Fix Your Team

Chapter 22 READY TO LAUNCH

At this point, give some thought to who is best placed to raise the intervention with the team, and how. Managers, if you are seen as part of the problem — if the team blames you, even partly, for causing the dysfunction or allowing it to intensify — are you the best person to introduce this intervention to the team? Or should it, rather, be raised by your own manager, or perhaps Human Resources? Even if you have diagnosed the problem and prescribed the solution, you may not be able to ‘own it’ without damaging its likely success.

Think also about how the intervention/s are likely to be received by the team. To what extent are the team members aware of the problems that are affecting the team’s dysfunction? When they hear that you are arranging a team-building program, or that an external consultant is coming in to ask them about the team’s culture, for example, will this be a surprise? Remember that not everyone in the team has taken the time, as you have, to work through this book and come to a deeper understanding of what is going on. Everyone will have their own perspective on who is at fault, and who is responsible for contributing to the clean-up. Think through all of their likely responses.

If someone in the team pushes back, engages in blame or refuses to cooperate in the intervention, how will you respond? An influential team member might respond with a ‘shoot the messenger’ approach out of fear of conflict, or argue that it is the manager’s ...