A team health check makes good sense.

Why is it that most teams fail to hit their objectives most of the time?

They either undershoot or over score and are over budget.

Is it their planning?

Well, maybe but most folks have great planning tools available at their fingertips.

Is it because of an oversight during the initial team building process?

Well, maybe although there do exist a plethora of online management tools designed to take much of the hit and miss out of team building.

There could be many underlying issues which cause the team to suffer from 'mission drift'.

The most likely cause is that within the team there are interpersonal clashes which throw the team into a dysfunctional state.

If you have a team consisting of seven members the incidence of team member conflict of one sort or another is likely to be much more than you may think.

Every one of those team members has a life outside the business of the team.

That life brings with it a unique blend of private and real life concerns, dilemmas, worries, fears and also of course positive expectations.

Many of these 'inner mind dialogues' overlap into the business of the day and must affect quality of the team members contributions.

There are also the unseen, unspoken and therefore totally unexpected conflicts which underlie many of the causes of team dysfunction. No one is normally consciously aware of these issues but they are just as deadly as free for all verbal team brawling.

Consider just one such scenario:

Team member A has an active dislike for team member B. It is also likely that team member B is therefore not too fond of team member A.

This mutual dislike is not verbalised however it may well be sensed by other team members, but, as team member A is the team leader and team member B is the team technical expert nothing is said in group.

Much may well be discussed in private however thus undermining the effectiveness of the team.

It does not take a genius to recognise that this scenario offers fertile ground in which political intrigue may well flourish. Where then does this leave the team focus on the team objective, somewhat frayed I would suggest.

This very same scenario is played out millions of times a day in millions of teams throughout the world. Just think of the millions of personnel hours lost each day as a result.

So how does the team of which you are a member stack up?

It is pretty obvious that Team Building and particularly Team Maintenance are critical key factors for any commercial organisation.

Yet how many team leaders or team creators regularly run a team health check?

For sure not many!

When did you last complete a team or a management satisfaction questionnaire?

It is essential to accept that differences in, personality, individual perception, behavioural style and life style will exist in any team.

Time must be allowed for these differences to be openly discussed and accepted by all. If not then the underlying cancerous growth of team dysfunction will develop into full blown failure sooner or later.

The key symptoms of the vast majority of team failures may well be misunderstanding, misconception and misinformation but the true cause is likely to be lack of quality communication between team members. Yes, simple as that!

So start communication, have regular team health checks. Send out team satisfaction questionnaires and get the bad news fast before it is too late. Once you understand what is holding the team back you may then take positive action to correct things.

You may well be feeling pretty smug just now because your team has just had a fantastic result. Hey, but even winning teams run into difficulty sometimes.

Who will you turn to when, not if, but when things start to go wrong?

Being prepared for a hiccup in team performance is not a negative strategy it is a thoroughly professional one.

If you run an internet search on team building you will see that there are somewhere in the region of 200,000,000 results. That is indicative of the interest in the subject.

There are masses of free help and guidance sites on the Internet so get those fingers tapping your keyboard NOW!

There is also a new online management tool in the final stages of development which will aid and assist team leaders to overcome momentary team inertia.

It's worth taking a look at www.teamfacilitate.com

This system has been researched over the past ten years and is the product of the combined input of behavioural scientists and management experts living and working in the real business world.

There is an opportunity to register as a Beta Tester for this programme so please do pay a visit to www.teamfacilitate.com

Malcolm Milligan msm@themsm.com Le Moulin 11190 Arques Aude France 0033 4 68 69 80 71

About the Author

Malcolm Milligan involved in Sales, Marketing and Human Resource issues for over 40 years. Personally helped many hundreds develop their careers in sales and sales management. A DISC behavioural profiling text writer and author of numerous articles on DISC profiling techniques.

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