AS DIFFICULT as it is to build a cohesive team, it is not complicated. In fact, keeping it simple is critical, said Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable whether you run the executive staff at a multinational company, a small department within a larger organization, or even if you’re merely a member of a team that needs improvement. However, the costs of failing to do this are great.
In emergency services professions, team members live and work together, developing bonds of trust, which only families can rival. Trust allows teams to commit quickly to unambiguous decisions under the most critical circumstances, when most other human beings would demand more information before taking action. The ultimate test of a great team is results.
DYSFUNCTION 1: ABSENCE OF TRUST
Trust lies at the heart of a functioning, cohesive team. Without it, teamwork is all but impossible, as team members must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another, which is difficult because in the course of career advancement and education, most successful people learn to be competitive with their colleagues.
Teams that lack trust waste time and energy managing their behaviours for effect, tend to dread team meetings, conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another, fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences, and are reluctant to take risks in asking for or offering assistance to others.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 1
Vulnerability-based trust cannot be achieved overnight. It requires shared experiences over time, and an in-depth understanding of the unique attributes of team members. Here are a few suggestions.
Personal Histories Exercise – It requires nothing more than going around the table during a meeting and having team members answer a short list of questions, not overly sensitive in nature, about themselves. This encourages greater empathy and understanding, and discourages unfair and inaccurate behavioural attributions.
Team Effectiveness Exercise – It requires team members to identify the single most important contribution that each of their colleague makes to the team, as well as the one area that they must either improve or eliminate for the good of the team.
Personality and Behavioural Preference Profiles – It’s the most effective and lasting tool for building trust on a team as it helps break down barriers by allowing people to better understand and empathize with one another. In my opinion, the best profiling tool is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
360-Degree Feedback – It’s riskier than any of the tools because it calls for colleagues to make specific judgments and provide one another with constructive criticism. It should be used as a developmental tool, one that allows employees to identify strengths and weaknesses without any repercussions.
Experiential Team Exercises – That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork.
What’s more important, team leaders must demonstrate vulnerability first, and then must create an environment that does not punish vulnerability. One of the best ways to do it is to feign vulnerability in order to manipulate the emotions of others.
By building trust, a team makes conflict possible because team members do not hesitate to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate.
DYSFUNCTION 2: FEAR OF CONFLICT
All great relationships require productive conflict in order to grow. Of course, the only purpose is to produce the best possible solution. When team members do not openly disagree about important ideas, they often turn to back-channel personal attacks, which are far nastier and more harmful than any heated argument over issues.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 2
The first step is acknowledging that conflict is productive, and here are a few methods for making conflict more common.
Mining – Any of the team members must have the courage and confidence to call out sensitive issues and force the other team members to work through them.
Real-Time Permission – During a debate, team members need to coach one another not to retreat from healthy debate. One simple way to do this is to recognize when the people engaged in conflict are becoming uncomfortable, and then interrupt to remind them that what they are doing is necessary.
Another tool that specifically relates to conflict is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, commonly referred to as the TKI.
Of course, as a leader, one of the most difficult challenges you may face is the desire to protect your team members from harm, to demonstrate restraint when your people engage in conflict, and to allow resolution to occur naturally, as messy as it can sometimes be. Keep in mind that by engaging in productive conflict, a team can confidently commit.
DYSFUNCTION 3: LACK OF COMMITMENT
In the context of a team, commitment is a function of two things: clarity and buy-in. The two greatest causes of the lack of commitment are the desire for consensus(e.g. understanding the danger of seeking consensus, and finding ways to achieve buy-in even when complete agreement is impossible), and the need for certainty (e.g. understanding the old military axiom that a decision is better than no decision).
It’s important to remember that conflict also underlies the willingness to commit without perfect information. A team that fails to commit creates ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities, revisits discussions and decisions again and again, and encourages second-guessing among team members.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 3
Cascading Messaging – At the end of a staff meeting, a team should explicitly review the key decisions made during the meeting, and agree on what needs to be communicated to others. In this way, they become clear on which of the decisions should remain confidential.
Deadlines – As simple as it seems, is one of the best tools for ensuring commitment.
Contingency and Worst-Case Scenario Analysis – It usually allows them to reduce their fears by helping them realize that the costs of an incorrect decision are far less damaging than they had imagined.
Low-Risk Exposure Therapy – When teams force themselves to make decisions after discussion with little research, they usually come to realize that the quality of the decision they made was better than they had expected. Of course, you as a leader must be comfortable with the prospect of making a decision that ultimately turns out to be wrong.
DYSFUNCTION 4: AVOIDANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The essence of this dysfunction is the unwillingness of team members to tolerate the interpersonal discomfort that accompanies calling the others on their behavior and the tendency to avoid difficult conversations. Of course, this is easier said than done, but members of great teams improve their relationships by holding one another accountable, thus demonstrating that they respect each other and have high expectations for one another’s performance.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 4
Publication of Goals and Standards – The easiest way to do it is to clarify exactly what the team needs to achieve, who needs to deliver what, and how everyone must behave in order to succeed.
Simple and Regular Progress Reviews – It simply means helping people take action that they might not otherwise be inclined to do.
Team Rewards – By shifting rewards away from individual performance to team achievement, the team can create a culture of accountability.
As a leader, you must encourage your team to serve as the first and primary accountability mechanism. Keep in mind though; an absence of accountability invites team members to shift their attention to areas other than collective results.
DYSFUNCTION 5: INATTENTION TO RESULTS
The ultimate dysfunction of a team is the tendency of its members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group. This dysfunction refers to outcome-based performance.
What would a team be focused on other than results? Team status and individual status are the prime candidates here.
Team status – For some members, merely being part of the group is enough to keep them satisfied. Prestigious companies are susceptible to this dysfunction, as they often see success in merely being associated with their special organizations.
Individual status – This refers to the familiar tendency of people to focus on enhancing their own positions at the expense of their team.
Unfortunately, many teams are simply not results focused. For these groups, no amount of trust, conflict, commitment, or accountability can compensate the lack of desire to win.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 5
How does a team ensure that its attention is focused on results? Of course, by making results clear, and rewarding only those, which contribute to the results.
Public Declaration of Results – Teams that are willing to commit publicly to specific results are more likely to work with a desperate desire to achieve those results.
Results-Based Rewards – An effective way to ensure that team members focus their attention on results is to tie their rewards, especially compensation, to the achievement of specific outcomes. Of course, you as a leader must set the tone for a focus on results. If your team members sense that you value anything other than results, they will take that as permission to do the same.
As a final note, success is not a matter of mastering sophisticated theories, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence. Ironically, teams succeed because they are extremely human, as Patrick Lencioni said.
Images courtesy of Pixabay.