Restoring an Off-Track Team to Productivity

Have you ever been on a team that gradually lost its productivity and communication? It may have happened without you realizing it, but now the team isn't achieving its goals, team members aren't talking, and management is closely monitoring your performance.

Or perhaps you've recently joined a team that's not performing well.

It's possible that the people who used to foster team cohesion have left, leading to a strained team dynamic.

Regardless of how you got here, the reality is that you're facing this situation, and someone needs to take action. That someone could be you.

You're not the only one.

Problems are common at work, and there are practical steps and habits you can adopt to make things better for you and your team. I'll share some methods that have worked for me, and they might help you too.

Let me share a story about a challenging situation I faced and how we managed to improve it. I've changed names and details to keep it confidential.

It typically commences on a high note.

I worked with an engineer named Sarah on a new feature for our product that allows users to create their own meal recipes. My role was the Project Manager, and we followed a six-week development cycle.

Sarah needed to use an API managed by Mark, who was on a different team, to access and update recipe information in a central database. When we started, everyone understood our main goal, and we were all eager to begin.

Our system architecture was a mix of different parts of local databases and API endpoints, and, unsurprisingly, the API documentation was incomplete.

Around two weeks into the six-week cycle, Sarah reached out to Mark with a list of desired API calls she needed for her feature. She asked him to confirm if they would work, or if they even existed, as the documentation didn't provide clear guidance.

However, Mark had a history of avoiding requests he didn't like, and he didn't respond. Mark's manager, Lisa, was too busy to notice the issue until I repeatedly raised it with increasing urgency.

In the meantime, Sarah did her best to make progress. She continued building the feature based on her design, even though it wasn't approved yet, hoping that it would all work out.

With only two weeks left, Mark eventually responded with a short message essentially saying, "The API doesn't support these calls, and I don't see a reason to create them. Why don't you retrieve the data from another part of the system? And, by the way, if I have to do this, it will take at least six weeks."

As you can imagine, we couldn't afford to wait another six weeks at that point. So, here's how we resolved the situation:

Step 1 - Admit

When things don't go as planned, here's a straightforward approach to follow:

Acknowledge the Problem: Face and admit what went wrong. Take notes about it to discuss with your team and during evaluations. Also, reflect on your own role in the situation.

Provide an Unbiased Summary: Write a brief and objective summary of the current situation. Imagine you're in your boss's shoes and report the facts as they are, without making them sound better or worse than they actually are. Keep your emotions out of it.

By seeing your situation clearly, you'll be better equipped to make wise decisions.

Highlighting the importance of taking a moment to calm down and collect your thoughts might seem obvious, but it's based on how our brains work. In his 1995 book "Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ," Daniel Goleman introduced the idea of "emotional hijacking." This concept suggests that when our emotional center, the limbic system, gets overly stimulated, it can disrupt our rational thinking. For example, studies show that the angrier people get, the worse decisions they make, such as when gambling. Another study found that when people are in a negative emotional state, they're more likely to make decisions that don't follow logical norms. In simpler terms, when you're upset, it's hard to think clearly.

So, when you're confronting a challenging situation, resist the urge to keep it off the record and only discuss it with your colleagues over the phone or in person. There's nothing to fear about writing it down. If it turns out you're mistaken about something, you can always admit it and update your notes. If you don't write it down, there's a higher chance of misunderstanding or forgetting the details in the future.

In our situation, we reviewed how we got to that point, and here are the key findings:

• I didn't double-check to ensure we had planned the project correctly before committing to it. We knew the API had some gaps, but we overlooked them because we were excited about the new feature.
• Sarah should have tackled the most challenging problem first instead of spending a couple of weeks on easier tasks around the edges. This approach caused us to lose two weeks at the beginning.
• The communication between Mark and Lisa was not effective. The specific reasons for this issue are not discussed here, but something was not working well within their team.

Step 2 — Cheer up

Mistakes are a part of life; everyone makes them, whether they're big or small, significant or trivial. It's essential not to be too hard on yourself.

Early in my career, I worked with a manager who had high self-confidence. He taught us to share that confidence as a team. If something seemed problematic, he insisted that we should let him know right away. There was no way to hide our mistakes. We learned to own up to them and take responsibility. More importantly, we learned from him that we were the best ones to find solutions and fix the issues.

There was no holding of grudges. What was done, was done. It was all about putting it behind us.

He would tell us that we were only in this team because he had handpicked us because we were the best and he only wanted the best around him. Now, that might all have been manipulative nonsense, but it worked.

The only thing you can control is what you do now, so try not to fret about what happened in the past or get anxious about what might happen in the future.

With that in mind, once you’ve written the summary of your sticky situation, set it aside!

Here's a secret: nobody really cares how you ended up in this situation. They might ask out of fear that someone will ask them, but what they're truly interested in is how you'll fix the problem.

So, don't waste time blaming others or making presentations to shift the blame. Just follow the general rule of not being uncooperative.

If you keep hearing about the past, it's probably because you haven't done a good job laying out a solid, practical plan to get out of this mess. So, put your focus on the future.

I know it's not always easy, but remember, this situation isn't permanent. Trust that if you can get things back on track, you'll be in a much stronger position to decide what comes next.

Maybe the team can stick together with a new way of doing things, or if it's completely broken, once we're out of this tough spot, we can think about switching teams or even changing jobs. But it's better to be the person who helps fix it, or at least be part of the group that does. Others will notice, and it makes for a much better answer in a job interview.

In our situation with Sarah, we had a short ten-minute call with everyone on the line. We read out the summary and asked if anyone had anything to add.

Mark mentioned that he struggles to update the API documentation because he's always dealing with emergencies. We added this to our summary:

"Mark has an ongoing time management problem. He doesn’t have enough time allocated to maintain and improve the API documentation."

After this addition, everyone agreed that the summary was accurate.

I explained that the worst thing that could happen now was having to admit to the wider business that we messed up and couldn't meet our deadline. This would harm our reputation, have financial consequences, and affect our performance reviews. It wouldn't be catastrophic, but it's not what we want. Saying it out loud helps make it feel less intimidating.

Sarah mentioned that as a new team member, she didn't want to start this way. Others expressed support. I concluded that part of the discussion.

I intentionally didn't get into a discussion about the solution at this point. Our goal was to acknowledge the situation we were in, and we did just that.

Step 3 - Press Forward

Stepping back for a moment, as the person leading the team through challenges, you might feel like being super energetic and persuasive to motivate everyone. But here's a tip: resist that urge.

Your role is to create an environment where people can do their best work.

I learned this the hard way. I can bounce back quickly, but when someone is stressed, an overly positive person who talks about how wonderful everything is might not be the most motivational. I've had some tense conversations that way.

Avoid micromanaging. Actually, forget all your management tricks. Your job is to pay attention to what people are saying, even when they're not speaking.

Change how you see the current problem. Break it into smaller, manageable parts.

The first task to put on your to-do list is simply "Decide what to do about [the issue]."

There's probably a tricky old task in our project tracker (like JIRA) that everyone avoids or keeps passing around. Let's put that aside. It's become too emotionally loaded.

Instead, create a new task that's all about making a decision. Break it down into smaller tasks for each team member, like "Submit a proposal for what to do next." Feel free to add your own ideas but try not to favor them.

As you start receiving suggestions and checking off these tasks, you'll build positive momentum. Encourage that.

If a plan takes shape, support it. Be cautious of those who are skeptical. Respectfully ask them, "How do you think we should...?" If they have a better idea, support that instead. If they don't respond, gently suggest, "Maybe we should go with this if no one else has a better idea."

Avoid using words like "need," "just," "one," or "small." Basically, avoid anything that sounds like you're telling others how to do their work. It might seem minor, but try to see it from their perspective.

Saying, "I just need you to change that one small thing" is a morale-killer. It unintentionally downplays someone's hard work. An engineer or designer might think, "What do you know about this?" Your job is to create a safe space for everyone to contribute.

Instead, try saying, "We're all looking at you because you're great at this, and this is a tough problem. Maybe you have ideas to make this part work?"

Most of the time, people want to help.

So, I asked Sarah, Mark, and Lisa to share their solutions for getting through the mess.

It wasn't easy. Just agreeing on how we got here didn't magically fix everything. Mark was still hesitant about writing more code and pushed back on Sarah.

We had some back and forth, but with constant reminders to focus on moving forward, we eventually settled on a plan.

Like many compromises, it wasn't perfect or simple. Sarah had to use the local database for some lower-priority features, and Mark had to create extra API functions, which might cause some extra load on the API.

Even with the compromise, Mark wouldn't finish in time. He'd need a couple more weeks.

But we now have a plan!

Step 4 - Share the news

Once you have a plan, stick to it, and inform everyone it affects.

When communicating with people who rely on your message, start with the most important part, usually found at the end of your email. Whether it's good or bad news, that's what they want to know. If they need more details, they'll keep reading.

If it's bad news, preface it with a simple "I'm sorry to say I have bad news." Being considerate when delivering tough messages helps people process them.

For team discussions, make the plan visible to everyone. Transparency is crucial.

Avoid tactics like setting internal deadlines that are two weeks earlier than the ones you've shared with the business. Your team will notice. Instead, post the new deadlines in a place where everyone on the team can see them, and explain that you're aiming for this date but telling the business you'll definitely be done by that date.

In our situation, I included an update in our regular weekly report to let the rest of the business know that we encountered a problem that would impact our end date.

I had to answer some questions from higher-ups, but I had my summary of what went wrong and the action plan we all agreed upon ready. I just had to use it as a reference. Then I could concentrate on explaining the plan.

And everything will be okay.

Now, I wish I could say that we enjoyed tea and scones every day for the next month, and everything was wonderful. But that's not true.

There was more frustration and difficulty, but we persevered, and even though we aimed to finish early but couldn't, we did meet the deadline.

After wrapping things up and organizing our work, we shifted our focus to the next project, a little more experienced. I hope this can be of help if you find yourself in a similar situation.

I'd be interested in hearing about your strategies and insights.

Disclaimer: You know this but I’ll say it anyway. The opinions in this blog are my own, and any resemblance to real events, individuals, or organizations is purely coincidental.