About Teamformance®
Dysfunctional Teams
In their best seller, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan make the point that, "The people process is more important than either the strategy or operations process." And further, "If you don't get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business."
In a recent study conducted by the University of California Irvine, on "Management and Organizational Performance Patterns," the project team concluded that, "Many process improvement systems are behaviorally naïve — heavy on the rhetoric of "teamwork," "empowerment," "new paradigms," and "accountability" but lacking insight into workplace belief systems, values, motivations, and disincentives that underlie the behaviors targeted for change. Some management change models are precise and detailed about process redesign methods but vague and conceptual about behavioral dynamics."
The central theme and common thread in these conclusions is that getting the team's work done is all about people, working with and through people, working for people. In far too many organizations, the nearly exclusive focus of a team's work is on the work, with only passing consideration given to how the team's people will work, and this usually after the project has been engaged.
Consensus — Baloney
It has been our experience as both executive managers and as consultants to an enormous variety of organizations that there is a great myth concerning the need for consensus in a team's work. We see four major categories of teams in terms of their charter and objectives: Advise, Consent, Define, Do.
The first element of dysfunction is injected when these are mishmashed, that is, the team's purpose is not clearly defined and agreed on, and therefore individuals view their personal contributions in the light of their own perceptions and not upon a focus on the team's objectives. As individuals, we perform better in one or two of these roles than in the other two or three. To expect a team of individuals to behave any differently is absolute absurdity.
Ultimately, the team has to make a decision in line with its charter (unlike our judicial system in which a "hung" jury [a team of sorts] is a possible outcome). It is only important that a decision be made, by the team, as a team outcome, and this does not indeed imply that a consensus of all of its members is required.
"Consensus" connotes a form of decision by committee; the worst possible way to design a horse. The product of a consensus decision is either to cast doubt on the veracity of a team's individual members or the abrogation of responsibility for making that decision. We submit that one-hundred-percent buy-in is not required. What is required is alignment of a team's individual members with the ultimate decision. That is, the decision must be supported and promoted and executed by all of a team's members - acting in concert and individually - even by those who did not agree with that decision. Attempts to foist consensus decisions on a team is to deny the individuality (and all that that implies) of its members.
High performance teams are populated by individuals who don't change their unique stripes by virtue of team membership, but rather by distinctive personalities who while retaining their individuality (and skills and judgment and expertise and wisdom), will stand by the team's decision after having fought the good fight internally within the team. This is the ultimate test of a "team player," that is, the ability to work for the team and stand behind the team in its ultimate decision even though one may hold a dissenting opinion. An individual's uncommon or differentiating views should add strength to the team's deliberations and outcome and not cause one to be regarded as a non-team player.
The all too common practice of ostracizing someone if s/he doesn't automatically subscribe to a "group think" philosophy has the effect of limiting the team's ability to see and fairly consider other alternative courses of action and to identify and accurately assess the challenges and risks that may confront the team decision.
Be wary of the consensus mode of team (or any other group or entity) decision-making, and be careful to examine your organization's definition of "team player"; these may not be at all compatible with your individuality. Perhaps your contribution is better made with a different modus operandi.
In our view, a dysfunctional team at the end can trace the cause of its failure back to its initial beginnings.
For further insight into the root causes of dysfunctional teams and their poor performance, please read our white papers Why Teams Don't Perform.
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