I have been partnering with a senior executive who just inherited a team in a big tech company --- we will call her Susan. Susan is an external hire and took on her new role about a year ago. She comes from the consulting sector where, she claims, there is traditionally a hierarchy and the culture is known to be quite different than that of a new age tech company notorious for its office perks like nap pods, lunchtime surfing trips, sushi Fridays and a flip flop culture. It is not surprising, then, that Susan expected there to be a much flatter organization in this company she joined, a camaraderie amongst colleagues, innovation happening naturally, and creative juices flowing freely. She told me the picture that was painted for her (by the recruiters, by mass media, by her own imagination) was people from different backgrounds, different seniority levels, different ages coming up with product ideas over celery juice at a company cafe, empathetic laughter rising from around a pool table when someone took a bad shot (or made an obvious mistake) followed by hugs, employees asking tough, challenging questions to the leaders of the company at company-wide town halls and all hands meetings, and the leaders smiling and admitting to mistakes, taking notes, circling back, people in the audience smiling, applauding, nodding along, getting excited and clearly routing for the success of the company.
What Susan found a couple of months into her tenure, however, was a much different set-up. She described it as a sense of “stuckness”, an unspoken “tension”, a form of "lethargy."
The people on the team did not want to put their hands up when opportunities were listed in team meetings.
When she spoke to team members one to one, they seemed to be more worried about what they needed to do to be in good standing and get good performance ratings than to develop, grow, learn, and innovate.
People rolled their eyes at learning and development opportunities. Weren't they supposed to be delightful that they get paid to learn? Wasn't the promise that these tech companies would be somewhat like a continuation of college lifestyle together with work?
People were reluctant to speak up and take risks. There were multiple meetings she joined that did not seem to have a clear agenda and even if they did, they weren't followed by clear action items.
She was especially struck by the number of meetings where the same decks were presented to senior leaders over and over again with minor edits. When she shared her notes and questions with those who booked meetings with her to present their projects, they did not want to argue or defend. Conflict was avoided at all costs.
Susan initially thought it was her - that she needed to earn the trust of her team in order to be able to get them to relax and be themselves. She was the one coming from an industry with a much tenser culture. The employees needed to measure her up first to see if she could fit in. They thought she liked the decks and presentations - she came from consulting after all - powerpoints were her bread and butter! She probably did have good questions and insights, especially coming from the external world - that’s why they didn’t argue, they legitimately liked her views. “Fair enough” she thought. Over time, however, she realized the dysfunctionality she was observing was a systemic one that was due to the culture and company dynamics, and not a situational one due to her needing to earn everyone's trust.
Susan and I used Patrick Leoncini’s "The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" to get to the bottom of the issues her team (as well as seemingly other teams and perhaps even the company as a whole) was facing. According to Leoncini, teams most commonly suffer from these five dysfunctions that lead to ineffectiveness, inefficiency, resentment, stagnation and ultimate failure:
Absence of trust
Fear of conflict
Lack of commitment
Avoidance of accountability
Inattention to results
1
ABSENCE OF TRUST
Trust (a.k.a. psychological safety in some business circles) is the number one foundational element a team should have in order to be healthy, functional, and productive. Without trust, teams will conceal weaknesses and mistakes, hesitate to ask for help, jump to conclusions about the intentions of others, hold grudges and dread meetings. This state of insecurity leads to more mistakes, slowdown of organizational and personal growth, as well as a tense, uncomfortable, and awkward work environment. When we deep dived into Susan's team set-up, Susan realized her team lacked trust for each other and the leadership on multiple levels - all of which contributed to the snowballing of the discomfort.
They lacked trust for the leadership at company level. The leaders had stopped taking live questions at town halls and most answers to the written questions that were submitted before the meeting sounded glossy, ingenuine, and scripted. They did not feel leadership cared about their input, and they felt like they were being watched and spied on. They also could not ask anonymous questions anymore making them feel like they will be labeled if they challenge a leader’s decision. More recently, this already lessened trust took an even bigger hit with the mass layoffs by the tech industry (and more specifically, how they were carried on).
They lacked trust for middle management. They felt like middle management did not have much power, control, or the willingness to challenge upper management, stand up for and represent their teams when decisions were taken at a top-down level. They felt like middle management were there to follow orders. Middle management also did not want to rock the boat too much themselves because they, too, lacked psychological safety and were more worried about their personal gain.
They lacked trust for their colleagues. They felt like their vulnerability would be used against them and that every person was for themselves. When Susan asked her team (anonymously through a form) how they felt when they made a mistake, one employee said they felt “like an idiot,” that they needed to hide and cover it up immediately, they felt they could not reveal - let alone celebrate - failure in the team. It would be used against them in their performance review, and that their colleagues would make a point to amplify it to their manager in team settings, and blame them for the lack of progress (in a certain project / initiative) because one person's mistake meant the other person's career progress. It was a zero sum game: if one regressed, the other progressed.
Antidotes to Lack of Trust for Leaders:
Model the right behavior by celebrating failure, encouraging and rewarding risk-taking appetite by assigning and applauding stretch projects and innovative experiments. One leader in one of my old teams had a “Ooops Section” in his town hall, where every week someone from the team stood up to talk about a mistake they made and what they learned from it. At the end of their short presentation, the leader congratulated them (and was genuine about it!). they were given a small certificate with a small cash bonus for doing so and everyone applauded their courage and growth.
Make a point to show with their actions that their intention is to support, to sponsor, and advocate for their team. It’s important that team members think that their leaders are there to support them, to help them grow, and not micromanage them, find and pick on their mistakes, criticize and penalize them.
Colleagues need to get to know each other and be encouraged to bring their whole selves to work. While there is no magic pill to ensuring this, team-building activities including those where people take personality tests and share their tendencies and preferences with each other, socializing outside of work and icebreakers help in humanizing each other and building healthy relationships within teams. Here are some icebreakers that might be useful. Using this self-reflection sheet to self-reflect and get each team member to share their reflections and something about themselves with each other also is a helpful exercise.
2
FEAR OF CONFLICT
Absence of trust / psychological safety leads to fear of conflict. In his book, Lencioni says, "teams that trust each other are not afraid to engage in passionate dialogue around issues and decisions that are key to the organization’s success. They do not hesitate to disagree with, challenge, and question one another, all in the spirit of finding the best answers, discovering the truth, and making great decisions.” According to the author, this is also true for healthy partnerships and even marriages! If the sides don’t engage in healthy disagreements, resentment builds up over time. In such settings where there is artificial harmony, employees worry more about politics and personal risk management than solving problems. People afraid to confront may gossip or talk behind each other’s back leading to others taking sides or being uncomfortable. Moreover, people will be reluctant to express their views or voice their concerns blocking the opportunity for betterment or growth.
Susan found that:
Meetings were often boring and mundane, because everyone agreed with each other on the surface, the tone was monotone and controversial topics were avoided.
Decisions were made “behind the scene” by a few individuals, because discussions, conflicting views and opinions were avoided in larger group settings.
Employees stopped believing in the leadership’s genuine interest in a flat organization and equitable decision-making, as they heard “We will see”, “We will consider”, “We will think about” more and more without a clear follow up about what was considered, what was thought about, what was seen and most importantly what was changed / tweaked, as a result.
Antidotes to Fear of Conflict for Leaders:
Encourage discussion and disagreement in team meetings. As the leader of the team, it’s important to applaud and support someone who puts their hand up and shares their opinion, even if it is different from their own. You might be very intentional (and show that you don't take yourself that seriously) by explicitly calling out a change in your steering or decision-making thanks to input / challenge by someone else, particularly if that someone is from your team, someone who reports into you.
If someone challenges a decision or a point, make sure to welcome it. Be curious, listen, empathize, and ask follow-up questions. Either change or tweak it on the spot or come back to the group (not just the person who challenged) later to follow up on it. Explain what was initially proposed, what changed (if anything) and why (or why not).
Avail of some disagreement mitigation exercises as a team. When teams talk about or do exercises on how to handle / mitigate conflict and how to make group decisions before a conflict arises or a decision needs to be made, they will be prepared with a pre-discussed framework when there is conflict or disagreement.
It also helps to know your own and your team member’s conflict resolution styles. (See this article about different conflict management preferences)
3
LACK OF COMMITMENT
Lencioni describes commitment as "a group of intelligent, driven individuals buying into a decision precisely when they don’t naturally agree. In other words, it’s the ability to defy a lack of consensus.” Once again, fear of conflict breeds lack of commitment, introduces a diseased state of ambiguity, and weakens decision-making ability. This can lead to a decline in overall team performance, a constant state of analysis paralysis, failure to make important decisions and second-guessing, slowdown of progress as well as decreased engagement, lower morale, a weakened sense of hope (for the future of the team / project / company etc.), and finally a widespread “It’s a lost cause” belief.
Susan observed:
Meetings after meetings where as opposed to decisions being made, there were more questions about different kinds of data, different ways to dissect and represent the data, different questions about the viability and accuracy of the data presented etc. leading to a state of analysis paralysis and a feeling of dreadlock.
Animosity between team members who felt like others weren’t pulling their weight. There were numerous inquiries (mostly by way of subtle stabs, passive aggressive comments, and eye-rolling) about certain others’ seniority, promotion, etc. as they felt like they could dial their commitment back a notch, if the other person in question can get promoted, be more senior to them, get a shinier role by what looked like "coasting". (also referred to as the “resting and vesting” culture, more recently)
An unspoken “Not me” response and an avoidance of fingers being pointed at them when asked about the owner of a certain initiative, project or a decision.
Antidote to Lack of Commitment for Leaders:
Actively cascade and communicate strategy, tactics, decisions and discussions to your team. Solicit feedback, concerns and input and make sure to float them back up and re-communicate and over-communicate where you landed subsequently to all levels.
Make sure you are aligning with other leaders and communicating a consistent message
While seeking consensus is nice, it is not necessary and sometimes can be unhealthy. Take input, encourage healthy disagreement, make a decision and action the commitments. Using a framework (such as the Goals / Objectives and KPIs frameworks) help teams stay aligned, committed, and on task.
Assign responsibilities and deadlines to people, and get together as a team to track and measure them. Share your learnings and results, applaud and reward effort, growth, risk and innovation, as well as obvious success (e.g. more $) The RACI matrix spreadsheet might be a useful tool here.
Make sure meetings have clear agendas, clear start and end times as well as clear objectives. A highly effective team I know color codes their meetings in calendar - yellow for discussion/brainstorm-based, blue for decision-based, green for data/results analysis based so everyone knows what to expect before the meeting and what to deliver as a result of the meeting.
Exercises and decisions about how your team makes decisions before a decision needs to be made are helpful in pre-aligning on processes and making sure everyone is respected and on the same page.
4
AVOIDANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Not being able to make decisions effectively and a lack of common objectives follow an inability to develop standards for performance and hold people accountable for them. Team members miss deadlines and deliver mediocre work. According to Leoncini, this dysfunction is "the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might hurt the team." While of course we are not encouraging people to be harshly criticizing each other about their lack of performance / mistakes etc., it’s important there are clear high expectations and standards set for the team, that everyone understands who is responsible and accountable as well as how and when success is measured to not fall into a state of ambiguity.
Susan noted during her interactions at her new company:
During meetings, people were on their laptops answering emails, doing other work instead of listening and engaging in discussion. Not only was it distracting but it was also disrespectful to the person / people speaking.
Teams did not understand their common goals, objectives. When asked about "the northstar," they said generic things like "create value," "delight our customers". They also didn’t know what other people were working on or towards and how what each person was working on fit into and complemented the rest of the team’s work.
Employees’ incentives did not align to what they were set out to deliver and what benefited the company-wide success.
Employees didn't feel their leaders understood or were interested their work. Often, they didn't feel they had the background or the technical chops to be able to do what the people in the field did. This lack of trust in leadership's capabilities and the fact that they couldn't be held accountable for it discouraged them to hold themselves accountable for the success of the team and organization.
Antidote to Avoidance of Accountability for Leaders:
Clarify what goals the organization is meant to achieve and incentivize individuals to work as a team and towards the company success rather than for themselves (e.g. their promotion) or to save the day without questioning things too much. A team-wide goals and KPIs table can be helpful here.
Call out what’s not ok and what is not conducive to healthy team norms. When Susan called out the fact that people were engaged in other pursuits when their teammates were presenting and asked people to close their laptops, everyone looked up shocked at first but were relieved immediately afterwards, when she explained her reasoning and said she is more than happy to not have the meeting and give everyone time back, she is happy to talk to whoever is sending them urgent pings they cannot ignore for the next 30 minutes etc. She also asked everyone to commit to making meetings productive, action-oriented and fun. If meetings did not satisfy all three conditions, they needed to be canceled.
Applaud and reward accountability. If a team member delivers what they set out to deliver (as detailed by the team goals worksheet for example) celebrate and reward them as a team.
5
INATTENTION TO RESULTS
This is the ultimate dysfunction of a team and refers to the tendency of team members to care about something other than the collective goal / mission of the group. When teams lack focus and clear objectives, team members stagnate, become distracted, and focus on themselves as opposed to the greater good. Employees end up prioritizing their own individual ego over collective success and often become complacent and distracted in their roles, contributing heavily to the company’s decline, loss of market share and competitive edge.
In the first few months Susan onboarded to her new role, she observed:
Achievement-oriented team members leaving for other companies
Managers seemed to hire people to check certain boxes o have their organizations look in a way that would earn them points (e.g. if they had certain roles and titles, if they had certain seniorities and certain reporting lines, number of people etc, they were more likely to get a raise or get promoted)
A sense of secrecy and isolation was felt when teams and leaders did not let the wider company in on their experiments, what they were working on and working towards.
Employees felt like rewards and promotions were a popularity contest.
Antidote to Inattention to Results for Leaders:
Being results focused starts from setting the right goals and expectations for your employees. Set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Focus on metrics and objective ways to achieve the goal so everyone understands how success is defined. If the team already knows how to keep each other accountable, they will push each other towards going after collective not individual goals.
Have team-centric and company wide meetings where objectives and results are shared widely with everyone so employees can keep track and have their eyes on the prize. Incentivize and recognize team achievements that contribute to organization wide success.
Praise the specific effort and not the individual behind the effort. Understanding how to get to the "North Star" is important and to be able to do that, praise the behaviors and effort (how individuals got there) as opposed to the individual. Saying things like "Julia is a rock star" isn't helpful to help others understand how they too can be rockstars. Sharing promotion rationales, success stories with employees will not only instil a culture of transparency and celebrating each other but it will also draw the attention to and focus on results.
Connect with me at leadrisecoaching@gmail.com if you have any questions / comments / experiences you would like to share on teamwork and the 5 dysfunctions of a team
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