So far in this chapter, we’ve looked at ways to set your team up for success. However, you also need to keep an eye out for things going wrong, and this is where it helps to be aware of Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team. Published in 2002, Lencioni’s book suggests five major sources of dysfunctionality:
1. An absence of trust– We looked at the importance of trust and how you can build it in #72. A lack of trust manifests itself in a number of ways: People avoid social events and team- work; they don’t ask for help from one another; they cover up mistakes and weaknesses; and they generally withdraw from the team and try to avoid working with one another.
You can start to deal with these problems by behaving in a trustworthy way yourself, but in addition, you need to deal with the behaviors that are undermining trust. So talk with your team to understand what’s going on, and look out for behaviors that threaten the cohesion of the team or individu- als within it. You’ll need to deal with these firmly – positive measures to build trust won’t be effective until you’ve dealt with the underlying issues.
2. Fear of conflict– Conflict within a team is often uncomfort- able, but it can also be highly productive when it involves people respectfully testing and challenging one another’s ideas, with better ideas emerging as a result.
Signs of a fear of conflict include people holding their opinions back, avoiding awkward truths during meetings, and talking behind other people’s backs. To get past these prob- lems, encourage people to engage in healthy debate, and support them when they do – but make sure that debate is focused on ideas and not on individuals. Also, learn and teach conflict resolution techniques – we’ll look at a useful one in #76.
3. Lack of commitment – Another downside of people not sharing their ideas is that they may feel they haven’t been heard. They may think that plans haven’t been discussed
k k properly, or they may know that conflict hasn’t been resolved
and they may wait to see “which side wins.” As a result, they don’t commit to plans, they continue talking and not doing, and opportunities are missed.
Deal with this by getting everyone’s input on decisions, clarifying uncertainties where you can, discussing plans thor- oughly, and using transparent decision-making approaches.
(See Chapter 7; you may also want to use voting approaches such as multivoting or the modified Borda count – see the links below for more on these.)
4. Avoidance of accountability – A lack of accountability or
“ownership” has predictable negative consequences as team members don’t hold one another to high standards, and they don’t cover for team members who are struggling.
Address this problem by clarifying responsibilities with a team charter (#70), running retrospectives (#31), setting up a system of team rewards for the achievement of team goals, and by dealing with poor performance (#79) if people don’t take appropriate responsibility.
5. Inattention to results – This happens where people have lost focus on the team’s goals, perhaps because other objec- tives have more prominence, perhaps because of infighting, or perhaps because they’re more focused on advancing their own careers than they are on the team’s mission.
You can spot this when the team routinely fails to deliver good results, when people are focusing on the wrong goals, and when talented, results-oriented people get frustrated and choose to leave the team.
Deal with this problem by refocusing team members with a team charter, by reminding them of the OGSM (#26), by setting clear OKRs (#27), and by addressing poor performance if this doesn’t work.
Find out more about Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team: http://mnd.tools/75-1
Learn about multivoting: http://mnd.tools/75-2
Discover how to rank subjective options using the modified
Borda count method: http://mnd.tools/75-3
Source:Adapted from Lencioni 2005. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Chapter 14
Deal with Difficult Management Situations Effectively
An important theme running through this book is the idea that a great boss is someone who helps and supports their people to do their best work. This worldview encourages us to engage in positive, developmental behaviors such as coaching, delegating, and communicating openly.
But this approach to management assumes that employees have both the will and the skill to do their jobs well. Even if this assumption is valid 95% of the time, we still have to figure out how to act the other 5% of the time.
The reality is that there will always be a small number of people who, for whatever reason, are not interested in doing a good job or lack the basic capability to be effective. They show up late, they shirk, they complain, and they make frequent mistakes – and their negative behaviors create problems for those around them.
One of the hallmarks of a really good boss is the ability to han- dle these situations quickly and effectively. In many ways, this is the toughest part of the manager’s job because it involves dealing with unpleasant situations and making difficult decisions. It is always tempting to duck the difficult choices and to give an individual the benefit of the doubt. But keep in mind that one bad apple spoils the entire bunch – in other words, if you allow one individual to get away with behaving badly, the whole organization suffers. The title of Bob Sutton’s best-selling book The No Asshole Rule captured this point perfectly.
k k In this chapter, we discuss five techniques for managing difficult
situations. First, we look at interpersonal dynamics: We consider how to resolve conflict effectively (#76), and we look at how to deal with bad behavior at work (#77). Then we look more widely at the phe- nomenon of office politics (#78) in terms of how it manifests itself, how you can mitigate it, and how to protect your team from it. Finally, we look at the particular challenge of individuals not doing well in their own role. We provide advice for handling poor performance (#79), and we consider the art of being tactful (#80).