Five Subtle Signs Your Team Is ‘Dysfunctional’
What team members—and leaders—can do to fix a team that’s not on track.
More than half of corporate roles rely on or require teamwork, and, at least in the US, nearly seven in 10 employees work across multiple teams. The problem is that companies typically struggle with teamwork. Indeed, 75% of cross-functional teams are “dysfunctional” in one way or another, according to Behnam Tabrizi, a Stanford University professor who studied teams across 25 corporations during the 2010s.
It’s obvious to most of us when a team isn’t working well together, but the clearest signs of dysfunction don’t necessarily involve shouting matches or spectacular failures. Instead, these quieter signs result in puzzled looks on teammates’ faces, unproductive meetings, and, surprisingly, a lot of silence. Even top executives can find themselves involved with—or leading—poor-performing teams.
Fortunately, high-performing teams don’t just happen by luck. “They can be measured and they can be created,” says Amelia Haynes, manager of research and partnership development at the Korn Ferry Institute. If a teammate or team leader can identify their team’s struggles, they can often fix the underlying issues. Below, our experts identify five signs that a team isn’t clicking and offer some solutions.
People can’t agree on what the team is supposed to accomplish.
Ask five members for the team’s top three priorities. If you get five substantially different answers, that’s a warning sign. A lack of clear team purpose is a surprisingly common issue, even among teams composed of senior executives, says Michel Buffet, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and Top Team Performance solution lead in North America. “You have to articulate the team’s job,” he says. Without that clear focus, team members can wind up doing lots of work without arriving at something that is successful overall. If you’re a team leader, articulate the team’s goals and identify both individual and team responsibilities. If you’re a team member, don’t be afraid to explicitly ask what a team’s specific objectives are and what resources are available to accomplish them.
Nobody is sure who decides what.
Define decision rights explicitly. When decision rights are fuzzy, decisions drag on, get reopened, or bounce among team members. For important recurring decisions, identify who recommends, who provides input, and—critically—who makes the final call. Buffet suggests making one of the more junior-level team members a chief of staff for the group, responsible for keeping track of decisions, meetings, and communications. A chief of staff, he says, is a frequent feature of high-performing teams and it gives the junior member opportunities to shine.
Disagreements sound personal.
Sometimes teammates disparage another teammate’s work. It’s often a sign of a lack of trust. Conflict is occasionally unavoidable, but team leaders have to establish norms and address any obstacles that hinder the team’s work both inside and outside of meetings. Establish a rule that people challenge the idea, not the person.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
Yes, teammates squabbling can be a sign of a problem, but more troubling, experts say, is when no one says anything. Sometimes, that unanimous, quiet agreement means that no one is anticipating—or prepared for—things that could change. In other cases, silence is often a sign that junior members don’t feel empowered to ask questions and that senior members fear that voicing objections could harm their careers. Productive disagreements, say experts, can actually propel a team to new heights. “A healthy team can harness those different perspectives to keep moving forward,” says Josée Guimond, a Korn Ferry’s Top Team Performance operations lead in North America. Team leaders should make all team members feel empowered to speak freely, while team members should tell leaders, discreetly, if and when they don’t feel safe enough to effectively collaborate.
“Star” performers aren’t doing the work.
The most talented, hard-charging employees are not always the most effective team players. They may feel they can do things better on their own, or that teamwork is beneath them. The onus is on leaders to drive home that there’s work that can be done only as a team, Buffet says. As for team members themselves, they should ask themselves whether they are acting in the best interests of the team—and if they are not, they should adjust their behavior.
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