People and relationships are complex. Emotional intelligence is needed to identify and address such issues. These skills are often referred to in business literature as ‘soft skills’, which misrepresents how incredibly difficult it can be to get a group of human beings to work together constructively for years! This isn’t the easy stuff. It requires the manager to be a multi-skilled combination of psychologist, motivational speaker, police officer, visionary, ethics adviser, management consultant, subject-matter expert and more. It also requires members of the team to be emotionally intelligent, flexible, savvy, politically astute, forgiving and constructive!

Now, let’s work through some practical questions that get to the heart of the complex and thorny issues that are pulling your team off track. In these reflective exercises we will take a broad view of the context, culture, history and future horizon. These perspectives will deepen your understanding of the team dynamic, and also of how amenable the team will be to different interventions. A workbook of these reflective exercises can be downloaded at www.fix-your-team.com.

INDIVIDUAL DYNAMICS, CONTEXT AND CULTURE

First, think about the individual people in your team — about their behaviours, personalities, styles, preferences and personal circumstances. Are they acting in ways that are aggressive, fearful, confused? Are they avoiding responsibility for their work outputs or their conduct? Do they spend quality time together? Are they absenting themselves from work (legitimately or otherwise)? Do they help each other, achieve goals together or compete in ways that are destructive to morale? Consider their motives and what might be driving them.

Reflect on the interpersonal dynamics between members of the team, and between team members and the manager. Are they constructive, engaged and respectful? Avoidant, dismissive or combative? Are there silos and factions within the team, or between the team and other groups in the organisation?

Now consider the organisational context. What changes, unusual events or systemic issues has your team lived through? Have restructures had an impact on them? Have the organisation’s operational decisions translated into more work for them, new expectations in their output or work methods, or less job security? Are changes in the industry causing a sense of uncertainty around the future of their jobs? What are they facing in the near future? Are there threats or opportunities on the horizon?

Next, think about the external context: the political, economic, social and competitive environment. These elements are likely out of your control, but they may well affect the team’s experience. What influence could systemic factors be having on your team dynamic? Consider:

• the sector/industry. Is the sector or industry growing or in decline? What are some of the major challenges it currently faces? How do they affect the work your team does?
• the regulatory framework. Have there been any recent legislative changes that are affecting the work your team performs? Does the current regulatory framework cause unwanted changes or enable innovation?
• the stakeholders. What influence do external and internal stakeholders have on your team? For example, is your workload performed predominantly for a few key clients who wield a strong influence over how things are done?

When people are facing change and uncertainty at work, some feel anxious, vulnerable and unbalanced. Others feel invigorated, liberated and brave. These responses can cause people to act in ways that are defensive, withdrawn and blaming, or conversely in ways that are strategic, cooperative and focused. Change can bring out the worst and the best in people. It disrupts and tests the ways the team used to work.

Next, how would you describe the culture of the team? Workplace culture is made up of the shared values, assumptions, beliefs, symbols and behaviours, implicit and explicit, that exist in a team. Culture guides how choices are made in an organisation, and the ways that people approach their work. When thinking about your workplace culture, consider:

• what it feels like to work in this part of the organisation
• how team members interact with each other, in formal and informal settings
• what you see and experience every time you arrive at work (the vibe of the place)
• the values at the heart of the organisation’s operational decisions
• the organisation’s decisions about its people: how it engages, manages, rewards and disciplines.

We’re thinking now about the actual culture that employees experience, not the culture that the company is striving to achieve. The set of values that the organisation says it subscribes to may be realistic or aspirational, fanciful or nothing more than a public relations exercise.

Use the following words as a prompt to think about the culture of the organisation as a whole and the values that drive it. You will probably think of other descriptive words too. Circle those that apply (or add your own) below. Be honest! Choose the words that really describe the organisation as it is functioning now.

accountable

adaptable

agile

anxious

blaming

caring

challenging

changing

collaborative

collegiate

competitive

controlling

courageous

creative

critical

curious

customer-centred

cut-throat

depressed

dispirited

distrusting

diverse

divided

dynamic

empathetic

empowering

engaged

equitable

ethical

exciting

excluding

expertise

fair

family-friendly

fearful

flexible

focused

fun

growing

guarded

hectic

hierarchical

honest

inclusive

individualistic

innovative

integrity

intense

interesting

kind

learning

mean

mindful

overwhelming

performance-driven

professional

purposeful

quirky

respectful

responsible

ruthless

sad

siloed

strategic

supportive

teamwork

traditional

transparent

trusting

unethical

unforgiving

Now review the full list again, this time considering the culture of your own team. Are there any differences? How distinct is your team’s culture from that of the organisation as a whole? What do you think has created that disparity?

While thinking about culture, there are several points to keep in mind.

Firstly, there are subcultures within all organisations. Organisations that are highly functional can contain dysfunctional teams, and vice versa. The possibility of dysfunction is heightened when the team is geographically or functionally separate from the rest of the organisation, when the team’s manager has a strong and distinctive style, or when the type of work the team does is very different from the work of the rest of the organisation (such as the risk-averse finance division of a boundary-pushing creative agency). Some parts of the organisation may have a healthy subculture where staff are aligned in following the values, while elsewhere the values are either missing in action or honoured mainly in the breach.

Remember, too, that each member of the team will have their own experience of what it feels like to be an employee of that organisation. An organisation that one employee finds competitive, performance-driven and fun, another employee might find cut-throat, individualistic and excluding.

If you have an extremely divided team, try the exercise above from the perspective of two very different team members. What would each of those two colleagues say about the team’s character?

For every characteristic, goal or value that the organisation has, there will be other things that are valued less. For example, if the organisation is guarded and traditional, it is less likely to be innovative and to allow employees to get things wrong. Which characteristic is the organisation privileging over other potential options?

Finally, even admirable traits can become dangerous if taken to extremes. For example, a company’s focus on profit and competitiveness, without a concurrent focus on being family-friendly and safe, could drive a culture in which compliance and wellbeing suffer.

Next, review the ‘symptoms’ of the 12 different dysfunctions examined in Part I. Having thought through the behaviours and conduct of your individual team members, the recent history and the cultural context in which they are working together, which of the symptoms are familiar to you? Which ring true for your team? Create a shortlist of the dysfunctions that might exist in your team. It may be that some of the dysfunctions seem familiar but you can’t quite put your finger on the problem just yet. Don’t worry if the dysfunctions are not completely clear to you at this stage. Just take a note of some of the possibilities.

IS THE ‘SURFACE’ PROBLEM HIDING THE REAL PROBLEM?

Be aware that the most obvious explanation for underperformance, poor conduct, conflict, disruption or obstruction may not in fact be the true cause. Sometimes the apparent problem is in fact a distraction from the real issue. Keep an open mind, as the truth of the situation may become apparent only after some exploration and fact-finding, as we see in the following case study.

IS MORE THAN ONE PROBLEM AT PLAY?

At the heart of the dysfunction in your team might be an individual problem (a toxic personality, a poor manager, someone being allowed to behave badly …), a big picture problem (culture, unclear structure or roles, unhealthy competition …) or a mix of problems.

Many of the team dysfunctions we outline in this book also create other problems for the team, leaving behind a very messy situation indeed. Here are some examples:

• A laissez-faire manager puts the management of a Bad Apple in the ‘too hard basket’ and ignores it. This damages the team members’ trust in, and respect for, the manager.
• A workplace romance created issues that are still unresolved (skeleton in the closet), which fuels a gossip culture. Employees are talking among themselves about lascivious details of one another’s personal lives.
• Complete Chaos lets a toxic personality run riot. Toxic personalities are very good at seeing opportunities they can manipulate to their advantage, and exploiting gaps in accountability and visibility.
• When unhealthy competition is incentivised, this can lead to a culture of overwork, with people attending the office for extra hours, and answering emails at all hours of the night and on weekends. This can have a particular impact on team members who have carer’s responsibilities, which can in turn damage the team’s inclusive culture and diversity.

If the challenges your team is facing are complex and multi-layered, don’t worry. The tools in the Fix Your Team Toolkit can be applied separately or together, as part of the same project or in sequence. The tools can be implemented with a small group of employees, the whole team or even the whole organisation! They all improve trust, harmony, cooperation and accountability in the team.

So long as you have identified the dysfunctions that your team is experiencing — no matter how messy, historical or hard fought — the following chapters will guide you to identify the tools that will make a positive difference.

DO YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION?

It’s possible that, while you suspect you know what’s going on in the team, you have a strong sense that there is something hidden — something under the surface that you can’t quite identify. It may be that you need more information before you can confidently diagnose the problem. There are some good ways for you to obtain more information about the team’s experience of the dysfunction, its symptoms and side effects, to help you to decide the path forward to Fix Your Team.

Whatever your level of confidence about what is going on, consider these methods of gathering more data.

1. Get more data about the team’s perspective on the dysfunction

Often, members of the team will be grateful for the opportunity to talk to someone well-meaning about what is going on, if they are given an opportunity to do so. It is incredible how revealing and helpful these discussions can be, and how perceptive employees are about what they are experiencing and what the organisation could do to improve things.

The key conditions for their honesty and openness are:

• the opportunity to participate, without being forced to do so — allow employees to control who hears their views
• trust in the person who is gathering, analysing and reporting on the information — if there is a lack of trust in their direct manager, who may be perceived to have vested interests in certain outcomes, a colleague from another team or division might assist
• the option of anonymity for team members if they wish to minimise their fear of repercussions and victimisation.

How do you go about obtaining the views of your team members in a way that is carefully managed, has integrity and is trusted?

Ask the team

Unless the team is so broken that employees can’t have a safe and open conversation at all, the starting point should always be an internal, informal attempt at resolution before you resort to external options. Ideally, this will be conducted by the manager of the team. The manager can, either on their own initiative or with prompting, hold a meeting to discuss the dysfunction openly.

Yes, this needs to be handled carefully, so it doesn’t appear to be (or descend into) blaming either by the manager or by the team members. The manager should model a curious and open-minded approach, trying to understand the issues from the team’s perspective, and avoid jumping too soon into identifying a solution. Instead of presenting their version of the problem, the manager could open a discussion by making an observation and asking questions.

‘Team, I’ve become concerned recently about how we are communicating with each other in stressful times. Has anyone else had concerns?’

…

‘I’ve noticed that people seem to be relying on email instead of talking in person. Is that right? Is there a reason for that, do you think?’

…

‘It’s important to me that we receive input, ideas and feedback from everyone. Do you feel comfortable speaking up in team meetings? How are you finding the channels of communication these days?’

…

‘Recently I noticed the CEO refer to the organisational values in her monthly email. Are the values familiar to you? Do they provide practical guidance for how we as a team treat each other and pursue our goals?’

…

‘I’ve recently noticed that people seem reticent about sharing information and reluctant to work together on projects. Would you agree with that? What do you think is driving that?’

…

‘Is there anything going on within the team that I should know about?’

Everyone will learn something from the discussion that follows.

Workplace review

A workplace review is initiated by the employer to uncover what the employees think is going on in the organisation, or a department or team, and what they think needs to be done to improve the workplace. Typically, the review will be conducted by an independent consultant (rather than HR, which might not be perceived as impartial), who gathers information from employees, makes an objective assessment of the situation, and offers feedback and recommendations to the organisation.

The consultant asks broad, open-ended questions that encourage the employee to talk, such as ‘How do you feel about coming to work each day?’ and ‘If there were three things you could change about this workplace, what would they be?’ The information that employees share in workplace reviews is incredibly useful to the employer. Perhaps surprisingly, employees are usually very candid, thorough and direct in the information they volunteer. People like to feel heard!

After all the data has been collected, the consultant draws out the themes, concerns and opportunities the employees have raised and reports back to the employer, with recommendations for future improvements. Here’s an example of how a workplace review can unearth the factors that are dragging the team down and inform the plan for a new future.

Importantly, organisations should only implement a workplace review if they intend to inform the employees (at least in general terms) about what the review has found and what the organisation will do about it, as Philippa and Aaron did in the case study. If you ask your employees for their input on how to improve the workplace, then you appear to do nothing with it, the employees will become even more jaded and cynical.

Employee surveys

An annual employee engagement survey or more frequent ‘pulse check’ can achieve different objectives from a workplace review. Employee engagement surveys commonly explore themes such as:

• employees’ understanding of the organisation’s mission, vision and values, and the extent to which employees relate to them
• whether responsibilities and performance standards are clear and achievable
• how challenging, engaging and rewarding the work is
• the diversity of teams, the effectiveness of anti-discrimination initiatives and the cultural competence of staff
• the extent to which employees have the resources and support they need to do their job
• the career path and development opportunities that are available to employees
• whether leaders and managers behave ethically, take action and create a vision for employees to believe in.

Surveys can be tailored to the organisation’s particular areas of interest, or sourced ‘off the shelf’ from online providers such as SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com).

An annual survey usually asks the same questions every year, to enable benchmarking or tracking results over time, and is comprised mostly of ratings on a scale to enable quick analysis of large amounts of data. These characteristics limit the survey’s ability to achieve a deep dive into particular issues. For this reason, many organisations are moving away from annual surveys, and using more flexible and frequent pulse checks. These shorter surveys, also conducted online if that medium reaches all staff, allow the organisation to explore employee opinions about specific initiatives, proposed reforms and aspects of culture.

By contrast, workplace reviews gather far more detail, and are a concrete demonstration of the employer’s interest in what each employee has to say. As a collaborative process, it invites participants to contribute to the development of creative solutions. This can help generate engagement and loyalty in staff, build a sense of ownership and influence over how they work, and also encourage a workplace culture of reflection and autonomy in improving how things are done.

2. Gather data from Human Resources or online databases

In many organisations, Human Resources holds vast amounts of people-related data, such as performance ratings, demographics, skills, experience, tenure, safety record, educational background, managers, prior roles, progression, and leave and attendance records. In larger organisations with good information systems, this data is held in databases that senior staff can access directly. This rich source of information may give you a better feel for what is going on in your team, if you are in a position to access it. The quality of the data available and the ability to mine that data will depend on the size of your organisation, the resources available, and privacy or confidentiality requirements.

Even if you work in a small organisation, you may be able to analyse basic information to derive some insights: Does your team have a higher-than-average turnover, when compared across the organisation? What do people say in exit interviews? If employee surveys have been completed recently, how does this team compare with others in the organisation in terms of their reported engagement, satisfaction, trust in their manager and other relevant factors?

Think about what the data is telling you. Are there any notable trends? Does anything surprise you? Does any of this information confirm, or contradict, your preliminary thoughts about what is going wrong in this team?

3. Managers: Learn more about how you are perceived

If you are a manager or leader of a dysfunctional team, and chapter 9 resonated with you in any way, congratulations. Congratulations for being self-aware and brave enough to admit that there might be something about the way you are managing this team that could be improved.

If we truly believe that everyone can and should develop professionally over the course of their career, and that it’s always possible to do things better and learn from our experiences, we should apply those same beliefs to ourselves. A good manager should always be open to receiving feedback, as well as giving it. There are various ways to learn more about how you are perceived in the workplace and identify how you might do better in your management of the team.

• Ask for feedback in real time. At the end of a meeting or discussion, ask someone how they felt the interaction went and how you could do better next time. You could also appoint someone as the meeting commences to observe and provide feedback to the whole team.
• Ask a member of the team. Only try this if there is someone in the team who you genuinely believe will feel able to be honest with you about how you are perceived. If such a person exists, ask them to give you direct feedback. You could explain that you are doing some self-reflection and professional development (after all, you are reading this book!), and that you’d like to gain further insight into your management style — what is working and what isn’t, and what you could do to improve. Do not attempt this with someone who might be intimidated by the conversation, or who you think will give you only positive feedback. Remember, you want ‘warts and all’ feedback, from someone who’ll tell it like it is and not just give you polite affirmation.
• Ask a peer to review you. Ask a peer who has good visibility of your work to review your performance and give you honest and objective feedback about how you operate.
• Set up a 360-degree review. A 360-degree review is a tool by which an employee can obtain feedback from a range of employees about their performance. The employees who give feedback will be team members, more senior managers, peers and subordinates — hence the ‘360 degrees’. The feedback is usually provided by four to eight other employees.
• Get an external perspective. Talking with a coach, mentor or counsellor can be a great way to get an independent and fresh perspective on your management style, improve your decision-making and interpersonal skills, and elicit guidance on challenging issues. Make sure you work with someone who is experienced, and who is honest with you about what may be happening in the team, your own contribution to it and how you could do better. Someone who is a friend of yours may not be able to do this for fear of hurting your feelings.

It’s important to keep in mind that the more you ask for feedback personally (by whatever means), the more you earn permission to give feedback to others, and the more you support a culture where feedback — including discussing risks and applying an innovation mindset — is the norm for everyone.

It can be difficult to hear feedback from people who report to you, particularly if it is negative. In her book Mindset (2006), Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, maintains that your mindset will play a large part in how you respond to feedback. She distinguishes between people with a fixed mindset, who believe their intelligence and talent are fixed traits, and those with a growth mindset, who believe their basic abilities can be enhanced and improved through dedication and hard work. A person with a growth mindset will see constructive feedback not as disapproval or criticism, but as an opportunity to learn how they can further improve and enhance their skills and performance.

Once you have received feedback about the areas of management in which you can improve, take the time to digest it, possibly away from the workplace. Keep an open mind about the feedback you receive. Just because someone disagrees with your approach, it doesn’t mean you have to change, but all feedback should be seen as an opportunity for development. We’ll return to this in chapter 18.

WHAT IF THE WHOLE ORGANISATION IS BROKEN?

When a corporate scandal breaks, it almost never involves only one lone wolf who has been acting against the regulations and values of the organisation — no matter how much the organisation might want to claim so. In our experience, there is usually a culture that incentivised, allowed and rewarded employees, directly or indirectly, for behaving in corrupt and inappropriate ways.

Think of some of the corporate scandals in the media recently: banking staff who were encouraged to evade tax and launder money overseas, high-profile men who have engaged in sexual harassment and child abuse for years, misogynist initiation rituals in the military, conspiracy to mislead regulators over environmental emissions regulations, repeated frauds by government ministers. Would any of this wrongdoing have been possible on such a long-term and significant scale, had the culture of the organisation — as understood by every individual involved — not allowed it?

Sometimes the team is broken because the whole organisation has been hit by massive, external events. The entire organisation may be:

• exhausted from rounds of restructures and retrenchments — a common example is government departments that experience regular overhaul for political reasons
• experiencing massive change, for example in an industry where technology is making the key products obsolete
• recovering from a major scandal that led to the resignation or termination of the board or the CEO, the shame of all the staff and damage to the share price
• so large, broken and immovable that any attempt to address the toxicity — which spreads across many teams — feels pointless
• dealing with a major shift in its culture due to a merger with a very different organisation.

Such significant challenges have a direct impact on teams across the whole organisation. Each team will respond according to its own subculture, values, strengths and weaknesses; however, your team is not completely at the mercy of these events. It is not impossible to fix a broken team even if the rest of the organisation has challenges of its own.

The challenge for teams in such situations is to work out what they can influence. There will be a reality that the team cannot alter — such as a new board, competitive headwinds or poor corporate reputation — but the way we treat each other every day, in our own team, is within our control. We can choose our own attitude (Tool #6), address our own conflict (Tool #2), protect one another’s wellbeing by addressing overwork (Tool #14), upskill the manager to care for team members who are struggling (Tool #11), and more! At Worklogic we have seen many teams that know their purpose, work cooperatively, support one another and achieve remarkable things, even when those around them are giving up.

Change fatigue, fear of retrenchment, obsolescence — these are awful things to face in your team and in your career. But happiness is determined more by the attitude you as an individual bring to the situation than by the forces that buffet you. Team culture is chosen by the team, not determined solely by the wider organisation. Even in the wildest of circumstances, you can Fix Your Team.

THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET

A sense of urgency and a strong desire to act are common at this point. Remember that human dynamics are complex and cannot be resolved with a quick fix. Before you decide on the interventions that will Fix Your Team, keep in mind that this will likely be a medium-term turnaround. Most teams will need a month or two to achieve a significant shift in their behaviours, attitudes and culture, and some will need even longer. There’s no fail-safe remedy for issues that stem from people’s behaviour and culture, however. There is no magic bullet!

Often, when a manager decides on a management intervention, there is a tendency for them to feel that they have already done their job and the issue has been addressed. Don’t assume that your decision to apply a tool or delegate its execution (to a colleague or an external consultant) is all that is necessary. Keep a medium- to long-term view. Track progress. Be aware of possible derailers, and be ready to adapt or change the tool if the team responds in unexpected ways.

Keep in mind what success will look like, and the value of what you are working to achieve. Remind yourself that this work can be messy and complex, but the gains for the whole team — in productivity, quality of working life and health outcomes for your colleagues — will be worth it.

CHOOSING THE INTERVENTIONS

By now you should have built a picture of the problems that you and your team are facing. Following the steps set out so far in this book, you will have:

• reviewed the symptoms and characteristics of the 12 dysfunctions that could be disrupting your team
• considered the individual people in your team, how they are behaving, their motives and what might be driving them
• thought through recent events that your team has lived through, any potential change on the horizon, and the likely impact of these on team members
• described the culture of the organisation that the team is working within
• gathered any further information you need to understand the problem better, possibly including feedback and ideas from the team members themselves, employment data and self-reflection assisted by a coach or mentor.

At this point, give some thought to the end goal that you want to achieve for the team. What, fundamentally, needs to change for this team to get back on track? This will guide you in choosing what Tools you need to apply. The Fix Your Team Tools examined in the chapters that follow are organised to achieve the unique Fix that your team needs.

Ready?

Let’s Fix Your Team.