Is Your Team Dis – Integrating?

Why do some teams adapt and prosper when faced with change and adversity, while other teams disintegrate?

Sustained success requires people, teams and organizations to adapt to new situations and information. At best, failure to adapt causes stagnation and a lack of competitiveness. At worst, teams and organizations become less functional – in fact dysfunctional.

In this post, we look at the 3 most common routes to dysfunction and two uncommon approaches that lead to adaptation and success.

We use “activities or exercises” in our consulting that are designed to put teams and workgroups in situations analogous to the real business challenges they often face.

In one such activity, the way a team/workgroup responds to the challenge of finding a solution to a problem, provides them with crystal clear insight into their ability to adapt as a group.

This post is about the actions of the group and the results from those actions, however, some context will first be useful.

The teams are given a problem and a framework for finding the solution, but the details of finding the solution are left up to them to figure out.

The game is designed so that the quickest and really only way to a solution is by making mistakes. The solution is hidden and is only revealed by making guesses. There is no punishment for wrong guesses. Collaboration and innovation are key aspects of the activity.

In essence - the winning strategy in this activity is to quickly make guesses and determine whether they are correct, essentially “make mistakes as fast as you can”.

We have facilitated this activity with tens of thousands of people at all organizational levels and in all industries. While every group brings a different mindset and culture to the activity, we’ve observed consistent patterns that emerge such as how the individuals on the team interact with one another.

At fairly predictable stages during the activity, on most teams people become frustrated at the lack of results being produced by their team and act in one of three ways:

 “Frustration appears when teams don’t
achieve expected results”

The Disengaged
Through non-participation, the disengaged are no longer adding value to the team, neither by actively trying to find a solution nor by adding insight to improve the process of guesswork.

The Lone Rangers
The “go it alone” team members have disconnected from the rest of the team and essentially told the team “you’re not of value in the process – step aside”.

The Dictator
The dictator gives direction to team members, makes unilateral decisions on strategy and execution and marginalizes team members by ignoring or criticizing their input.

Each of these three responses causes the team to effectively dis-integrate and become dysfunctional.

When working with teams, we’ve observed that the same behaviors revealed in the activity are also present in the team in actual work related situations. The behaviors manifest in many situations, particularly when the team experiences stress from internal or external pressures.

The behaviors can be readily observed in meetings. When a particularly thorny problem requires a solution, or discussion over a decision becomes adversarial, familiar patterns emerge.

In fact one reliable method for assessing a teams functioning is for an objective party to observe the team in meetings. If there is potential for dysfunction on the team, it almost always shows up in meetings

These patterns are inherent to the team and the individuals. They’re hard-wired and will show up again and again unless and until they are recognized and a plan is created to change the pattern.

 “Teams that don’t adapt to stress and pressure become dysfunctional”

The Outliers
Approximately 15% of teams we have observed over the years do not dis-integrate during this activity; they complete the task quickly and usually well before other teams. These teams are high functioning both in process and results. 

These outliers can be divided into two types.

Strong Leaders
Teams with strong leaders and strong followers – these leaders huddle with their teams and understand the strategy of making mistakes quickly. The leader encourages members who are hesitant to make a mistake.

Team members engage in the process when called upon by the leader, otherwise they act as passive observers. The leader consults the team occasionally during the activity, particularly when the team gets stalled, the energy lags or some members start becoming disengaged.

While a group oriented around a strong leader does well at this exercise, the group is very much leader dependent, which makes it vulnerable if the leader is not available or falters in any way. In those circumstances, the group might not have the ability or be resourceful enough to achieve the same levels of success as before.

Collaborators
These teams work together exhibiting collaboration and cohesiveness and without any obvious formal leadership. Team members are consistently engaged throughout the process and are continuously offering suggestions, anticipating opportunities and nimbly adapting to changing variables.

Divergent ideas are considered by the whole team, and a decision is made about whether to adopt the idea. When there is strong disagreement, these teams have processes they use to resolve the conflict without damaging relationships, team cohesion or lowering the energy of the team.

This simple activity results in tremendous insight for teams and allows them to really see and experience how they adapt to situations, collaborate when the pressure is on and identify areas they can focus on to be more productive and successful as a team.

Teams and groups with a collective mindset, trust in one another, as well as processes to handle “mistakes”, are much more likely to adapt to changing situations, and are more innovative.

These teams are less likely to accept the status quo – they will continually be looking for ways to improve.

Having confidence that mistakes are just learning experiences allows teams to take calculated risks. Gaining that confidence comes from experience and having a cohesive, supportive team environment in place.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this activity and how you can assess your team or organization style, you can contact us here.

Do you recognize your team in any of these descriptions?

Please share your team experiences.

--------------------------------------------------

I appreciate you taking the time to read my post. To read more of my posts on culture related topics please click 'Follow' above the title at the top of this article.
You can also connect via Twitter and at the Transformational Training Group.

This post was originally posted at TransformationalTrainingGroup.com

If you would like to talk about organizational culture, change, leadership, or anything related to organizational development feel free to contact me.

If a few minutes of my time can assist you in getting positive results for your organization, I am happy to help.

Some other posts you might enjoy R. Michael Healey:

Why You Won't Attract Top Level Talent

R. Michael Healey is recognized as an expert in helping organizations link culture to performance. He is the author of the forthcoming book ‘Unlocking the Culture Code’