Work takes up a sizeable
chunk of our working and waking lives. Whilst we are at work then we are likely
to spend a lot of it functioning in groups. In fact, teams are the engines that
drive most organisations. So, when
those teams fail to work well together then the impact can be catastrophic, not
just for the team but also for you as an individual and the knock on effect of
an ineffective team will cause other teams to also falter and work less well
together.
Some
of the symptoms of a poor team working include
- A lack of willingness to take responsibility and action.
- An inability to agree on goals as a group.
- The group doesn’t recognise the importance of attending to its own maintenance or it doesn’t feel confident that it can be managed effectively without external intervention.
- Members are fearful to speak out about how the group is behaving or how they experience it because they fear anger and hostility.
- Some members of the group feel that they are carrying others.
- There is a culture of blame and possibly scapegoating.
- The group engages in partisan or clique-ish behaviours.
- Members of the team covering their backs rather than getting on with each other or work.
- Group behaviours and communication are characterised by friction and disagreements.
- There is a lack of respect for each other or for specific members in the group.
- There is poor communication within the group members and/or between them and other teams.
- The group mind-set is set for ‘problems’ rather than ‘challenges’, as a result they approach everything very negatively.
- There is a general air of inequality, which goes beyond levels of authority – e.g. personal relationships influencing the leader’s decisions and resource allocation.
- There is a lack of loyalty towards each another and celebration if one of the 'enemy' has a problem.
- Group members avoid being with each other which may include meetings.
- The level of efficiency and productiveness of poor and well below target.
- Individuals in the group pursue their own needs even if they conflict with that of the group.
- Some people in the group spend a lot of their energy working to make sure that their own ideas are prioritised.
- Meetings are difficult to manage and decisions hard to achieve unless taken by the leader because people are too busy interrupting each other to listen.
- Members do not support each other unless they feel that they have something personal to gain fro
