Poor Leadership? Do a Team-Building Activity

The problem with team-building exercises is that they are completely pointless and even insulting because they imply that if colleagues spend more time together doing ridiculous things, solving non-work-related problems together, singing, dancing, or doing the sack race, they will work more effectively and cohesively together in the future! FALSE! When there is low performance, conflict, rivalry, poor communication, or straightforward animosity within a team, it is because problems are ignored. I hate breaking it to you, but no team-building or pizza party will solve it! The fallacy is that the leader must solve the problem with the employees. False!

It is a leadership problem.

A multi-billion dollar industry has risen based on the childish idea of forced team building and forced socialisation of grownups, all to prevent leaders from having to look in the mirror and take responsibility for the culture they have created. This is why I always emphasise the importance of placing people in managerial or leadership roles who know or are willing to learn how to manage people. Instead, we promote and hire technically sound people with zero people management skills, allowing them to run amok and ruin team morale and productivity. We are literally throwing our workforce to the wolves.

Here is a real example that I watched unfold for over a year. Take a busy restaurant where the food is good, the view is spectacular, and marketing is even better, but employee morale is below sea level. The restaurant's chef is a 25-year-old who has single-handedly caused the resignation of many people, negatively impacting the business. The restaurant manager (the second within a year) is hopeless and, in my opinion, gave up a long time ago, probably looking to leave. There have been several complaints about the chef, other managers, and supervisors about how they speak to people. Because the chef is the marketing face of the restaurant, they go easy on him, sacrificing everything and everybody else. Instead of addressing his behaviour once and for all, they have futile “chats” with him.

To address the issue from the HR side, they ran an engagement survey that clearly showed the problem. Colleagues did not shy away from expressing their grievances about humiliating treatment, perceived racism, shouting, lack of training, lack of managerial support, long working hours etc. The reaction of the restaurant manager left me perplexed. She said, “I cannot believe the staff feels this way and are so unhappy.” I stood before her and wondered why she was not able to see that her operation manager was so rude. Why was she not able to hear the derogatory and demeaning comments she continuously made? Why did the sky-high turnover rate skip her attention? Why did the engagement score surprise her? Why? Because she never had the humility to look into the mirror and say, “I am letting my team down by allowing the toxic culture to fester in the restaurant that I am in charge of.” Instead, she blamed everyone else, so I told her, “You are in charge. If anybody ever talked to my team this way, I would remove his or her head.” She didn’t reply.

She started off well in addressing the problem. First, she sat down with every colleague to collect more feedback and reassure them that they had been heard. But then, nothing happened apart from sharing the same information with the supervisors and the obnoxious manager. This raised awareness, and the behaviour somewhat changed for a while, but not the chef’s behaviour. The restaurant general manager failed to address the chef’s behaviour.

Instead, she organised a yacht party for everyone. Yay! Dragging everybody to a yacht party will solve all her problems like absences, long working hours, poorly trained staff, low morale, and high turnover. Surely, she knew it was not the solution, but she was out of her depth. She couldn’t handle a 25-year-old toddler throwing his toy out of the crib each time something was to his dislike. Instead, she put a band-aid on the problem in the form of a yacht party. But we know that a band-aid does not remedy a gaping wound. It is to cover it until it gets treated or until the body heals itself. I’m not sure which option she was hoping for.

Band-aids are distractions from the leaders' inability to tell the truth about what is happening with their teams.

Sweeping employees’ problems under the carpet belittles them. Adults lay their cards on the table and talk about things until the issue is solved. Discussing problems keeps society, organisations, and even family units functioning. Because of our ability to speak, we can put our finger on problems, articulate what those problems are, solve them, and agree on the solution. We stop functioning when we decide to keep quiet or hide from the truth or reality.?Adults don’t need to be spared from the truth because they are mature enough to understand that it is the first step toward improvement. On the other hand, kids would throw a tantrum if you told them that Santa or the Easter Bunny don’t exist. If you ask adults why they lie to kids, the most common reason they give is to protect them. And kids do need to be protected from the truth (sometimes), but adults don’t, especially not in the workplace.

What to do instead? Read here: