About 2 years ago I created 12 on-line Team Building & Development sessions for a company. We called it ‘Helping Teams Work’. It was meant to be short, less than 5 minutes, & give 1 concrete action step people can apply to their work on teams…

They liked it & I enjoyed trying to make content that did not require me to be present.

Below is the 7th of 12 ‘Helping Teams Work’ content sections.

  1. Biggest Team Leader Mistake
  2. Team Meetings Making them good enough to get work done
  3. Making team decisions through consensus
  4. Team Based Conflict Management Approaches
  5. Teamwork Through Consensus or Compromising
  6. When Team Members get Difficult

My Team has Problems

Working with team problems

It happens to most teams: at some point, the team doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should. You may have a nagging suspicion that things could be more efficient…or it may be very obvious that the work just isn’t getting done. Sometimes the first thing you notice is that people aren’t coming to team meetings anymore…or that they come, but don’t seem to have any energy for the project. Perhaps the initial excitement has worn off, other priorities have been established, or frustration at the magnitude of the task has set it.

How to prevent this from happening:
  1. Look to the team leader and self. Are you big enough for this teams work?
  2. Look at the 7 Team Problems & 4 Solutions
  3. Follow the suggestions from the High Performance Teams Workshops…holding the first meeting; establishing team goals, roles and procedures; having effective meetings; making decisions; etc.
  4. Return to your Project Charter and confirm that the team knows the Goals, Roles and Procedures.
  5. Take time on a regular basis to assess how the team is doing, identify any issues, and make necessary adjustments. (Think of this as the Control phase of your team, where you monitor performance to ensure it doesn’t deteriorate.)