Team Dynamics part V

Dysfunciton of the team no. 5, or to say last but certainly not the least is Innatention to the results. And this one is the most concerning because of one thing. You know what is a purpose of a team? Well to provide either a service or a product to the end users. So what they deliver for sure matters not only internally but externally as well.

 

How does inattention to results look like and why it happens?

1.Individual Ego over Shared Goals

Focus is primarily on private status, advancement, title or reputation rather than teams goals and wins. If individual performance is being praised and rewarded before team performance, people will naturally favorize their own development and journey over team sucess.

2.Lack of Shared Vision & Purpose

Silo mentality & Stagnation: Similar to not sharing knowledge and information, here people care only for their own or their team, tribe, department success even if it does not fit overall company goals. Without a clear why and how the team is contributing to the bigger picture, there will be no attention to who results of the company as a whole, and sometimes for the same reqason not even the one on the team level. Competitors overtake what could have been done by team, because people are not driven to improve or innovate, comfortable with status quo

 

3.Lack of accountability upstream

Ambiguous goals and Goal drift: Team stays busy with work constantly, but fails to hit milestones and OKRs. If there are no consequences for missing OKRs or other team goals, they turn motivation and attention to only what they can control and that is their own status and prosperity. If the team goal is not clearly defined people will make their own assumpetions and definitions and behave as they believe it is ok.

Why results matter?

 

  • Team Success: Ultimately team was built and exists to achieve something – revenue, product launch, provide a service etc.
  • Team Morale: winning together is a powerful bonding agent. Achieving results or overcoming a problem together brings people more closer
  • Team Retention: high performance culture attract top talent. Top performance leave teams that are content with mediocity and do not move out of zone of comfort
  • Organizational survival: Team that does not focus on strategy, outcomes, consequences and results that will eventually be replaced or discontinued because it provides no values or serves no purpose

How focus on results should it look like?

 

Public presentation of achievements and goals: team knows exactly how success looks like, talks about it consistently, discuss how to achieve it, shares it with stakeholders. Make goals, progress and results clear and visible to everyone. No trade offs, if the work is no helping our team goal, we are not working on it. This rules should build discipline around the ways of working.

Result based recognition & rewards:  praise is given for contributions that move the needle and show results, not just the effort. Incentives are aligned and  tied to team outcomes not just with individual metrics, and all team members have it in the same way on the same seniority level

Collective sacrifice and accountability: team members will step out of their roles to help a teammate, especially if it means that it that will help the team achieve the goal. All members of the team will challege ideas and requests, and will commit

Obsession with impovement:  team is never satisfied with good enough, they analyze and reflect of ways how products, processes, services, collaboration and way of working could get better. If team relises that something does not bring value either to team members, company or stakeholders, they will find a better way of making it work.

Regular result Review: team is tracking the scoreboard that is visualizing their progress, and so reflecting and reviewing what and how was done, wheter it was a success and should they keep doing it, or was it something to learn from and adapt.

 

I know, you are now asking yourself, is it the end already, you said 5 dysfunctions… And yes I said there is 5 dysfunctions, but there is 6 articles on team dynamics, so I invite you to stay by your little screens with me one more time at least, and last but not least will be the fully summary and the point of whole team dynamics.

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