The top 10 reasons teams fail

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The top 10 reasons teams fail

I often hear from leaders that they are having to achieve more with less, or they need their team focused on the right things and pulling in the same direction, or they have hired some really smart people into the team and they just need them to be firing on all cylinders – now!

Creating a winning team is a task all leaders want to achieve. After all, if you have a team that can get on and achieve results quickly and almost effortlessly, that will be a good thing, right?

But what about those employees that we have sitting on multiple teams?  How do they navigate their time and effort effectively?  According to an HBR article written by Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant titled, “Collaboration Overload”, 20 percent of employees surveyed, reported working on four or more teams at any one time.  Is it possible for people to be effective across that many teams?  What needs to exist to allow them to be effective?

As leaders, we would all like to achieve high performance but not all teams make the grade and there can be a number of reasons why. 

Here is the top 10 reasons team’s fail:

A misunderstanding of the team context

Not all teams understand the sandpit they are playing in.  Senior leadership teams often spend time through their strategy work to define the ‘context’ for the business through either a PESTLE, SWOT, or other relevant tools.  But how does this information get translated as you move down the organisation with teams who are carrying out the work?  Do they really understand the context that is relevant to them?

Lack of common purpose or goal

Teams who do not understand what their mission is will likely fail.  If you don’t know where you are going, how on earth will you know when you have arrived?

Issues with team composition

Do teams have too many people, not enough, the wrong skillsets?  We need to ensure we compile our teams, so they have a chance of being successful to complete the work we need them to do.

Bad followership

Is everyone on the bus?  As leaders, we need to ensure our teams are fully on board and are excited about the journey.

Poor meeting, decision-making, and communication processes

We have all probably experienced this during our careers at some point.  These three areas are fundamental for a team’s success so spend some time getting clarity around how these areas will work in the most optimal fashion for your team.

Favoritism

As leaders, we often have those people on our teams who do make life easy for us.  They totally understand where we are headed and can often be the people who are thinking ahead to mitigate any issues that could arise.  We love these team members, and we need to make sure we are still fair and consistent with how we treat all team members.  Favoritism is a team killer, and everyone notices it.

Differing levels of commitment

If we don’t have everyone committed to the mission, this will cause a team to fail.  As leaders, we need to ensure we not only have everyone on the bus but are excited and committed to being on the journey.

A shortfall in resources (funding, equipment, or authority)

Teams need resources to be able to achieve their goals.  This also refers to having the right level of authority and political support to be successful.

Personal animosity and interpersonal conflict

It would be great if all teams got on but this isn’t always the case all of the time.  As leaders, we need to ensure there are clear rules of engagement around how conflict will be dealt with in the team and what behaviours will and won’t be acceptable.

Being unable to achieve superior results

Teams who don’t understand what winning looks like and haven’t been educated in what it will take for the team to be successful will fail.  As leaders, we need to ensure we have discussed what achieving success looks like.

Winning teams tend to be far more effective than others and they often achieve their goals more quickly and work together better as a unit.  As the leader of a winning team, your time can now shift to other strategic priorities that need your attention.  By creating a winning team, you will inspire others and demonstrate your effectiveness in not only achieving results but in creating a team that everyone wants to be part of. 

High-performing teams are like a well-oiled machine.  If you are looking to increase the performance and results of your team, we should chat to see if my Creating a Winning Team programme would be of interest to you.

Something to think about . . .

Lead with impact!