How to Deal With Resistance to Team-Based Work Groups
- 1). Interview each of the team members. Explain that everyone is being interviewed and that all their responses should be about the team and its mission generally. Do not name any other individuals. Ask no questions about individuals, but focus on the work objectives and how they are implemented. If a team member feels he has been reported to management by another member, the problems will worsen.
- 2). During the interviews, ask for examples of problems that involve relationships among team members. Ask if the teams need help with any knowledge or skills. Identify role and responsibility problems that the interviewees see. Find out how the team members settle disagreements and what discipline, if any, they mete out if a team member misbehaves.
- 3). Ask the team's appointed leader to identify the leader's tasks and to name the person on the team he thinks has the most influence on the remaining members. Ask the team leader what activities that influential member engages in that make the other members accept his opinions. For a team to work effectively, someone must provide task leadership and someone social and emotional leadership. Many people who have the leader title are not able to do both functions equally well.
- 4). Plan training, mentoring of individuals and other methods, such as revised work assignments, based on the data you gather. If a low level of trust between some team members is an issue, frequent training exercises to build trust may be ineffective. Telling someone you do not trust him requires that you have enough trust to believe you won't be punished for saying it. If some members feel their contributions to the team are not acknowledged and appreciated, devise ways to help reduce those feelings. If some team members engage in obstructive behavior or are unwilling or ineffective in carrying out assigned tasks, talk with them privately and frankly. Identify the reasons for their disruptive behavior and seek ways to modify them. On occasion the only solution is to remove a person from the team. If for contract, resource or legal reasons this solution is not possible, involve the other team members in deciding how to deal with his transgressions.
- 5). Provide monitoring and followup. Like individuals, teams change with time. Look at the results of the previous problems and solutions and also for new issues that may arise.
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