What’s Really Causing Your Team to Underperform?

Without management support, teams flounder or fail. If your organization is serious about teams, you are likely already asking questions like these to help you diagnose the causes of your teams’ lower-than-hoped-for performance.

1. First of all, you can ask, “How much training and development has been provided to leaders and managers throughout the organization in understanding true teams and what they need, especially when working virtually?” Companies famous for team function often train top leadership first, and then cascade training in team concepts down the organization.

2. Another question for consideration is, “Are your “teams” really teams?” Many “teams” are just departmental work groups given a new label. They were designed around the departmental function, and not necessarily around an interdependent process. Work groups CAN become effective teams. However, most of the groups we call teams do not have the communication and collaboration needed for real team function, and many are not structured optimally for their mission.

3. If your team is missing deadlines, management support means providing resources to get to the real causes. What is being done to find out why each team is failing? For each underperforming team, there may be a different cause. Perhaps a key internal customer, supplier, (or both) is missing from the team. These upstream and downstream functions should at a minimum be attending team meetings. How was the team structured? Is everyone on the team who should be?  Are some members not needed to accomplish the team’s performance challenge?

4. Did leadership support team “contracting” or Team Basics, so that each team has generated its own contract for how they are going to get the work done. (This would be Step One if you’re hoping for mutual accountability within the team.) To set the stage for team contacting, did leadership provide the team with a clear performance challenge and concrete expectations?

5. Did leadership provide empowerment parameters to the team at start up or soon thereafter, so the team knows exactly what is in its purview and what is not? These guidelines can also define decision making expectations for the teams. Is the team a recommending team, a decision-making team, or somewhere in between? How does the team’s mission and performance expectations fit into the overall process, structure, and KPI’s of the organization?

6. Does the team know who its key stakeholders are in the organization—key people who should be kept in the loop throughout the team’s work? I have seen some teams struggle simply because they forgot to keep a key decision maker in the loop. Has the team identified internal customers and suppliers that need to be included?

7. How much training or development did the team and the team leader get in team skills and function? Teams are distinctly different from work groups in how they operate, and these new behaviors do not come naturally for most people. Training, coaching, and feedback is needed to support team behaviors. If you’re expecting team performance from people who are still a work group, you’re likely to be disappointed.

8. How are team meetings being handled? Are teams using tools and techniques for streamlining discussion and decision-making while reinforcing strong collaboration, problem solving, process improvement, or Agile principles? Are team members being heard? Is there true candor in the interactions?

9. How is your organization supporting teams on an ongoing basis? To provide guidance and support to teams, many organizations develop people within the organization as team coaches—people who can help to support teams by providing coaching or training as needed and to diagnose and correct opportunities for improvement the teams are facing.