Teams or groups? Sadly, and much too often, it seems the latter are more common

Article Type: Strategic commentary From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 10, Issue 1

“A team is ‘people doing something together’. ‘…the something that a team does isn’t what makes it a team; the together part is’.” (Robbins and Finley, 1997).

I’ve worked with the so-called top teams of many apparently dysfunctional organisations. Truthfully, I’m pretty jaundiced about the constant use of the word “team”, which always seems to assume a quality of relationship between executives that commonly, on close observation,just isn’t there. Through confidential one-to-one interviews, I have been surprised/astonished to find the frequency/scale of the following:

• misperceptions of colleagues and their motivations;

• jealousy arising from “perceived” favouritism by chief executives of certain executives over others;

• disempowerment of some executives arising through perceived favoured executives bypassing formal decision-making processes and going straight to the chief executive to swing decisions “their way”;

• “incidents”, often arising from imperfect decision-making or a sense of being “stitched-up”, undermining and poisoning relationships;

• incidents not being talked out, discussed or resolved and left to fester/colour future dealings with colleagues;

• attempts to talk issues out/have honest debate suppressed by chief executives who don’t like conflict, aided by colleagues preferring conciliatory styles of engagement, which has the net effect of suppressing necessary debate;

• consequent lack of trust between executives and inevitable growth of distrust and suspicion;

• consequent lack of honest, open relationships and constant misinterpretation of actions, behaviours and colleagues’ intentions;

• poor personal and working relationships spilling over into venues where staff are present, resulting in loss of confidence of staff in the top team; and

• stressed-out executives, exhibiting classic signs of over-work, tension and anxiety and feeling increasingly paralysed, bullied, under-valued, frustrated and helpless with low morale and motivation and sometimes poor physical and mental health.

The following are some of the common features that I have typically found that give rise to such behaviours:

• Incorrect assumption that senior executives just “know” how to bond as a team – and will.

• Failure to agree common values (and the behaviours that underpin them) that the top team must consistently model, encourage and reward. Executives thus operate in a moral vacuum.

• Business that is experiencing profound change and challenge (of whatever nature) in its market place or sector.

• Failure, for whatever reason, to have honest and vigorous debate, and be able to challenge colleagues in an assertive but constructive manner.

• Failure to create the space and time to get to know each other –motives, ambitions, personal drivers, etc.

• Failure to have individual mentoring/coaching support – corporately or privately.

• Failure to have external team coaching and support and, if provided, a view that it lacks sufficient “hard-edge”.

• Failure to have experienced Tuckman’s four stages of forming teams(forming, storming, norming and performing) – or to have skipped the“storming” stage.

• Lack of clarity around personal remit, authority and accountabilities of each executive.

• Poor decision making processes.

• Poor leadership from a chief executive inconsistent in decision-making and suppressing challenge/debate.

The following are some of the components that are necessary to finding a solution:

• External facilitation. In my opinion, facilitation needs to be trusted and sufficiently hard-edged to break through potential shields of denial.

• Agreement on common values and the behaviours that underpin them, which must henceforth govern relationships between team members.

• Time out to get to know/understand each other better. The active participation here of “all” team members, including the chief executive, is non-negotiable.

• Goodwill and a readiness to acknowledge, respect, forgive and start again. It takes a long time to re-build trust once it is lost, but the starting point has to be an agreed common foundation.

• Acceptance of the need to “re-storm” and work through accumulated angst. No more smouldering, unspoken issues and no “elephants in the room”.

• Individual coaching and mentoring support. All executives, including the chief executive, need assistance to prepare job/person specifications for coaches/mentors.

• Specialist and confidential psychological counselling needs to be made available for those who wish to use it – there are always some “damaged”individuals who require support way beyond the talents of regular coaches and mentors.

• Regular and facilitated team off-site meetings need to be agreed.

In my experience, dysfunctional teams (at executive or any other level)rarely survive intact from the learning/development interventions I have described. The pain of departures, forced or otherwise, is acute. But, the joy of watching members of a formerly dysfunctional group give each other permission to call themselves a team – and celebrate accordingly – is intense and wonderful.

Hamish DavidsonChairman of Entrepreneurs in Action.

About the author

Hamish Davidson is one of the most experienced and well-respected recruitment specialists in the UK. He has spent time as a partner heading the UK executive resourcing team at PricewaterhouseCoopers and as chairman of Veredus Executive Resourcing and then Rockpools. Today, he leads his own diverse consultancy practice, Davidson & Partners. He also chairs Entrepreneurs in Action, which runs enterprise-based interactive programs designed to motivate and inspire young people; Iris Consulting, a niche research-focused, improvement consultancy; and MJI, a public affairs and transformation consultancy. Hamish Davidson can be contacted at: hdavidson@theeia.com