Taking accountability for the role you play in the effectiveness of your team
Do you point to all the things your teammates or team leader are doing that are rendering your team ineffective?
In my role as a team coach, I hear these lines all the time.
“I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
“Our team leader has no clue.”
“Team meetings are a waste of time.”
“If she would just LISTEN!”
“If he would get us in a room and tell us what he wants.”
“If they could just get along.”
So here is the problem with all of these lines. They underplay the role that you play in your team’s dysfunction. The first three lines are great examples of how team members view others as the source of all problems in the team. The second three show that most people think the solution to the problem lies in other team members changing THEIR behavior rather than in them changing their own.
The first step to improving your team is to take a look at your own behavior.
In my experience, if each team member could stop, take a deep breath, and ask, “How have I been a part of creating this dynamic and how can I be a part of changing it?” we would be much farther ahead.
Instead of focusing on what your colleagues are doing, ask yourself these questions. What did I do (even inadvertently) that contributed to where the team is at? What can I do (deliberately) to make the team more effective?
If the team isn’t working, then everyone around the table bears some responsibility.
You’ve either done something harmful, allowed something harmful to be done to you, or watched as your team mates harmed each other. Everyone plays a role. Figure out what role you have been playing and you will be ready to start making things better. You have a duty to make your team work.
For more, download my ebook The You in Team.
Further Reading
Team Building Exercise: Pass the Problem
The Secret of Effective Teamwork
Having worked on many different kinds of teams over many years, the “You in Team” resonates with me 150% as a way to improve a team’s performance and dynamics. Sometimes looking in the mirror and asking more of yourself is the toughest thing to do, but if you can’t how can you expect others to?
I really like this idea because it’s so easy to highlight what other people have said/done to contribute to a team’s dysfunction. I think the moment you look at your own behaviours and words, your really start shifting your mindset to thinking about what’s best for the team. I can only imagine if everyone on teams everywhere started doing this! What a wonderful working world this would be…
Hi Lisa, thanks for your comments. Now I’ve got the Louis Armstrong song in my head. I do agree with you that if people would take responsibility for their actions and their part in making teams healthier we’d all have much better working lives…which of course would carryover at home too.
Totally agree!! In most aspects of life when finding oneself in an unpleasant environment looking in your own backyard is usually where the beginning of the solution can be found. It’s amazing how a shift in your own attitude or behaviour can become contagious to other team members.
Hi Toni, I’m so glad this idea resonates with you! People find it hard to believe that one person can change a team, but they really can. Most people dislike the passive aggressive behavior and misaligned agendas, they just don’t have the courage to be the first to change. When someone else takes the high road, it’s much easier for them to follow than to continue behaving badly.
I’ve worked with a number of teams for whom this blog really captures a core issue. Have you found any particular strategies or questions useful in helping people realize they have been complicit in negative team dynamics?