Ten Team Behaviors To Look Out For
It’s reasonable to expect teams to collaborate. Human nature however leads people to manage their own “slice of the pie”. Management needs to take a hard look at the real message being conveyed across the organization about getting things done. The question can be boiled down to: Is success measured by realized strategic outcomes or is it about not being singled out as the reason for failure?
Too often, senior management assumes that groups are working toward a common goal while at the tactical level, sub-groups or departments are playing hot potato with their unique tasks. Being accountable is often about not getting caught holding up the larger project versus being collectively accountable to the overall success.
What are the symptoms that point to issues of team performance? Consider these ten behaviors and attitudes:
- Low output and productivity
- Frequent complaints within the team
- Internal confusion about roles
- Ineffective meetings
- Lack of clear goals or low commitment to goals
- Problems working with the team leader
- People do not speak up and contribute ideas
- Decisions are made that people do not understand or support
- The team does not appear to have good working relationships with other teams
- People feel that good work is not recognized or teamwork is not valued
If you believe half of these behaviors are present in your group, it’s probably worth taking a look at what can be done to proactively turns things around. Much of the work of building team is about having greater transparency and dialogue around the issues described above. Finding ways to talk about it goes a long way in addressing the problems.
The Art Of Delegating
All of us need to delegate at some point. Whether we’re the person in charge or doing front-line work, delegating is a critical skill to be effective in the workplace.
The difficulty is it requires the following four key behaviors:
- Ability to instruct or teach
- Patience
- Allowing the other person to make mistakes
- Letting go of an insatiable desire for control
Many of us have forgotten what’s it’s like to learn something new. Our own skills and competence came from others allowing us to step into new roles or responsibilities. We learn best by doing, and delegating to others gives them that opportunity to grow.
When delegating, keep in mind these three things:
- Does the delegatee understand what’s expected of them? Don’t assume. Ask!
- Are you prepared for the delegatee to make mistakes or come back with questions? If not, don’t delegate the work. You’re only setting them up for failure (in your eyes).
- Are you willing for this person to do the work using their style and method? How one performs the task is only one way it can be accomplished. Focus more on the outcome you’re looking for, not the style or method someone uses to get there.
Are “People Projects” Becoming “Technology Projects”?
It doesn’t take much for a complex strategic initiative to become a “technology project”, void of an end-user focus. The shift from “people” to “technology” can be subtle, as the complexity of the design begins to eclipse the project team’s ability to keep users at the center of design choices. A typical response to this shift is to call anything that involves people a “training issue”, to be addressed by others at a later time.
Instead of taking this responsive position, user impact should remain the centerpiece of design choices — regularly reflected on, especially during the design phase of technical projects. Make sure that someone in your organization keeps user concerns in front of the technical design team so that the question is continually asked, “how will these design decisions impact our people?” This should be a daily ritual, bringing a discipline of “translation” to the early design phase of a project, rather than leaving it to training professionals in the eleventh hour.
