When and Why Do Teams Fail? What Is Your Team's Key Fault? Making Teams Work!

1. Team-Break: Two team members will not work together.

    A Remedy: Resolve to the point of the team functioning.

Either they deal with old baggage, stylistic differences, or disagreement, or the team continues without either or both of them. I understand relationships are highly complex, and there are no "bromides." But the team has the right to expect each person function effectively with each other. If team leader works the situation off-line, informal coaching among colleagues encourages resolution, even an escalation to their manager(s) do not work, the mission/project must go on. The situation cannot be ignored or glossed over. It is like pouring water into a broken pitcher. I have seen amazing breakthrough on teams by two individuals working their problem out. They don't become bowling buddies, but the team functions professionally and more effectively.

This is all too common and seldom easy to remedy. Feedback and timely communications are not easy, but are usually the only way to make timely progress. There are so many dozens of approaches and tools here, from timely 360's to understanding how constructive feedback can best happen in your unit and the company. Whatever the process -- and multiple ways of resolution can work -- there is no substitute for appropriate feedback to help the team leader help him/herself. That can come back regularly and gradually from the group, channel through the team member the leader will listen to best, and so forth. So often the leader is either thick or resistant. A recourse is escalation. Each situation calls for its own right path. It may have to be circuitous, like an "n" -- up, across and down from team to a manager to that person's manager to the leader. Politics and protocol are realities that in this case can protect the messengers from getting shot. Net-net, if the team leader cannot do his/her job, they need to be replaced, and to not let this drag on is a good thing!

No, I do not live in La-La Land. Some leadership teams are incurable. They mess up good teams. They do not get it. They create more problems than they solve. All true. But it is not true that when the Top is messed up that the team cannot make progress. That used to be one of my most effective weapons when working in really big company structures. As a team member and more so later as a team leader, we would 1) understand exactly what we are chartered with doing in getting from A to B; 2) figure out options, then set the plan of attack; 3) gain upper management buy-in before, during, and after. #3 is the toughest sometimes. It really helped me to "sell" our solution through the lenses of what senior management needs and wants, is worried about with their bosses, and what will make successful. Indeed, sometimes the team's recommended plan is unsell-able to clueless bosses. You have to double back -- are WE missing clues on how to get the win-win? Are we selling this plan right? True, at some point, you make compromises, and there is a line you do not feel you can go over. It comes down to how much you can take and still function, and ultimately finding a more functional unit or company to work. Life is too short!