Eliza Orleans
Principal
Whether it’s in the workplace or the early episodes of Ted Lasso, we all know dysfunctional teams when we see them. There are many factors that contribute to team dysfunction. The three dysfunctions of a team I see most often in my work are:
1. A lack of awareness around each team member’s drives, needs, and behaviors
2. A habit of avoiding difficult conversations
3. Confusion around the goal of the team and how each person’s work connects to broader objectives
How can leaders address these dysfunctional team dynamics? Here are some tools:
Build awareness around the drives and motivating needs of each person on the team.
- Use an assessment tool, like the Predictive Index, to understand wiring. Get data on what drives people to understand why they behave rather than telling stories about why they do what they do.
- Get curious about each other, how you might stretch your behaviors to support/motivate others.
View conflict as a necessary part of collaboration, not something to be avoided.
- Think of conflict resolution as productive
- Experiment with ways of giving and receiving feedback – there are many (+/Delta at the end of every meeting, Stop/Start/Continue, 360 feedback)
Make the implicit explicit.
- Engage in a conversation about the goal of the team, and importantly, what would need to be happening for team members to know that they were being successful
- Test assumptions
By building awareness of needs, seeing conflict as a productive tool for helping a team understand and work to gain understanding, and by making the implicit explicit, you can strengthen your team.
Not sure how to go about doing this? Work with a Predictive Index expert and consider engaging an outside advisor like CFAR to help facilitate change and conflict management strategies.