The Performance Doctor Newsletter
Performance Rx
 
 
 
Recommended Resources
 
"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" 
 Patrick Lencioni
 
"Team Power"
 Jim Temme
 
"25 Instruments for Team Building"
Glenn Parker
 
 
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Bev Rosen

Motivating Wellness at Work has many team building training programs including "Resuscitate Your Team: Cure the Negativity Virus." To learn more, visit our website and click on Team Building. 

Or send me a note on the "Contact Me" screen to share the struggles you are having with your staff and I will respond with a 30 minute FREE consultation. 

 

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PeopleMap Training Program
As a certified Peoplemap trainer, Bev Rosen is available to discuss your interest in a Peoplemap program at your organization. Please contact Bev, at Motivating Wellness at Work
Tel: (410) 583-1847
 
March 2010
Greetings!  
 
Ask Bev, the Performance Doctor
Bewildered
Dear Performance Doctor:

Has my team contracted a performance virus?  I am the owner of a growing health care business which now has 9 sites, each with their own General Manager and Director of Operations. We have a very stable leadership group and very little turn-over.  My new HR Director tells me that my team is "dysfunctional". She keeps comparing our senior team to the one in the company she left. She complains that my team uses these meetings to show off what they have done, she never can get back responses to her requests for these team meetings, and she feels that communication between the team  members is poor.  She has me worried that my team is in trouble and I need to be doing something different as their leader.  How do I assess whether she is right?

                                                           "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered CEO"
Your Solution
You are very insightful to pay close attention to team changes that might be occurring as a small single site business grows and expands. While communication, camaraderie, and coordination are certainly things that need to be addressed in new ways, it's helpful to keep your pulse on how the changes are affecting your team's productivity. You also have to assess whether the judgment of your new HR Director is accurate.  So here are some diagnostic tools.
Diagnostic Tools

Diagnosis Tool 1: First there are warning signs that a team may be in trouble. Are you noticing any of these?
  • Are your leaders frustrated, pained, unable to cope when trying to solve organizational problems?
  • Are there meetings  "off-line"  to discuss problems and solutions they would try "if only the conditions were right"?
  • Is there blaming others, the boss or others part of the organization for a dilemma?
  • Have your team meetings changed - are members cautious, not candid and vague or dominating?
  • Do problem solving actions sometimes make things worse - not better?
  • Are members looking for ways to escape meetings when problems are being discussed?
The pop psychology word "dysfunctional" is frequently overused and even the best teams will go through struggles and hurdles. A model is proposed in Patrick Lencioni's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team."

Rather than focus on the negative, I live to take the opposite approach - how members of a truly cohesive team behave. 
  1. They trust one another 
  2. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas
  3. They commit to decisions and plans of actions.
  4. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans
  5. They focus on the achievement of collective results 
Dysfunctional team member behaviors can impact the work flow of a team and interfere with the team's accomplishing its goal.  They include bullying, blocking, condescending, avoiding, withdrawing, joking, dominating or self-seeking behaviors. I don't hear these behaviors from you - instead I think you have done many things to enhance your team's adjustment to your successful growth.
 
Diagnosis Tool 2:  So what is the next step for any diagnosis - ask the patient what they feel is happening? There are many team self-assessment tools for your members to utilize and the results are very fruitful to discuss. Three books with  many self-assessments tools I highly recommend are: "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Lencioni, "Team Power" by Jim Temme and "25 Instruments for Team Building" by Glenn Parker.  Many more can be obtained on the web and when you order the Lencioni book, a free on-line team assessment is offered.
Diagnostic Tool 3: The third diagnostic suggestion is to look at the source of the complaints - your new HR Director.  I hear that she is frustrated with your team and that is why she is comparing her present job to her last one.  If you listen, her interpretation of team "dysfunction" is that she is not getting her needs met and she is projecting and globalizing and interpreting this as "team deficiencies".  How happy is she in her job and what feed-back can you get from your leadership team about what they feel about her?  They may indeed be resisting her requests because her "attitude" is coming across to them. Sometimes, the on-boarding process of a new member may include a tendency to demonstrate their desire to belong with a "Know it All" competency behavior and this tends to backfire.  A long non-defensive conversation with her might lead to some very helpful information.

Sometimes your leaders, such as this HR Director, have their own performance, behavior or attitude problems that are coachable.  Rather than incur the costs of termination and re-hiring, call The Performance Doctor, a certified coach, to help you retain your talent.

For help with any of the issues discussed in this newsletter, please feel free to call the Performance Doc,  Bev Rosen, at (410) 583-1847 for some FREE expert advice.
Performance Check-Up

As illustrated in this case, team meetings can be an issue and the challenge of conducting effective team meetings is very real.  This will be the topic of our next newsletter.

To learn more, please visit www.motivatingwellnessatwork.com and click on Team Building where you will see many self-assessment and team building workshops that might meet your needs.
Until next month, this is the Performance Doctor from Motivating Wellness at Work signing off.
Bev's Signature 
Bev Rosen, MSW, MBA
Motivating Wellness at Work