Question: My staff have self imposed this environment where employees informally keep track of how many times other team members do something wrong, (ie late for a meeting, miss a deadline, forget how to do something.” At first, I wrote it off as good fun and general ribbing, but now it’s gotten out of control. What do you recommend to get them back on track?
Response: It’s easy for a team to slip into a “fault tracking environment” particularly in an environment where there is a bunch of high performing individuals. I remember once being on a team comprised entirely of high performing individuals, which definitely did not translate into a high performing team. As individuals we would gang up on one individual who would drop the ball. It wasn’t even to make us look better, it was to use others’ faults as credits / currency for when we would make our own missteps. This environment not only killed team morale, it left us spinning our wheels.
The correction isn’t an easy one. And the answer isn’t straightforward. It’s a combination of the proverbial stick and carrot. First, a little stick: at the next meeting call out the whole team for its miss on a team goal. By focusing the discipline on the whole team it lowers everyone a peg or two and gets people’s attention back on team goals. It’s tough to think about rewards for an underperforming team but sometimes a carrot works even better. Focus on new incentives for accomplishing team goals. Make the incentive team incentives, a team bonus, a team day off, a team promotion, a team recognition. This draws the attention away from individual accomplishment and/or failure.
The balance between stick and carrot depends entirely on the makeup of your team personality. That is a fine balance that can only be found by working with a team over an extended period of time. What do some of our readers think? What have you tried? What has or hasn’t worked?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swiv/226201274/
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