Collaboration breakdowns as indicators |
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I've been working with a team recently where there are some real collaboration breakdowns - lots of passive aggressive behaviour, offline sniping and rhetoric, and a general air of doom and gloom.
Chatting the case through with a colleague today, we began to really identify the collaboration issues and, try as we might, we just kept circling back to two root causes.
1 - that there were serious pathologies at work in individual and group psychologies - though neither of us were truly qualified to go much further than speculation there.
2 - that there was a sheer lack of focus on outcomes for this team - the only time outcomes were being discussed was in the context of 'we missed an opportunity - who didn't think about it?'
In the absence of outcomes, this team had developed much activity (meetings about meetings about meetings, spreadsheets to track who hadn't filled out the tracking spreadsheets, well... you get the picture, right? Everything and the kitchen sink!) and also, paradoxically in the midst of the doom and gloom, great deals of energy - this is a team that seldom relaxes. They could even be described as 'strung out'.
And, of course, there are miscast players (from the strengths angle), and others forced to work from their areas of weakness - but that conversation can't even find its way past the collaboration breakdowns that are happening due to the lack of outcomes.
However, this is really the point of this post - to hear team members talk about their issues, it's ALL down to that miscasting, it's all down to individuals dropping their respective ball - the net result is that blame descends into sniping which reinstates the blame with leads to sniping which... (check out Karpman's drama triangle to get some idea of what's happening).
So, the treatment? Simple. Sit the team down, shine a light on the issue and hold up a mirror to catch the denial and then get the team focused on the outcomes they a) care about; b) will be measured upon at the end of the day; and c) that matter most to their customers. Make sure they agree those outcomes and then force a self- and team-discipline of bringing the mirror to every activity to make sure they don't slide back.
And my advice to you? Listen carefully for where the presenting issue is that 'someone is dragging the team down' - while it's sometimes the case, always know that it can be a symptom of the vacuum that forms when performance doesn't serve outcomes. In my experience, it's far more prevalent than the one bad apple spoiling the barrel.
Vince
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