Excellent point! When individuals can be inspired to put the good of the team ahead of individual interests, you definitely have the making of a good team. We have all been on teams that had talented people that spun their wheels because everybody wanted to be individually recognized by "the boss." I love the quote, "imagine how much we could get done if we didn't care who got the credit!"
Thanks for your insights.
Jamie
Recognizing different personalities and how to deal with them is the key to a successful team. Everyone has a different moral compass that they see the world through. Once you understand how your team members react with each other you can start the process of building a team. Just having people on the same project, working toward the same goal does not necessarily create a good team. Teamwork happens when you’re more concerned with making the team successful and not worrying about individual accomplishments.
Hi Jon,
You make an excellent point about the impact of teammates with unhealthy self-identities. Besides low self-worth or megalomania, sometimes these types of individuals act the way they do because they are trying to mask the fact that they don't have the expertise or social skills needed to contribute to the team.
In the examples you gave, what strategies were used, or could have been used, to minimize the negative impact of these individuals on the rest of the team?
I've seen where both ends of unhealthy self-identity work against the team. Some team members resort to monopolizing time in an effort to ensure that others are fully convinced that they deserve to be on the team. This is the person with very low self-worth. I've also seen individuals monopolize time because they are convinced they are the only valuable resource on the team. This is the person with the over-inflated ego. Both usually lack a sense of self awareness that significantly impedes team identy and subsequently slows progress to a standstill.
My team seems to fall into groupthink too often. I am always trying to bring in minority viewpoints.
One challenge I have run into in my new assignment is that members of the team did not know each other. By that I mean, they did not know each others role, communication style, personality traits etc. In my work environment, in order to work together you must take time to know as much about each other as possible.
I think the greatest obstacle I face in team progress results from the work load of the team members. We are currently working on a self study for accreditation that must be completed by the faculty. The team works well together but does not get the assigned tasks completed on time. When investigating why, the reason tends to be the work load of the individual faculty members. Unfortunately, the faculty do not have the option of not being on the self study team so I have difficulty keeping them motivated to put in the extra work.
Gossip can be a huge barrier in team building. With negative talk comes distrust--creating an insurmountable wall for team progression.
Personal agendas, lack of team identity, conflicting personalities, and disconnected members. I spend a lot of time working with individuals trying to encourage their participation in the team and convincing them to value being a member of the team.
Our teams work diffrent shifts so it is hard to get a meeting set where all can attend so we end up doing little one on one meets.
When I was going to school for my Bachelor's and Master's, part of our team assignment was to discuss team-building and most of the teams voted on different people in charge for different projects. Diversity was a huge issue that we had to discover in that we had to find out who could contribute what to a team (strengths/weaknesses) so the team as a whole would not falter when it came to meeting deadlines. I've been part of teams where we had people from all walks of life and different philosophies working together and I learned to think outside the box in some ways mostly because of the people I had to work with to achieve my goals both individually and through the team.
Some of the most common challenges that I have found would first be personal issues between team members. When there are personal issues between team members it often causes other team members to be dragged in to the disagrrement and choose sides. I believe that one of the most important things a team leader can do is to foster that sence of "team". To have all of the members feel supported by one another and to be supportive in whatever way they can. I try to address such issues as soonas I become aware of them. I don't feel that it does any good to try and let the problem "work itself out" that technique wastes too much time and allows the problem to grow.
I would say that individual participation and their contribution is very significant. Each person should feel that their ideas and recommendations are received and respected. If they feel this way they will not be hesitant and will feel a part of the team.
There are a number of challenges to teambuilding, based on my experience as a manager and educator. A number of the challenges have already been identified (groupthink, lack of communication, lack of commitment, unclear goals (or agreement on goals), etc.). One of the many challenges that I believe impacts the ability of teams is accountability, or more precisely lack of accountability. On many teams that I have been involved in, there is not always a high amount of participation, except when it comes time for Monday morning quarterbacking… then everyone wants to participate! Many people seem to be happy going along and doing minimal work, but at the end of the project, they want to offer constructive criticism (which is still welcome, but a bit unnerving). Since we have a small management team at my organization, we tend to have many teams that consist of the same “key players.” One suggestion that I brought to the table to try to address this issue is to incorporate a post-project recap meeting, where we not only talk about what went well, what didn’t, and where we can improve, but more specifically we discuss how the team managed the project (what went well, etc.) I believe that by focusing specifically on the actual “team” part of managing the project, participants feel more peer pressure to actually participate at a high-level, as well as we are able to bring this new knowledge to future team endeavors. In addition, part of the answer to improving accountability, I believe, is setting clear expectations, monitoring progress, and providing timely feedback.
The most challenging aspect for my team is keeping them focused on the goal-interperspnal conflicts distract them and can cause the attitude to change to "that's not my job"; trying to foster the feeling that if one succeeds, we all succeed.
My most common challengs that impeed my team process are
1. some will not play nice with others
2. lack of participation
3. Strong personalties
Andrea,
I agree with your statement. I have seen this in several positions in which I have held. I believe it has a lot to do with respect of each team member and being a team player. Everyone is important to the team. The leader must communicate this often; however, if the leader favors the person taking all the recognition and allows it to happen, well, then the team bleeds.
In my career as a teacher, trainer, and manager, I have seen many different challenges that influenced the performance of a team. These challenges were miscommunication, respect, and time.
First, clear communication and communicating often, helps to keep the team on the same page and moving in the same direction. Many times information is communicated correctly initially, but when information changes, this change is not communicated to all constituents. This greatly affects the direction, the productivity, and the motivation of the team.
Second, respect of each team member is essential. It is important that a leader not play favorites as this can pit team members against each other. I do believe some level of competition is healthy, but not when open favoritism and lack of respect is displayed on a team. Recognizing each team members’ success, big or small, is important. It is also important for a leader not claim all accomplishments, but to recognize the team member for the success.
Third, it is challenge to find a time when all members are available for team meetings, team building exercises, and training. When a company is international and has shifting schedules, it can be very difficult to get everyone together.
common challenges that impede team progress are teams members not sharing information and disagreeing on issues going over the same ground over and over without reaching a working decision.
Alos team members feeling that thier point of viwe is not valued, and a team working without any identity
Definitely groupthink. I have this problem now. My staff has been together now for 5 years. No turn-over in staffing is good, but groupthink is a problem. My staff knows each other so very well. They are friends. I need some good ideas on how to break up the group think and get us back on track.
