What's Wrong With This Team?

  ProjectsAtWork  

Often the source of team problems isn't the people but the systems.

Conflict-ridden, plagued by turnover and errors: it's the project team from hell. What's wrong with these people? Often nothing, says Michael Finley, co-author of The New Why Teams Don't Work. Contrary to popular belief, the factors that prevent people with a common objective from succeeding are rarely personal-or even interpersonal.

"It is disturbing to see so many project failures blamed on personalities," Finley says, because "personality conflicts" are usually a cop-out from the real problem. He says almost all performance issues are organizational issues: ambiguity about who's in charge; resources; reporting to people with contradictory expectations; and a lack of team-based rewards.

"Businesses think of their systems as a machine, which doesn't work very well when you get into the human dimension," Finley says. When a team is floundering, simply removing one cog and replacing it with another isn't likely to get results. By focusing on personal and interpersonal problems and solutions, team leaders get distracted from addressing the organizational issues that could really make a difference.

Make A Difference

What's most important for getting great performance from teams? Clarity of purpose, starting with set of performance …

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