Hold onto your Hat – Managing a dysfunctional team

Bitchiness, tears, arguments and a threatened resignation and it was only 9.23am! Sadly this was just a normal day for Paul who’d reluctantly managed his team of ten for almost 2 years now. It hadn’t always been like this though, in fact the first 12 months had been absolutely fine but then things had changed almost overnight. An argument outside of work between a few members of the team which was then subsequently brought into work appeared to be the catalyst for the problems that then ensued…

Even though the crux of the issue was nothing whatsoever to do with work, the fallout and knock on effect of this argument was huge. It had resulted in a total lack of respect and trust between virtually every member of the team. Add into the mix a horrendous working atmosphere, high absence levels and poor productivity and one thing was for certain – Paul was definitely going to have his work cut out in trying to steady this sinking ship.

The PU View

From the outside looking in, Paul needed to get to the root cause of the problems in work so that he could figure out what needed to happen. He decided to use the ‘CIGAR’ model to work through the issue with his team:-

Current State
Ideal State
Gaps
Action
Review

The model is quite simple. Looking at Paul’s scenario he could ask each of his team members to individually reflect on what the current working culture looked & felt like.  They would then move on to discuss how they would like the working environment to be in an ideal world.  They could identify what would get in the way of them achieving their ideal culture, in other words, their gaps. From those finding, an action plan and review would be agreed by the group as a whole.  It’s quite an inclusive model in that everyone is involved in the discussion and the structure helps to keep things on track.

The hard work isn’t over though!  What Paul now needs to do is make sure that personal and team actions are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that what everyone said they were going to do actually happens in practice. Not the easiest of managerial responsibilities, but one that nonetheless will save the team from sinking, as long as everyone sticks at it. Hold onto your hat Paul – it’s going to be a bumpy ride but you will get there eventually!

Book Recommendation 

Our recommendation; The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. This book is a few years old now but the stories and content are still very relevant and will get you thinking about how dysfunctional your team is and how you can get things back on track