Almost all of us want to be on a true team at work. It’s much more productive, rewarding, and enjoyable. People may even stay for somewhat less because they really like being on the right team. They value support and camaraderie. They appreciate the shared sense of mission with everyone working hard together to achieve it.
It takes a team for consistent and exceptional achievement which is what high performers seek. A team is a major market advantage. The more cohesive but less talented team will defeat the less united but more gifted team.
So why do record levels of American employees feel like there’s not a team where they work? Talented team-oriented professionals must endure: 1) the coworker or supervisor who is figuring out a way to blame others before work on the project even begins, 2) information and resources are not shared, 3) the poison of gossip and rumors, 4) the colleague who steps over dead bodies as their favorite promotional path, 5) the constant jockeying and self-promotion seen as more important than performance and integrity, and 6) the department who thinks only of the department not the company or customers.
The costs to companies and organizations who lack a team culture are extremely high. Unable to trust, employees spend a lot of extra time on self-defense (e.g., the email that is “cc” ed to everyone as documentation). Morale, performance, productivity, innovation, and retention suffer.
All talent, time, and energy must be invested in the mission and team. Some organizations have employees spending much of their work time on self-serving thinking and behaviors. They work part time on the mission, little or none for the team, and full time for themselves on your payroll.
When employees are allowed to waste mission and team time on selfish thinking and behaviors, that’s a culture problem. Cultures encourage or thwart different types of attitudes and conduct by employees. If the correct thinking and behavior are omnipresent, then the organization has the right culture. If the wrong attitudes and conduct are allowed or encouraged, the culture must be changed.
Who’s to blame? Leadership. Leadership is responsible for the culture and the team.
Either the leadership creates and sustains a team culture, or they do not. Leaders must recruit, hire, train, supervise, evaluate, promote, recognize, and reward for true teamwork. Policies, procedures, technology, and even facilities must foster teamwork. Leaders must model team culture.
Trust is the oxygen of a team. Employees need to feel safe to trust others. In the right culture, they are able to be open, honest, and vulnerable. Members of the team can admit mistakes and ask for help in this culture. Employees treat others as they would like to be treated. They are polite, professional, civil, supportive, collegial, and can seek and give support. Being a giver not a taker in the single standard for the organization.
Sometimes it takes changing a culture so employees can trust. However, if an employee shows no sign of ever being able to trust or serve on a team, you cannot retain them. The self-promoter needs to promote themselves somewhere else. Leadership gets the behaviors they tolerate and reward. Mixed messages destroy trust and culture.
Teams attract and retain talent. Teams produce performance. Teams change history. As Michael Jordan once observed, “Talent wins games and teams win championships.” Lead like creating and protecting your team is everything because it is.
Sources: Abrashoff, 2002; Blanchard, 2011; Collins, 2001; Drucker, 2001; Grant, 2017; Kotter, 2012; Lencioni, 2012; Maxwell, 1998; Welch, 2005.
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