Five Common Ways Broken Teams are Broken

I work with a fabulous organization called Wildfire Strategies, and our fearless leader, Steve Salee, has written an article that has shed new light on a bunch of the projects I've been involved with recently.

So many organizations and teams I've been working with recently are struggling -- there are hurt feelings, broken trust, unclear or contradictory leadership, and so many more challenges. Steve's article highlights five "wounds" he sees in teams, and every single one of them has shown up recently in my work. Since his model has been helpful to me, I figured I'd share it with you. As you read about the different wounds, ask yourself if they're showing up in your work, and if so, how? (Then read about what you can do to start to heal those wounds.)

1) Taking Things Personally

We've all been in a situation where someone makes a comment and it feels like it was 100% intended to make you feel bad. Maybe it was something simple like "the job wasn't done" or more complex like "your team is failing to live up to expectations." Either way, when the content of the message (or even the tone of the delivery) comes across as personal, it's easy for team members to get defensive and react in the moment. That reaction, of course, triggers the other party, and now you've got two people working against each other rather than two people working together against the problem.

Over time, that person who makes comments that you take personally (who we sometimes just decide is a jerk) becomes someone you expect to make you feel bad in conversation. And as a result, you may avoid them, or just suit up in armor any time they come around because "they're a jerk." This, obviously, leads to even more problems.

What you can do:

Start by knowing the physical signs that you're taking something personally. Maybe you get tense shoulders or your eyebrows lift. Maybe it's that feeling of freefall in your gut or shallow breathing. Whatever your signs are (and I may have shared some of my own here...), it can be easier to catch the physical signs of taking something personally than it is to catch the emotional or mental ones, especially if it really feels like the comment was meant to be personal.

Once you catch yourself being defensive or taking things personally, decide how you want to move forward. Do you want to react? Do you want to share your raw emotions and that unconsidered side of yourself? Or would you rather respond to the situation with more clarity and intention? It's your choice, but if you don't consciously choose to respond, you will automatically react. And that's likely to create more defensiveness and hurt feelings.

If you choose to respond instead of react, you could say something to get the conversation refocused on solving the problem - I call these procedural statements. They're great phrases to have in your back pocket to get things back on the right track. You could say something like, "I think we need to focus on next steps," or "It's difficult for me not to take what you just said personally - I need a minute before we keep going."

2) Fixed-State Thinking (or same-old-same-old)

This happens when you bring forward an innovative idea and it's met with "that's not how we do it here," or "we've done it this way for 50 years." Steve describes fixed-state thinking as "the belief that there is a set way of doing things, or that it is possible to achieve a final state of doneness." This resonates with me because I like to think that once a decision is made, it's done. That we can move on to other problems and let the old one rest. But the problem is that the way I like to do things may not be the most efficient or effective, and may have downstream impacts I'm not aware of. So shutting down innovation just because I like a decision to stay made keeps me in fixed-state thinking.

And when we run into responses that are clear shut downs of our ideas (especially when it feels like the other person isn't even considering the option), it can be demoralizing and extremely frustrating, potentially even leading us to take it personally.

(See what I did there?)

What you can do:

If you're facing someone with fixed-state thinking, get curious about why "that's not how we do it here" or why "we've done it this way for 50 years." Keep your judgment at bay -- start with curiosity. Uncover the benefits, both emotional and procedural, that the other person sees coming from doing things the way we've always done them. Often, when you better understand where the other person is coming from, it's easier to stay with the fixed state or persuade them to see things in a new way.

If you're the one with the fixed-state thinking, ask yourself what's blocking you from considering change. Are you afraid? Are you exhausted? Are you worried it will fail? Have you faced a similar innovation before and run into challenges? If nobody else is curious about why you do things your way, get curious yourself. And encourage your team to get disconfirming information -- in what ways does doing things the way we've always done them cause problems?

3) Scapegoating (or blaming)

I remember working on a team where the leader was not very strategic. They did a great job of reacting to what came their way, but when it came to planning for new projects, managing change, or even explaining the rationale behind their decisions, it was bad. And we all blamed the leader for the variety of problems we had on the team. If they were stronger, we thought, we wouldn't be in this mess. If they were more strategic, we believed, we wouldn't have to be cleaning up this mess now.

What can be frustrating with this wound is that it's true that the one person's bad behavior is, in fact, the initial source of all the problems on the team. And it's easy to ignore the rest of the team's response behavior because they're all victims of what's coming from that one bad player. But on a healthy team, as put by the Osmonds (in a song I could have sworn was by the Jackson 5), "one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch girl."

A second way that scapegoating can be used is by stereotyping and attributing bad behavior to a whole group, saying, for example, "you know how the nurses are," or "that's just HR being HR." When we do this, we stop seeing individuals and addressing individual behavior, and we allow bad behavior to stand (mixing scapegoating with fixed-state thinking).

What you can do:

I remember once I was dating a guy and I said, "We have a problem and need to talk," and he said, "No, we don't." Allowing scapegoating to continue is similar.

Try to see the bad behavior of that one person as a signal that changes need to be made on the team. Remember that all team players contribute to the overall success of the team and that everyone bending themselves out of shape to accommodate the tricky player is reducing the effectiveness of the team as a whole.

4) Abdication (or I give up)

As Steve describes it, this wound has two parts: "deflection and powerlessness." Deflection is about blaming others for what's going on. Believing management or leadership should be solving this problem, not you. This part has a mix of "it's not my job" and "that's above my pay grade" in it that combine to make a culture where nobody is even attempting to solve problems.

Powerlessness is about feeling like you have no agency, like you're not in a position to or capable of making change. I see this in some of my front-line leaders bringing problems to their managers, and instead of getting support or help, they're told to "make it work." Or in employees who want role clarity getting some support for a role-alignment project that then disappears in a week or two.

It's a powerful combo of blaming and quitting all at the same time. And it can lead to taking things personally, fixed-state thinking, and scapegoating in any imaginable combination.

What you can do:

I've always encouraged my direct reports to come to me not just with a problem, but with a potential solution. And that's good advice here, too. Instead of shoulding all over management and assuming they ought to be handling the situation better, get curious about how you could help. What's your role, and how could you be a catalyst for change instead of a roadblock to it?

Also, strengthening your influence skills is always beneficial. I'm a big fan of Robert Cialdini's book, Influence, and the video overview of it that you can find here.

5) Fracturing (or us vs. them)

I can always tell when a group is fractured -- split into two or more groups, usually because of a lack of leadership -- because within moments of starting to talk with them, I hear "they" and "them" repeatedly (in reference to others on the team or inside the organization). Whether "they" means leadership, outsiders, direct reports, or others, the mentality of having two camps is divisive.

Sometimes the fracturing comes because people take things personally ("They can be such jerks!"), have fixed-state thinking ("They never consider our ideas!"), scapegoating ("they're always sucking up to HR - you know how they are!"), abdication ("They've made it impossible for me to succeed here!"), or a mix of all of the above.

What you can do:

Team operating agreements can be powerful tools to help fractured teams. These agreements outline how the team will work together, how and when to take issues to the next level, and how to hold each other accountable for unified behavior. These agreements are usually built together, often with an external facilitator (like me!) who can help iron out disagreements along the way without suffering from all the above wounds all over again.

If you're observing a fractured team and can influence it but are not on it, a great way to help is to strengthen team leadership. Coaching or mentoring the leader can go a long way to helping heal the divide between groups.

So now that you know more about these five wounds, which ones are you seeing in your world? How are you contributing? And what could you do differently to help improve just one of them, even a little?

Steve Salee, CEO Extraordinaire