessary. No dominant loaner can complete things themselves. It may also be possible to assign roles to empower weaker team members. One easy example is rotating the chairing of meetings. Some organizations will reward teams based on the performance of the two lowest performers. You’re only as fast as your slowest member.
More introverted, less assertive team members may withdraw if there is too much conflict and/or dominance in a team. Even when the team is working well, some members may not contribute. This can have a negative effect on the contributors. To avoid this characterizing the team, consider structuring resources so that contribution from all is necessary. Working in small groups rather than large groups will help more effective team members have time to speak. Take the time pre-meeting to provide as much information that is relevant and even consult with those who may withdraw. Finally, use the many channels available for contributing: meetings, phone, email, forums, etc.
I hope this post was useful. In the next post we’ll look at how to build better teams.
David Solomon
Managing Director, Sun and Moon Training
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