Team Building: Building Trust and Accountability

Introduction

Some of the many many quotes [4] about differing types of teams:-

Teamwork makes the dream work. Bang Gae

You put together the best team that you can with the players you've got, and replace those who aren't good enough. Robert Crandall

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. Henry Ford

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

A leader must inspire or his team will expire Orrin Woodward

None of us is as smart as all of us Ken Blanchard

If you want to go Fast, go alone. If you want to go Far, go Together. African proverb

I see articles on the 7 deadly sins of team members, fearful; resentful; blamer; defensive; disinterested; lazy and narcissist, sounds a bit like some of Snow whites’ 7 dwarfs, I don’t think this categorisation of team members is helpful, although some are mentioned in attributes of positive and dysfunctional team dynamics below. It’s surely the team members’ potential that should be the focus of leadership with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. As in the relay race photo above, each team member has a crucial role to play, no room for a “joker” or free-rider/social loafer in an effective team, don’t drop that baton.

Team Dynamics

How can team members work together effectively? What are the characteristics of an effective work team? How do you build and maintain an effective team? Have you ever been part of a team that just can't seem to get things done? Please comment with your own experiences.

An effective and efficient team can affect the profitability of an organisation, whether people enjoy their work, staff retention rates and company’s reputation.[1] In today’s knowledge economy, Ben Congleton[7] argues where our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance, there may well be times when a team member needs a break (from a team or indeed work) to prevent burnout or other issues, similar to an athlete’s sit out on the bench and recover, as of 2017, 1 in 6 Americans were medicated for mental health.[7]

“Team dynamics are the unconscious, psychological forces that influence the direction of a team’s behaviour and performance. They are like undercurrents in the sea, which can carry boats in a different direction to the one they intend to sail.” [1]

Obviously, when dynamics are positive, the group works well together and you get the best out of individual members. When dynamics are poor, the group's effectiveness is reduced and the team may be prevented from achieving its’ goal owing to unproductive conflict and de-motivation. However, a team and/or team leaders won’t learn anything sailing in calm waters, so maybe Henry Ford words, above, are apt even in today’s knowledge/learning economy, team-building and teamwork improves with practice and crucial to any type of organisations success.

Dysfunctional Team Dynamics (see [2] & [3] below for more detail)

As a result of poor dynamics, team member's behaviour, the group may not come to any decision, or it may make the wrong choice, because group members could not explore options effectively, some of the common habits of a dysfunctional team:-

• Weak leadership: a dysfunctional team often fails to define its goal and thus has no clear road map resulting in endless debate on a general topic and not focused on the issue at hand. When a team lacks a strong leader, a more dominant member of the group can often take charge. This can lead to infighting, or a focus on the wrong priorities and a lack of drive.
• Excessive deference to authority: this can happen when people want to be seen to agree with a leader, and therefore hold back from expressing their own opinions.
• Inequitable Distribution: teams disproportionately place too much of the team's work on a few of its members' shoulders. This is contrary to the entire concept of the team. If one person is going to do everything, why have a team to begin with? It is wasteful. A successful team combines individuals who come together to accomplish the defined goal and spread the work load evenly across team members. Each person is necessary to achieve the goal.
• Blocking: this happens when team members behave in a way that disrupts the flow of information in the group. People can adopt blocking roles such as:-
• The aggressor: this person often disagrees with others, or is inappropriately outspoken.
• The resentful: this group member is often critical of others' ideas.
• The disinterested: this person doesn't participate in the discussion and maybe shouldn’t have been chosen for this particular team.
• The recognition seeker: this group member is boastful, or dominates the session. more interested in individual glory and less interested in the team's objective contrary to the very concept of a team
• The joker: this person introduces humour at inappropriate times. They can undermine the success of a project, as well as people's morale and engagement
• The Fearful: team members' perceptions can also create a negative group dynamic. Evaluation apprehension happens when people feel that they are being judged excessively harshly by other group members, and they hold back their opinions as a result.
• The Lazy: some group members take it easy, and leave their colleagues to do all the work. Free riders may work hard on their own, but limit their contributions in group situations; this is known as "social loafing."
• Group-think: this happens when people place a desire for consensus above their desire to reach the right decision. This prevents people from fully exploring alternative solutions.
• Lack of Accountability: without accountability the team can push back deadlines and lose focus on the team’s goal, they ponder theoretical questions or simply gathering to endlessly pontificate.
• Lack of Decisiveness: a team's goal must always be to make a decision and then to act to accomplish its goal or make recommendations flowing from the available facts presented and conclusions from discussions.

Positive Team Dynamics (see [3] & [6] below for more detail)

Researchers have found that when a team has a positive dynamic, its members are nearly twice as creative as an average group. Remember that the most effective team leaders build their relationships of trust and loyalty, rather than fear or the power of their positions, but you must establish your leadership with each team member.

Know Your Team: as a leader, you need to guide the development of your group, know how they interact and pre-empt problems that could arise. Be mindful of your language and body language, this limits us and propels us, especially beneficial to insecure public speakers. To establish a rapport with your team find common ground bridging communication gaps and exerting leadership from the inside out. Collaboration is messy, it dilutes accountability and offers few tangible rewards, consequently, here are three things that a group of employees can do differently[5]

Build collaborative commitments into individual performance objectives; Co-create a list of behaviours expected of each other in support of those commitments; Agree upon how to hold yourselves accountable[5]

Define Roles and Responsibilities: Make sure that you have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish; a blueprint for translating vision into reality; that you know what your standards for success are going to be; that you have established clear time frames; and that team members understand their responsibilities. A team charter may be appropriate, as soon as you form the team make sure that everyone has a copy of the document, and remind people of it regularly. These ground rules should be by consensus so the group and individuals commits, for example, every team member has the right to offer ideas and suggestions, but must be punctual for meetings.

Establish team values and goals; evaluate team performance to ensure efficiency and success. Be sure to talk with members about the progress they are making toward established goals so that employees get a sense both of their success and of the challenges that lie ahead.

Break Down Barriers: delegate problem-solving tasks to the team. Let the team work on creative solutions together. Establish a method for arriving at a consensus. You may want to conduct open debate about the pros and cons of proposals, or establish research committees to investigate issues and deliver reports.

Establish the parameters of consensus-building sessions. Be sensitive to the frustration that can mount when the team is not achieving consensus, while it takes much longer to establish consensus, this method ultimately provides better decisions and greater productivity.

At the outset of your meeting, establish time limits, and work with the team to achieve consensus within those parameters. Watch out for false consensus; if an agreement is struck too quickly, be careful to probe individual team members to discover their real feelings about the proposed solution.

Encourage trust and cooperation among employees on your team. Remember that the relationships team members establish among themselves are every bit as important as those you establish with them. As the team begins to take shape, pay close attention to the ways in which team members work together and take steps to improve communication, cooperation, trust, and respect in those relationships.

Encourage team members to share information. Emphasize the importance of each team member's contribution and demonstrate how all of their jobs operate together to move the entire team closer to its goal.

Facilitate Communication: be clear when communicating, if the status of the project changes, make sure everyone has the same information. Be careful to clarify directives. Remember that communication is the single most important factor in successful teamwork. Facilitating communication does not mean holding meetings all the time. Instead it means setting an example by remaining open to suggestions and concerns, by asking questions and offering help, and by doing everything you can to avoid confusion in your own communication.

Open communication is central to good team dynamics, so make sure that everyone is communicating clearly. Include all of the forms of communication that your group uses – emails, meetings, and shared documents, for example – to avoid any ambiguity. Consider each employee's ideas as valuable. Remember that there is no such thing as a stupid idea. Be aware of employees' unspoken feelings. Set an example to team members by being open with employees and sensitive to their moods and feelings. Opinionated team members can overwhelm their quieter colleagues in meetings and make sure that you develop strong facilitation skills.

Pay Attention: watch out for the warning signs of poor group dynamics. Pay particular attention to frequent unanimous decisions, as these can be a sign of group-think, bullying, or free riding. If there are frequent unanimous decisions in your group, consider exploring new ways to encourage people to discuss their views, or to share them anonymously.

Act as a harmonizing influence. Look for chances to mediate and resolve minor disputes; point continually toward the team's higher goals. If you notice that one member of your team has adopted a behaviour that's affecting the group unhelpfully, act quickly to challenge it. Provide feedback that shows your team member the impact of her actions, and encourage her to reflect on how she can change her behaviour.

Encourage listening and brainstorming. As leader, your first priority in creating consensus is to stimulate debate. Remember that employees are often afraid to disagree with one another and that this fear can lead your team to make mediocre decisions. When you encourage debate you inspire creativity and that's how you'll spur your team on to better results.

Conclusion

A successful team combines individuals who come together to accomplish the defined goal and spread the work load evenly across team members. Each person is necessary to achieve the goal and have a positive dynamic, they trust each other and hold one another accountable. I tend to agree with Carlos Valdes-Dapena [5] article that this is much more like a relay team, to recognize that some efforts are completed more effectively without a great deal of collaboration, but within the context of collaborative commitments, like a relay hand-off, the technique used for the hand-off needs to be agreed upon to ensure a whole team win.

Wishing everyone good Mental Health, hope your teamwork isn’t causing you stress, but be mindful that others in your team that may be stressed, take some time this week to express gratitude to individuals on your team. Reflect on how your company's values help create a safe-space for your teammates.

Please comment on your own learning experiences in the leading or creation of teams.

Next week ethics

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References

1 https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/team/dynamics/definition/

2 By Matthew Swyers Sep 27, 2012, https://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/7-reasons-good-teams-become-dysfunctional.html

3 https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/improving-group-dynamics.htm Improving Group Dynamics: Helping Your Team Work More Effectively

4 https://www.wiseoldsayings.com/team-building-quotes/

5 Carlos Valdes-Dapena, https://greystoneglobal.com/leaders-stop-wasting-money-on-team-building/

6 Steps to Building an Effective Team, Berkeley Human Resources at https://hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/interaction/team-building/steps

7 Ben Congleton, It's 2017 and Mental Health is still an issue in the workplace. Published on July 6, 2017, https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/its-2017-mental-health-still-issue-workplace-ben-congleton-1/

Further reading/listening

Book:- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, author Patrick Lencioni, 2012.

Webinar:- February 25, 2016, https://hbr.org/webinar/2016/03/why-organizational-health-trumps-everything-else-in-business

Book:- Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, author General Stanley McChrystal (US army retired) and others May 12, 2015

Book:- Leadership and Team Building, by Uday, Kumar, Haldar, 27th May 2010, Oxford University Press