xxvii) Other barriers to teams succeeding are
- Not understanding the dynamics as shown by behaviours from members of teams or groups. The table below describes the behaviours and strategies to handle
Behaviour | What they do |
Strategies |
1. Arriving Late |
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2. Repeating the same point |
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3. Whisperer |
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4. Attacker |
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5. Interpreter |
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6. Know all |
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7. Backseat Driver |
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8. Pet/Favourite |
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9. Head Shaker |
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10. Early Leaver |
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11. Doubter |
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12. Loud Mouth |
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13. Busybody |
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Other barriers include
. Non-participation by people who just want to do their job and go home
. Team members not having the necessary meeting, decision-making, problem or conflict resolution skills.
. Shifting to teams and increasing hierarchy with team leaders as an extra layer of management
. Negative people who are against everything, ie CAVE = citizens against virtually everything
. Management vetoing team decisions
. Poor communications between managers and teams, between the teams themselves and within teams
. Trying to change too quickly without a plan
. Personality clashes between the team members and between teams and their supervisors
. Managers refusing to relinquish their power
. Competition between teams
. Not knowing which step to take first
. Getting teams to work without a leader
. Defining boundaries for teams and getting management to accept the boundaries
. Internal politics within teams and within the organisation
. The spectre of constant change and restructure
. Under-resourcing the change effort
. Failing to clearly define responsibilities, roles and levels of authority for teams
. The ever-present lack of trust between workers and management
. Teams do not understand the financial side of the business in which they work
. The fear of losing all career paths
. Lingering tradition, structures and culture
. Dominant individuals who want to control the other team members
. Too many people protecting territory/turf
. General selfishness of people
. Teams that are too big
. Workers who can't see the personal or financial benefits of being in teams
. Managers who won't stand back and let the teams get on with the job
. Teams not controlling their budgets
. Teams not knowing their customers
. Teams not signed-off on agreed practices
. Too little training before starting
. Managers wanting to keep their status symbols, including special car parking, different eating areas and different clothing
. Increased workloads but with the same number of people to do the jobs
. Teams having no goals
. Confusion over what empowerment means
. Lack of personal skills
. The overtime culture, ie staff are used to and expect overtime as part of the work environment
. Managers who always want to pick and choose accountability issues
. People not wanting to change work processes because they have always done it this way
. Workers with a lack of business knowledge
. Decision-making still only happens at the corporate level
. Negative unions
. A lack of performance measuring
. Consensus appears to take much longer and slows down performance
. No business or technical skills in the teams
. Historical emphasis on individual achievement
. Not dealing effectively with poor performance in a team
. Not getting the right members in the team
. Performance evaluation difficulties
. Resistance to cross training
. Suspicions about teams being just another management fad that will pass
(source: Grant Donovan, 1998)