Most organizations, or managers, don’t set out to build poorly-performing teams. When a team is not functioning as it was originally conceived, the team members are often analyzed and dynamics of the team reviewed to uncover the problems.
However, the problem is often not with the team members per se, but with the manager who commissioned the team and how he or she manages and interacts with the group. One recent team I observed was staffed with quality can-do people; each member of the team having a very responsible position reporting to the group manager. However, this group manager had several aspects to his management style that caused the team to fail early on. They included:
· The habit of setting some of his managers against each other in order to drive performance. In fact, this technique caused creation of favorites that changed weekly or monthly, and once some of these competing managers were in the same group, they continued to focus on their relationship with the manager as opposed to caring about the group outcome.
· Alternating micro-managing and hands-off managing of the group. The manager, in his interactions with the group, regularly alternated between micro-managing every activity (word-smithing decks, sitting in on minor meetings, asking about minor milestones) and going totally hands-off. These extremes seemed to run in two-week cycles, causing the group to become paralyzed. They felt they couldn’t take the smallest step without the manager’s review, yet they were unwilling to reach for larger gains because they received no feedback.
· Constantly re-prioritizing the team’s objectives. When the manager reviewed the schedule, he constantly moved priorities around. However, when the new priorities received the focus of the group or the member assigned, older priorities became “gotchas” where team members were chastised in front of other group members when not completed.
Managers don’t set out to build dysfunctional teams. However, managing a team is different from managing individual performers. Management styles that motivate and drive high-performers may cause total failure when those employees are forced to work as a team.
