Why Aren’t Teams Working?

Organizations create functional, cross-functional, and cross-company teams to garner ideas and initiatives from the diverse experiences and talents of their employees.  They do so because teams bring numerous advantages – they typically increase productivity, communications, and decision making since members are often closer to the issues.  Additionally, teams often bring different backgrounds and a wider range of knowledge to bear on problems rather than relying on any one individual, manager, or department.

With these advantages, why aren’t teams working?

There are lots of reasons why teams fail – lack of clarity on the purpose, lack of authority or leadership, fixed mindsets, poor decision-making, lack of resources, poorly defined roles and responsibilities, challenges of coordination, etc.  But the fundamental reason for failure is that teams are not machines, they are groupings of individuals with their own personalities, talents, prejudices, ambitions, and fears.  Success depends on how well individuals on the team work together.  In other words, management can’t simply assemble teams, “turn them on”, and then walk away.  Teams not only have to be led, motivated, and nurtured, but the members must trust one another, engage in conflict around ideas, commit to decisions made by the team, hold one another accountable, and focus on achieving collective results.

The New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, and Wiley, a provider of industry-leading workplace assessment tools, came together in a breakthrough program proven to deliver business results.  The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team^® is a unique learning experience that prepares individuals for success in teams.  The program helps teams understand how they score on the key components of The Five Behaviors model:

• Trust One Another – When team members are genuinely transparent and honest with one another, it forms a safe environment that creates and builds vulnerability-based trust.
• Engage in Conflict Around Ideas – With trust, team members are able to engage in unfiltered, constructive debate of ideas.
• Commit to Decisions – When team members are able to offer opinions and debate ideas, they feel heard and respected and will be more likely to commit to decisions.
• Hold One Another Accountable – Once everyone is committed to a clear plan of action, they will be more willing to hold one another accountable.
•  Focus on Achieving Collective Results – The ultimate goal is the achievement of results, unlocked through implementing the model’s principles of Trust, Conflict, Commitment, and Accountability.

During the learning experience, individual team members learn about their own personality style and the styles of their team members-based on the Everything DiSC® model and how their style contributes to the team’s overall success.  With this information, team members can better understand themselves and their teammates as well as understand how to make simple adjustments to their own style so they can be more effective.

When an organization focuses on getting people to work together on productive, cohesive teams, they will accomplish great things and that teamwork may well be an organization’s ultimate competitive advantage.

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