10 Ways to Improve Team Performance

Why my team is failing to deliver

Having worked with well over 100 teams, I have learned there are ten common reasons why teams fail to develop to their full potential. These reasons are simple in nature and are something every manager needs to know how to recognise and fix. This article provides you with precisely that, a guide to why teams fail and what you can do about it.

Teams fail for concrete reasons, and there is no great mystery as to what the reasons are. So here I provide a short explanation of the team dynamics that cause team dysfunctions. There is a common factor with these dysfunctions; the prevalence of the traditional management model (command and control) which dominates today's organisations with an extension of that model into team structures. Team organisation has not changed since the 1960s when teams first appeared in Accounting and Information Technology departments – since then; their format hasn't changed.

There is a new team kid on the block; however, the High-Performance Team - created under the transformational management model- representing a shift towards flat, self-organising and managing teams.

Research done by Deloitte Consulting confirms that workplaces are slowly moving from the traditional hierarchical mindset to one based on the transformational model which is, being driven by the new workforce, which will not accept the old-style methods of the traditional management model which they view as managing, administering, stifling, unreasonable and unwarranted.

Traditional hierarchical style versus Transformational networked style

Since the 1980's the default position is that a team is the best way to get a job done. Due to their prevalence, we have become to believe that teams are an effective way to work. Unfortunately, up to 60% of teams fail to deliver, let alone reach their full potential and project teams are the absolute worst. Current team structures are mainly about project-based delivery and are silo-based, one of the greatest barriers to effective communication. As a result, they suffer from low-value exchanges and poorly integrated processes and have difficulty rapidly responding to changing business technologies and the needs of the more competitive organisation.

The right kind of teams, effective teams, are a powerful vehicle to produce results and build morale. When structured appropriately and managed effectively, they outperform any group of individuals and are more creative and build more skills than individuals working alone.

The leading cause of team failure I found is that many teams simply fail due to a fixed mindset that they can't improve, change, or re-frame their situation. This I call 'team quicksand' where a team becomes immobilised and can't move forward. Team quicksand stops teams achieving higher performance than the team is capable of. The biggest problem being that team members fail to realise the positive aspects of the team by focusing on the negative with little if any realisation of how capable the team is and how they can do better.

So, here are the ten most common reasons why teams fail and what you can do about them. They are presented in order of most to least damaging.

1.     Lack of management support

This is not an issue of management competence; most managers are competent, but they do not have an understanding of team dynamics and therefore do not know how to develop their team. Some managers may have attended a Supervisors or Project Managers course, but these fail to prepare a manager for general management and managing a team. If you have an MBA, you will have been trained in Traditional management and that’s a recipe for team disaster.

J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on Teams, states that most of the time, team members don't even agree on what the team is supposed to be doing. Getting agreement on what the team is supposed to be doing is the leader's job, and they must be willing to accept personal and professional risk to set the team's direction. The team leader also must be disciplined about managing who is on the team and how it is set up; otherwise, the odds are slim that a team will do a good job. Experienced team leaders know that their primary job is to remove roadblocks ahead of the team, provide the right resources at the correct times and let day-to-day decision-making left to the team.

Every team needs a leader to set expectations and keep the team focused upon its goals. In addition, they need to provide positive reinforcement to help keep everyone motivated and team morale up. However, a team leader also needs to hold people accountable and be fair if discipline is needed, creating a positive environment where teamwork thrives.

The majority of today's managers are traditional managers who build traditional teams. But to keep abreast of changing team dynamics and the demands of the new workforce, managers need to change their management style from traditional to a progressive style or a hybrid of the two. Transformational is an example of a progressive style that builds High-Performance Teams. Under this style, the leader learns people leadership skills and relinquishes some power as these teams seek to exercise their self-determination.

Most common management issues

  • Rigid, hierarchical management style.

  • Not keeping your promises.

  • Ignoring poor performers.

  • Having irregular meetings.

  • Dismissing the opinions and ideas of others.

  • Micro-managing.

  • Displaying arrogance.

  • Not delegating effectively.

Quick Fix

Mentoring: Mentoring assists with the rollout of the team-building process, and secondly, it creates a working relationship that is positive and supportive that provides you with a management tool to develop your team members to their fullest potential.  Commence with one hourly, weekly or fortnightly mentoring sessions with each team member to get to know them better, understand their work issues and help develop them as professionals. Run a regular agenda of discussion items.

Meetings: As a manager, you need to lead by example and commence team discussions about team gripes, frustrations, complaints, nuances, anything that is bothering you or your team. By fostering open and honest communication (by laying bare your concerns or frustrations as an example), have the team resolve one issue per week.

Active Listening: This is a skill that High-Performance Teams practice as a matter of course. Encourage and insist on all team members practising Active Listening at all times. Start by running a one-hour workshop on the subject to get everybody on the same page. Then, during meetings, pull up team members who interrupt a speaker or look at their phones. Don't accept disrespectful or unprofessional behaviour.

Case Study – Traditional management model abuse

According to the author and organisational development expert Peter Block, Traditional-style leaders are the senior managers who command respect through seniority and years of service, often viewed as tyrannical and intimidating. Their job is to plan, organise employees, and direct and control. They set expectations for the employees below them who need to meet certain goals, but the manager receives the reward for achieving those goals. These managers also tend to experience a frequent turnover of employees; having total control over their employees can also often be the source of management abuse.

I was asked to do what I considered was a very tough assignment by the Chairman of a large Insurance Group for whom I had previously worked. I only accepted the job out of respect for the man concerned. His problem was that a well-known IT consulting firm with a notorious reputation for completely taking over and being difficult to move on had seized control of his IT Department. His European head office had appointed the consulting firm to develop new IT systems in Australia. Unfortunately, the firm was also costing him a small fortune, and there was an increasing litany of problems occurring with a growing chorus of employee complaints. My brief was to find out what was going on, remove the consultants, fix the issues, and restore service.

The day I arrived, I did so unannouncedly. As I was walking down a corridor looking for the office of the head of the consultancy, I overheard a voice say something like, "Run faster this time." With that, a banana peel came flying out of an office doorway into the corridor. This was followed by a distressed-looking young lady who quickly grabbed it and ran back into the doorway. I stood in amazement, then the whole scenario repeated itself, except this time with an instruction to "Do it faster."

Again, the banana peel came flying through the doorway, followed by the young lady chasing after it. I stood and waited to see how long this would go on. The whole scenario happened one more time, except this time I yelled out, "I'll get that!" and grabbed the banana peel, then walked into the office. As I entered, I politely asked if the lady sitting at the desk was the manager in charge; she replied, "Yes… and who the hell are you?"

I replied, "My name is Russell Futcher. The Chairman has sent me to find out what the hell is going on here, and now I have a pretty good idea. I will make this quick and easy; you have 15 minutes to pack your bag and leave the premises — you won't be coming back. If you are not out of here by then, I will have security escort you out; it is your choice." Her face turned ashen with disbelief, and her mouth was agog, but realising she had been caught red-handed, she started to collect the papers off her desk. With that, I turned to go and find the young lady who had been directed to chase the banana peel, who had overheard the conversation. I took her aside and apologised profusely for the behaviour she had been subjected to. I asked her if she would be forgiving enough to allow me an opportunity to make things better for her and the employees, and I promised that things would be very different from now on and finished by giving her the rest of the day off.

On speaking to the employees, many of whom I knew, as I had originally set up and staffed this data centre, I discovered they too had regularly been subjected to disrespectful and humiliating comments. They were the playthings of the banana lady and some of her staff.

2.    Team member evaluation

It's important to know your people. As a manager in an organisation who wants to develop teamwork, you need to have a good understanding of your people. Evaluating team members is one of the most important things that needs to be done: an honest assessment of each team member's working style. Selecting the right people to be in your team is the most critical decision you will make. The right people are fundamental to the team's success, and you will be investing time and energy in their development. Understanding each team members attributes motivates people to do amazing things.

Due to immature relationships and poor communication, team members often do not know the extent of skills, strengths and weaknesses of their colleagues. This is the leading cause of team performance problems ranging from low productivity, lack of innovation and creativity, high failure rates and missed opportunities. Therefore, team members must have a reasonable understanding of how each team member contributes to the team and the added value they bring.

 A team member evaluation looks at things like skillsets, attitude, gusto, alacrity, outlook, extroverts and introverts and qualifications, to name a few.

Most common issues

  • Team members do not know each other's team contribution attributes.

  • New opportunities are often missed.

  • The team fails to capitalise on its greatest assets – the team members themselves.

Quick Fix

Team Member Evaluation: This is a three-part exercise.

The first part is to complete a set of Evaluation Tables for each team member. You can get the Tables here. The results will also help you with your mentoring sessions as they will reveal the individual management needs of each team member.

Secondly, hold a session with each team member and review your evaluation of them. Again, stick to the positives and play down any negatives, saving those for your mentoring sessions. Discuss development opportunities and needs with the team member.

Finally, hold a team session, hand out a copy of everyone's evaluations and walk through each of them again, ensuring that you have only listed positives.

3.    Lack of open communication

If you want to create chaos where confusion runs rampant and production is low, have a team that does not know how to communicate. You don't need me to tell you that poor communication is at the root of all problems. What is required is open communication which means practising mutually beneficial and honest discussions. This doesn't just refer to discussions during a meeting or other work activities, but also to keeping others appraised on important matters, sharing fears and seeking counselling from others.

Open communication is a higher form of communication-based on trust and mutual respect. Team members need to be encouraged to voice gripes, complaints, praises, predictions, concerns and especially fears as long as they do so in a positive manner. Team members should never refer to an individual team member as the cause of an issue but rather only refer to a broken process or function, which is nearly always the actual cause of any problem. Teams need encouragement to indulge in communication for discovering newer or improved ways of reaching the team's common goal and individual performance goals, resolving differences by collaborative problem-solving and sharing of experiences. Dialogue with active listening should be the norm. It is important to remember that misunderstandings can be a good thing because they prevent groupthink and spurn innovation.

All meetings must have open and honest communication where team members explain progress or setbacks and frustrations and disappointments and suggestions for improvements in the way the team works. When there is tension in the team -bad air – this must be allowed to escape, which only happens through sponsored and consistent dialogue. Team members need to openly communicate everything—good and bad—if there is to be open and honest communication, then it's a matter of not what you say but how you say it. Creating this sort of team communication culture is the responsibility of the team leader and is one of the foundations of a successful team.

Communication extends to managing conflict, which is unavoidable, but which is also useful when managed constructively. A clash of ideas is the beginning of innovative and creative thinking, whereas being overly dominant with ideas; is being selfish and diminishes thinking. The team must learn how to settle and decide between competing ideas.

High-Performance Teams resolve conflicts professionally. They focus on extracting value from their differences and use this to arrive at better decisions. They actively thrive on conflicts as they know they can convert them into new opportunities by using the points of difference as new possibilities. Mature conflict management is essential; it differentiates a team from ordinary teams. It makes sense to see conflict resolution as a form of debate with an agreed decision-making process if a stalemate occurs. Spirited debates around the table should be encouraged, not denied.

Most common issues

  • No decision-making process.

  • Not sharing information.

  • Lack of transparency.

  • Not sharing fears.

  • Honesty about individual capabilities.

  • Not asking for help

  • Not managing conflict.

Quick Fix

Decision-Making Process: Every team needs a default or formal process to fall back on to manage conflict better and improve the quality of decisions that are also measurable. Google a process (There are many, although all are basically the same) and mandate its use.

Meetings: As a manager, you need to lead by example and open discussions about team gripes, frustrations, complaints, nuances, anything that is bothering you or your team members and then resolve the issues as a team. Resolve one issue per week until complete.

Active Listening: Encourage and insist on all team members practising Active Listening at all times, pull up team members who interrupt or look at their phones. Don't accept disrespectful or unprofessional behaviour.

Conflict management: Have the team bring conflicts to a team meeting and let the proponents debate the issue whilst the others listen. The listeners should be looking for keywords and ideas that could be a middle ground, a compromised solution or a new innovative idea.

Case Study: Medical Support Team

My client was a medical support team providing IT services to Hospitals, Pathology Labs, Diagnostic Imaging centres, Chemists and a Pharmaceutical company. Their reputation was shocking, and they were the subject of constant, demeaning and nasty criticism with correspondingly high levels of stress and trauma, low morale and job satisfaction. Each day's work for them was simply a matter of survival with no sharing of problems or supporting each other. My job was to improve the team's performance and achieve a high satisfaction rating from the business units, timeframe - 6 months. These team members were battered and mostly at their wit's end, stressed and easily intimidated; they did not want to know anything about me – whom they saw as just another manager to give them grief. I started by convening a weekly team meeting to run sessions to list out their gripes and grievances, insisting that I genuinely wanted to know. An important first step for any team is to vent their anger and frustrations, to let the bad air out; until that is done, you cannot get their attention, and without that, they do not hear anything you say.

Then we agreed to start a whiteboard where everyone could list their biggest problems so that everyone could see what each other was battling with and with whom they were battling. At the weekly meetings, we then picked and prioritised one of these issues to resolve as a team effort; this also permitted them to downgrade some works to allow them to concentrate on the priority for that week. The priority issue was then resourced by as many team members as were necessary to bring about its successful resolution. This continued and became a regular team behaviour; they were now supporting each other. I was taking the flak from the business units who had been informed were to only speak to me about problems to shield the team. After two months of this style of operation and with some successes under our belt, we all agreed to undertake some team building activities to make everyone's life's a lot easier. We started with a common goal to bring the team together as one, followed by a Roles and Responsibilities exercise to share everyone's value and team contributions.

In this team's case, what was required was to give the team members breathing space, shield them from their protagonists and simply let them get on with their work.

Finally, the remaining team building activities were worked through finishing by bringing everyone's training up to date. The business units were then surveyed and asked openly and honestly if they had noticed any service changes and how they would rate the team today. There were still some complaints (mainly from squeaky wheels who demanded always being attended to first), but on the whole, the feedback was positive, and several people went out of their way to note the improvements. The team was now set up to continually improve under their own steam. Job done.

4.    No common goal

Ask yourself and then ask your team, why does the team exist? What impact would there be on the organisation if your team didn't exist? For example, you might be a sales team trying to win new business. Or you might be a working group drawn from lots of different areas of a business, all working together to deliver a project. Your team doesn't have to be formally defined, but it does have to share a common purpose if you are to achieve your objectives.

One great way to motivate a team is to give them an incentive to work together toward a common goal, and if you want to go the extra step, introduce an employee of the month award for who did the best work towards achieving the common goal. Having a team that works well together toward a common goal is a far better option than having a group of people who are often at odds with each other. J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teams, revealed just how bad people often are at teamwork. His research shows that team members don't even agree on what the team is supposed to be doing most of the time.

The absence of a clear and well-communicated team goal means a team will fail to align themselves for mutual success. Without a common goal or objective, each team member tends to go off in a different direction, not knowing why they are working together. This leads to everyone forming different views as to what success looks like. A common goal also acts as an initiator to discussing and developing common ways of working, like adopting new processes and developing guidelines.

Ordinary teams respond to a mandate from outside the team. But to be successful, a team needs to create its own meaningful and measurable common goal. Creating a common goal is important as it acts as a target to direct and motivate team members and their staff. It gives direction to all actions and can also act as a measure of success after completing a task. Ideally, the team common goal needs to consider likely changes in the organisation's business environment, competitors' movements, and the future behaviours of consumers, combined with the team's aspirations.

Creating a common goal as a team has several important team-building aspects:

Team subconsciously works together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that they may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a common goal allows team members to express what they like about the team; what they do not like and prepare to let go. It also helps start the process of open and honest communication.

It also forces the team members to answer questions like "what is the purpose of the team?", "Why does the team exist?", "what would be missing if the team did not exist?"

The common goal creation process is psychologically important in that team is agreeing on shared values and targets. They give meaning to their existence, which has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

Without a clear purpose or common goal, the team will wander, uncertain about what is important.

Achieving the common goal should benefit everyone, especially financially, as the business grows and profits increase.

If you want your team members to turn into a team, you need to give the team a goal and give each team member individual performance goals. By clearly outlining what is expected of them, you can keep your employees focused.

Most common issues

  • No common goal or purpose.

  • Mixed understanding of why the team exists.

  • Different views as to what success looks like.

  • No sharing of views, opinions, fears, gripes and frustrations.

  • Common goals that do not merge organisational Team aspirations into one.

  • Common goals that are not measurable or attainable.

Quick Fix

Create a team common goal: This usually takes three one-hour sessions to complete.

Start by running a session on why the team exists and what would happen if it didn't. Look to give purpose to the team's existence and function. Who are the beneficiaries of the teams' activities, and who are its stakeholders? Ask questions like who pays their salaries which in most cases are their customers or another business unit.

Next, ask the team to develop descriptive keywords that describe the team's operation, purpose, outputs and stakeholders.

Finally, ask the team to come up with a single sentence that describes a team common goal. A test of the goal is that every activity a team member undertakes leads to achieving the common goal.

5.    No Team level Planning

A major mistake most teams make is lack of team level planning, relying instead on individual team member plans. Individual planning does not take resource sharing into account meaning that resource allocations and utilisation are very often over or underutilised and inefficient leading to poor delivery performance. Team member level planning promotes team member success over the whole of the team’s success. This style of working is wholly inefficient when multiple teams are involved (as is often the case) as intra team communication, process integration and handoffs are usually informal or at best poorly defined.

In most teams, it is common practice for team members to plan out their activities, usually by way of a To-Do list with prioritised activities and tasks. Best practice is to review this list daily, adding, deleting, finishing and commenting on tasks. Some people because of the way they plan or because of projects use Scheduling software like MS-Project which allows a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to be used (Phases, Activities and Tasks). This method of planning provides for detailed plans, tracking, resource allocation and utilisation and better execution, meaning more activities and tasks are delivered on time. Team members that manage their own teams usually find this method best for controlling their teams work as it is an easy way to see and manage all of the work.

The same needs to apply to the team’s work. Every team needs a Team Master Plan of the entire teams’ work activities, that is all work being undertaken by all team members expressed in one place. Every team needs to plan out its activities, to know what its priorities are and how its resources can best be used. Scheduling software is perfect for this as it is designed to handle different types of work by different owners.

A Team Master Plan is simply a high-level Project Schedule in the form of a Gantt Chart. It needs to show just enough information about the teams work activities to allow for the planning, prioritising and monitoring of all work. The team should regularly (weekly) review the Team Master Plan, reviewing priorities, resource allocations, ownership, due dates and deliverables. A best practice Team Master Plan has a WBS consisting of a top-level of Project Names, Operations activities, Production Support and Maintenance by way of example. The next level is Activities which lists Deliverables. Tasks are not shown on the Team Master Plan, these are only shown on detailed plans (Tasks, Resources) managed by each team member or their team.

Most common issues

  • Whole of team work activities cannot be seen. (What you can’t see you can’t manage)

  • Team member level planning only exists.

  • Poor resource usage.

  • Multiple competing priorities.

  • Poor delivery rates.

  • Team efforts are not concentrated on the priorities.

Quick Fix

Using a Scheduling package like MS-Project or a Spreadsheet Gantt Chart template, audit all work that is underway and that is planned for the next month and record it.

Key data to capture is Priority (1,2 or 3) Work Type (Project Names, Operations activities, Production Support and Maintenance), Owner, Due Date and Deliverable.

Structure the Plan by Work Type.

Have each team member add their work to the plan, then hold a weekly review session to review that:

o   All work activities are present.

o   Priorities are agreed.

o   Due Dates are going to be met.

o   Enough resources are available to meet the due dates.

Then update the plan weekly before each review session.

6.    No clearly defined roles and responsibilities

I can't stress enough how important it is to define team member roles and responsibilities. The prevailing attitude is that everyone knows what they are doing and what they are supposed to be doing; however, nothing could be further from the truth in my experience. Some managers rely on position descriptions, but they have a limited shelf life and are only good for recruitment; they change soon after a person starts and keep changing as business conditions change. Ask most people how their current work activities match their position descriptions to see how much of a mismatch there is.

In the main people know what they are supposed to do. But when roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined, it leaves people sometimes struggling about who is responsible and accountable for what. This can lead to team members focusing only on what they believe are their primary tasks, only to find out later that they are ignoring the expectations of others.

The exercise of defining team member roles and responsibilities looks for and removes overlaps, identifies and fills in gaps, and clarifies who is responsible and, most importantly, who is accountable for what.

Responsibilities are shared, several team members can be responsible for the same item. On the other hand, accountability is not shared; only one team member can be accountable for an item. An accountable team member is the owner of the item; they are the person who has decision making authority about the item, they are the person who has the final say about it.

High-Performance Teams do the exercise and have ongoing regular discussions regarding who is responsible and accountable for what. Next, they resolve any gaps in understanding between each team member, and they create individual roles and responsibilities templates with key responsibilities and accountabilities and, optionally, key performance indicators and performance targets. Then they merge their templates to create a team matrix which ensures that there are no holes or duplicates and that handoffs are tightly coordinated.

When team members know what their roles and responsibilities are and how they support the team, and how they contribute to the success and results of the team, this produces greater job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity. In addition, it removes the possibility of conflicts, disputes over ownership, helps avoid mistakes being made and assigns ownership of all items that the team manages. Everything then has an owner. It also identifies who has responsibility for an item and who has accountability for an item. Finally, a good roles and responsibilities template will reveal a team members skills, strengths and weaknesses, helping to assign work that will bring their skill level up, or if necessary, work that avoids a weakness or capitalises on a strength.

Most common issues

  • Confusion over what responsibility is versus accountability.

  • Shared accountabilities.

  • Conflicts and gaps in responsibilities.

  • Unclear as to who decision-makers are.

  • Lack of training plans.

  • Quick fix

Roles and Responsibilities Template: To start with, have each team member complete a template for their position.

Then hold a session to compare all of the templates, look for gaps in ownership, shared accountabilities, missing responsibilities, overlaps and conflicts.

Next, revise the templates with changes and create a team roles and responsibilities matrix.

Roles and Responsibilities template:

Name.

Position holders name.

Position/Title:

The primary job function such as Infrastructure Manager, Sales Manager.

Goals:

Individual Performance goals or KPIs.

Accountabilities:

Position sole accountabilities, such as staff retention, back-ups, architecture adherence, managed services contract, systems availability, loan approvals, customer refunds.

Responsibilities:

Position shared responsibilities, such as server monitoring, capacity management, desktop repair, router installations, loans, customer accounts.

Second, in charge:

Name of the staff member who is second in charge.

Roles:

Roles, titles such as Change Advisory Board chair, Business Liaison Officer, Security Officer, Disaster Recovery Coordinator, Loan quality checker.

Ownership:

List the names of processes, how-to guidelines, other documentation, applications and systems for which this person is the accountable owner and decision-maker.

Expertise:

Names of applications, business processes and so on that this person has key knowledge of.

Training completed:

Course names completed.

Training required:

Course names/types to be undertaken.

7.     Lack of mutual accountability

Mutual accountability is another foundation stone of an effective team. It means that team members accept that they are accountable 'to each other', which guarantees better performance and teamwork. Mutual accountability is a process by which two or more people agree to be held responsible for the commitments that they have voluntarily made to each other.

The objective is to get the team to think "Team performance first" and "Individual success second". As a result, individuals become focused on creating a memorable collective performance rather than thinking simply about personal achievements. All team members are expected to volunteer their time and effort to assist for the sake of the common good. Accordingly, all team members need to take a constructive interest and participate in all team's activities as and when required. Each team member needs to take responsibility for the team common goal. Each team member then holds themselves and each other accountable for delivering the specific actions, attitudes, and behaviours that the team requires.

"Members of groups using the team discipline hold themselves individually and mutually accountable. With groups applying the team discipline, it is very difficult (if not impossible) for anyone member to fail – only the team can succeed or fail. Team members are not easy on one another in this respect. Yet, they are extremely flexible and adaptable in helping each other to contribute to the fullest extent possible and to develop new skill levels in the process. Indeed, mutual accountability for shared purpose and goals may be the hallmark of the team discipline." - Katzenbach and Smith. The Discipline of Teams.

The mutual accountability attribute reinforces everyone's role in sharing knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives to make the team a better performing unit. Mutual accountability brings about increased effectiveness in working together. Team members recognise that collective performance is dependent on the effective collaboration of themselves with other team members resulting in increased collaborative efforts. Rather than working and thinking individually and trying to protect their own space, a team-high in mutual accountability has team members who are regularly asking themselves and each other, "how can we better work together to get the most out of each other and the whole team?

Most common issues

  • Team members do not give commitments or hold each other accountable.

  • Team members concentrate only on their work.

  • Team members do not share team risks and successes.

  • The team has a low collaborative sharing value.

Quick Fix

Weekly Management Team Meeting: Add an agenda item called Team Development and list underneath it 'Mutual Accountability. Ask team members to comment on recent examples and upcoming opportunities about how each team member can assist others. Ask questions like Who is supporting someone else at the moment? Who can support John Smith next week on this activity? Who needs help?

8.    Lack of commitment

If this were any other article on why teams fail, the heading here would be 'Lack of Trust'. However, I don't teach trust or instil trust into teams; instead, I teach and instil commitment.

A vast amount of writing exists about the need for trust in teams and that its absence is a key reason for team failure. In my experience, teams don't fail due to a lack of trust; they fail due to a lack of commitment. When it comes to trust, I am a Luddite as I don't rate it highly; trust is just too hard to manage. Some people believe you need to give trust first to receive it, and others believe the opposite – you need to receive it first before giving it. (A Catch 22). Then there is the argument that you shouldn't trust someone unless you know how competent they are, but if we all did that, we would not trust anyone or give anyone a chance.

Trust is not the issue, 'commitment' is, which is more easily defined, understood, and measurable. Teams grow and accumulate insight through their interactions in the form of giving and receiving commitments. Here's the bottom line. If you want to build a strong and effective team, then high committal interaction is required via such things as 1:1 interactions, projects and shared tasks. Giving a commitment (a promise to do something) is a meaningful thing that can be measured – it is a contract between two or more people. Yes, you need to trust that the other person will deliver but committing comes first and carries more weight.

Think about it this way. You cannot implicitly trust someone you have just met or do not know well, even if that person comes with a strong reputation? The best you can do is take that person's reputation into account and look for behavioural validation. Gaining and measuring a commitment is a clear, unambiguous way to do that. When team members fail to give or accept commitments, it's a clear indication that they no longer care, they have withdrawn and are in danger of resigning. 

When people fail to meet their commitments, they can be forced into defensiveness, sometimes getting preoccupied with assigning blame. Defensiveness and personal criticism feed off each other while effectively hindering constructive communication. Then there is fear of failure - when team members are afraid to commit as they fear making mistakes and having them held against them. Finally, there is an out when it comes to commitments; it's called Expectation management, where the person charged with delivering something needs to change the terms of the deal. This needs to be a standard team behaviour that recognises that conditions are constantly changing. The problem is that it is not practised.

Most common issues

  • Team members do not give commitments or hold each other accountable.

  • Lack of mutual accountability.

  • Lack of Expectation Management.

Quick Fix

Honour commitments: Talk to your team about the need to honour commitments for planning and scheduling purposes and the impacts when something is not delivered as agreed. Talk in terms of a commitment being a contract – that is unbreakable unless renegotiated by changing expectations. Talk about the need to carefully consider each situation before committing, ensuring that it can be delivered as agreed.

Expectation management: Also, talk about Expectation Management, the process of going about changing a commitment.

9.    Lack of Empowerment

Traditional style managers tend to set clear decision-making boundaries for their team members whereas Transformational managers give team members the authority to act and make their own decisions. (There are two possible exceptions to this and that is the imposition of financial expenditure and recruitment limits).

Team member empowerment is defined as the ways in which managers provide a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities. This can range from something as simple as a process improvement to product approvals. Empowerment works best when team members are mentored on making better decisions and helping ensure those decisions are correct, resulting in increased productivity, innovation and greater job satisfaction. It requires an investment of time in mentoring team members to develop mutual trust, develop clear agreements about roles and responsibilities, risk-taking, any financial boundaries and critically important – a no surprises mentality.

Empowering team members also means giving up some of the power traditionally held by management but does not mean relinquishing all authority or accountability. Managed properly, delegating authority and decision-making, sharing information, and asking for team member input, empowerment motivates performance. Team members are also more likely to trust managers who they perceive as more empowering and are more likely to put in effort without feeling that they are being exploited. There is always the risk that some team members may interpret empowerment as the manager attempting to avoid doing the work themselves.

Most common issues

  • Demotivated team members.

  • Poor decision making.

  • Lack of a No Surprises environment.

  • Work overload for the manager.

  • Team members growth is stifled.

Quick Fix

It’s incredibly simple, in the first instance do not set any empowerment boundaries whatsoever (financial and possibly recruitment aside).

Only discuss boundaries when they are raised to you, then mentor the team member as to your expectations, such as decisions about certain things belonging to them.

Accept mistakes, you have made them, and we all know that it’s one of the most effective ways we learn

A clearly defined roles and responsibilities template should make it clear what each team members empowerment and decision-making scope is.

10.Lack of training

The importance of training cannot be overstated. Companies invest large amounts in hardware, software and services but often fail to train or fall behind in the training of their staff. Failing to train staff on products they use is simply an inefficient and often costly use of those assets. Having untrained staff using IT products is also a risk. When training on new technologies falls behind, capability and productivity suffer, including staff morale and the department's professionalism.

If you want your team members to work well as a team, you need to ensure that they have proper training. In addition to training new team members, you should also conduct additional training regularly to help reinforce company goals and policies. Ongoing training is a great way to ensure that all team members know their responsibilities, feel confident, and feel like part of the team. Sending staff off for training is a pain because you are always too busy to make them unavailable. Yet you know that training needs to be done; it just gets deferred and often doesn't happen.  

The right training for the right people at the right time is a great investment in more ways than one. In times of cost-cutting and budget restraints, training is usually the first thing to be cut - so when times are good, and the budget allows, this is when training needs to be bought up to date.

Not convinced? Look at it this way, would you fly on a plane knowing that the training of the maintenance people was not up to date, or worse, completely lacking. Well, others may view your team members training in a similar way. Training extends to providing your team with the resources they need to work quickly and with purpose. How much resource? The best answer is "as much as is required to have a qualified and satisfied workforce".

Most common issues

  • Lack of full use of product functionality.

  • Poor customer service.

  • Increased risks associated with introducing a product.

  • Low team member morale and confidence.

Quick Fix

Training Audit and Plan: You may not be able to bring everyone's training up to date, but you can start the process.

First, conduct an audit of all of the training each team member has completed going back ten years.

Second, prepare a list of the training that each team member needs to do.

Schedule what you can but review monthly.

Update your next budget for increased training costs.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.

– Babe Ruth

Conclusion

The ten reasons why teams fail to achieve their potential is common to the majority of all teams. Resolving these failures is not complicated or mysterious; they are easy to address. The best way to do this is to focus on one failure a month, implementing its fixes, allowing the team time to take the changes on board and put them into practice. This allows for a steady, progressive rate of change over eight months, which can be done in less time if the team is motivated to do so.

You can share this post by using the buttons below

You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium and Slideshare

Management and TeamsRussell Futcher10 easy proven ways to improve team performanceComment