Working in a dysfunctional team is frustrating and stressful. No one wants to show up every day to a team that is constantly distracted by in-fighting, dragging each other down, disrupting one another’s performance, performing poorly, or engaging in unethical behaviour. At Worklogic we hear story after story of employees who feel sick with dread when they arrive at work in the morning, who despair as the team’s productive efforts are undermined, and who feel like they spend more time working on the team’s issues than getting the real work done. This sort of dysfunction has an impact on team members, managers, leaders, and service functions such as human resources, risk, legal and compliance.

Team dysfunction quickly becomes visible to the broader organisation. Complaints, gossip, staff turnover and transfers out of the group are all signs that things are not going well. The team’s tangible results also suffer. This can reflect poorly on the manager of the team, whose reputation, fairly or unfairly, will inevitably be affected. This is not something the organisation can afford to ignore.

Team dysfunction can have a huge personal and psychological impact. Whatever your role, you may feel stressed, anxious and preoccupied, and confused about what is going on. You may be unsure how to go about fixing things and be worried that, even if you ‘do something’, team communication, behaviour and morale could keep getting worse.

If you’re working in, managing or advising a dysfunctional team, you will see firsthand the destructive impact of team dysfunction on productivity, cooperation, innovation, communication, output and morale, as well as the flow-on effects on profitability and customer satisfaction.

If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone! From decades of experience in helping employers to identify and address team dysfunction, we know that managers and supervisors are often frustrated by a lack of time, experience, resources or good advice on how to deal with these problems. Meanwhile, employees working in the team feel powerless and fearful of the consequences for their job security if they speak up.

That’s why we wrote this book. Treat it like a workplace lifebuoy: keep it safe and always within reach.

If you are a manager, by applying the Fix Your Team Toolkit of interventions you will demonstrate leadership skills that will help you to cement (or if necessary salvage) the respect and trust of your reports and your colleagues. You’ll demonstrate that you are ‘on top of the problem’ and have the skills to handle tricky situations in your team. Rather than go to your own supervisor or to Human Resources with the problem (‘My team is a mess and I don’t know what to do about it’), you’ll demonstrate insight and good judgement by presenting the challenge, the solution and the business case for the remedial intervention in a professional and credible way.

If you work in a service function such as Human Resources or Risk and Compliance, a core part of your role is to advise on tricky workplace situations. You know that dysfunctional teams can create havoc in the organisation. Problem teams that are left to their own devices only become more problematic. Entrenched problems rarely solve themselves, and they have impacts that are far broader than the personal consequences for individual team members. The risks arising from bad behaviour and poor team functioning include:

• legal claims such as bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination
• occupational health and safety risks and compensation claims
• absenteeism, and consequent increased pressure on remaining team members
• allegations of misconduct, which can place additional obligations on the organisation under industrial agreements, policies and procedures
• employee complaints
• reputational impacts if problems become public
• employee turnover and resignations of good staff
• the involvement of employment commissions and health and safety regulators
• in public sector agencies and highly regulated industries, involvement of the ombudsman or anti-corruption agencies.

Team members, meanwhile, deserve better than to have to tolerate dysfunction, disputes and disappointment affecting one-third of their waking hours (for full-time workers). Life is too short to spend it in a toxic work environment! One of the worst impacts for employees is a sense of hopelessness, the feeling that you are stuck: there is nothing you can do to change your situation, but you can’t afford to change jobs. Fix Your Team offers real, practical hope to team members, as well as team managers and advisers. Everyone can influence a team’s morale, values and behaviours, so they can all look forward to going to work again.

The guided approach we outline in this book can be applied by anyone who is working in, managing or advising a dysfunctional team. Whether you are a team member, in a service function, a team manager or a more senior executive with a dysfunctional team in your portfolio, this book will help. It will teach you how to identify dysfunction in your team, understand what is really going on, work out what to do about it and get everyone back to work. We will help you to:

• develop confidence in your analysis of team problems
• learn what tools are available to shift a destructive, inefficient or unethical dynamic
• identify which tool will work best (including the best use of your resources)
• develop the business case for resourcing an intervention, and win support from the top (including budget) to take action
• build the buy-in and respect of your team members.

There are incredible benefits to be gained for the team and the organisation in tackling head-on the problems that are holding your team back. Fix Your Team will help you to:

• significantly improve productivity
• increase your colleagues’ engagement with the work and with the organisation’s mission
• create an environment that supports employee wellbeing
• increase job satisfaction
• improve innovation through increased mutual trust and openness to new ways of thinking
• maximise the opportunity for everyone to bring their best to the job, thereby improving overall performance
• create a happier working environment for everyone.

If you are a manager, you will also demonstrate your commitment to productivity, genuine care for your employees and a healthy working environment. You will earn greater respect from your direct reports and peers and from senior managers, and demonstrate that the company values are real and not just marketing spin.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This book is structured to be used flexibly and practically. Part I sets out 12 common situations that cause team dysfunction and identifies some of the key problems you may be dealing with. We have also provided you with case studies based on real-life scenarios from workplaces across the world to demonstrate what team dysfunctions look like. Once you have a better feel for what’s going on in your own workplace, read Part II to identify which tools you need to apply. These tools are arranged in themes, according to the outcome you are trying to achieve.

These tested strategies include practical exercises you can use to implement change in your team. In each case we provide a description of the tool, what you need to do to implement it, and tips and traps to be aware of as you do so. Some of the tools you can implement yourself; others may need the involvement of Human Resources or an external expert.

It can be tricky to navigate the politics of your organisation to gain the understanding, buy-in and resources you’ll need. Part III explains how to build a plan, a business case and support in your organisation for the interventions you have chosen.

Addressing team dysfunction can be tough. You will be implementing change, having difficult conversations and telling some people what they don’t want to hear. The final chapter, ‘Buckle up!’, sets out four strategies you can use to remain effective and stay sane as you set about fixing your team.

While your team is getting back on track, we’re here to help. Keep in touch and access additional help and advice by subscribing at www.fix-your-team.com.