At some point in our life, we either find ourselves managing a dysfunctional team or dreading work because we are involved in one. Working as part of a team can be stressful, depending on who you are working with and the complexity of the project. Although teamwork is challenging, effective collaboration can produce an array of benefits for your organization, including improved decision-making, increased innovation, and enhanced productivity. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always come easy, and some teams need to work harder than others to overcome obstacles before they start to function effectively. According to entrepreneur and academic leader, Dr. Terrell Strayhorn, successful teamwork is possible with commitment, determination, and an open mind.
Terrell Strayhorn is the founding Chief Executive Officer and President of a private education research firm, Do Good Work Educational Consulting Group. The organization is dedicated to strengthening families and communities, fighting oppression and injustice, advocating for social change, and ensuring student success by partnership with leading colleges and schools across the country. His company is made up of both on-site and remote employees, which has given Strayhorn a new level of expertise when it comes to managing his staff. He is no stranger to leadership roles and has directed major university research centers and served as Vice President of a private, liberal arts college.
Strayhorn has identified five common challenges faced by organizations today, and how managers can help their teams overcome them:
Unclear Purpose
The first step in forming an effective team is identifying the group’s mission or purpose. A sense of purpose refers to why the team has been established and what they must accomplish together. Essentially, if you don’t understand why you are doing something, you probably won’t give it your best effort. Now, imagine an entire group of people experiencing the same uncertainty. It aims to reason that this team is only going to achieve the bare minimum results required of them.
To avoid ambiguity, leaders need to initiate regular communication to explain ‘why’ the team exists and offer direction when needed. Strayhorn asserts that teams with clearly aligned visions are more likely to work together in proactive pursuit of the end goal. Ideally, effective leaders will inspire employees to get on board with the vision, leading to increased passion, motivation, and engagement. This task can become more difficult once you add remote employees into the mix. Leaders need to streamline all lines of communication to ensure both on-site and remote employees are on the same page. Technology is a great way to do so.
Role Ambiguity
When you work as part of a team, responsibilities get shared amongst group members. Newly formed teams are more likely to experience difficulty adjusting to the division of roles, and understanding how their tasks relate to those of their teammates. Consequently, employees’ responsibilities may overlap, prompting the duplication of some tasks while other jobs get overlooked. Role uncertainty is associated with several negative outcomes, including job dissatisfaction, low organizational commitment, decreased involvement, absenteeism, and increased turnover.
There are two main causes of job ambiguity, Terrell Strayhorn says there may be lack of structure and lack of managing leadership. Initiating structure refers to the extent to which leaders define their employees’ responsibilities, including preparation of work schedules, following adherence to rules and regulations, and promoting high standards. Managers that exemplify appropriate behavior show a genuine concern for staff, through friendships, trust, empathy, and make themselves available to answer questions, clarify goals, and offer advice. Fortunately, organizations have several options available to treat role ambiguity. According to Strayhorn, companies can undergo behavioural training aimed at management, hire managers that are strong in initiating structure, redesign jobs where needed, and/or introduce an open-door policy. Managers need to delegate tasks effectively and be approachable, to encourage employees to come forward when they are experiencing confusion over job roles.
Lack of Trust
Arguably, the most important ingredient of any well-functioning team, is trust. Teams that trust each other feel safe enough to share ideas, take risks, and expose vulnerabilities. When teams lack a secure environment, collaboration, creativity, and productivity are all limited, which makes it harder to achieve the group’s goals. As humans, it is only natural for us to want to be accepted, and so we censor our thoughts when we feel we might be judged or ridiculed for our ideas and opinions.
While researching what makes the ideal team, Google discovered that trust between teammates dramatically affected the group’s collective intelligence. The studies uncovered that productivity reached its peak when members were given equal opportunities to speak, and teammates had an average amount of social sensitivity. Stated another way, the perfect teams possessed a ‘psychologically safe’ environment, where individuals could be themselves without fearing any negative consequences. According to Terrell Strayhorn, to create a climate of trust, managers should lead by example, encourage active listening and outside-the-box ideas, refrain from the blame-game, discourage cliques, openly discuss trust, and get to know everyone on their team personally. Connecting with remote teammates can be difficult when you jump right into work during virtual team meetings. Instead, spend the first five minutes of your meeting catching-up with everyone or start a group-chat where personal conversations are encouraged.
Not Sharing Information
In a centralized office, employees may sit in cubicles next to one another but never really share information. Instead of viewing themselves as part of a greater whole, some workers act like individual contributors focused on completing their own tasks before the end of their shift. At the same time, dispersed teams face a similar problem, how do remote employees receive the latest company updates or become informed about new policies and procedures? According to research, employees of Fortune 1000 companies are away from their desk 50-60% of the time. Unfortunately, it becomes difficult to evaluate whether remote employees are fully equipped or not to effectively contribute to the team. According to a global office survey, 91% of employees classified knowledge sharing as essential or important to learning in the workplace.
Terrell Strayhorn believes that organizations should implement a comprehensive knowledge sharing strategy for the benefit of centralized and dispersed teams. Managers and employees need to work together to determine their preferred modes of communication and develop a protocol outlining when it is appropriate to contact others. Organizations can start by deploying instant communication apps, project management tools, and applications for remote meetings. In some cases, organizations may profit from a custom knowledge-sharing platform. These types of platforms allow on-site and remote employees to collaborate and engage in information through commenting, rating, and discussion. “At Do Good Work, our team shares almost everything: calendars, documents, data, cloud-based files, and daily communications. Sharing is caring and it helps foster team spirit and productivity.”
Tracking Productivity
While most employees are hard-working and self-motivated, some will take advantage of the fact that their boss isn’t around to look over their shoulders. For on-site managers, supervising a busy office environment makes it hard to keep an eye on everyone, especially when their own schedule is booked full of meetings. As a result, determining whether employees are engaged to their full potential or not, can be difficult when there is no process in place to accurately track pace or measure output.
Terrell Strayhorn says that the first step in tracking productivity is developing clearly defined goals for workers and their respective teams, so they know what is expected of them each day. When employees have specific goals to meet, it is easier to assess their accomplishments and productivity. One great way for teams to track progress is through self-monitoring tools like project plans, checklists, and activity logs. Organizations can also use project management technology like Asana or Basecamp to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. Finally, managers should ‘check-in’ with teams on a daily basis whether it’s in person or virtually.
Three common factors appear to drastically impact the success of organizational teams, effective leadership, trust, and communication. Highly effective managers lead by example and create a safe climate that fosters trust and understanding amongst employees. Additionally, open lines of communication allow for essential knowledge sharing and clarification of roles, responsibilities, and objectives. Ultimately, leadership based on communication and mutual respect will lead to positive business outcomes and effective teamwork.
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