Why Teams Don't Work What Goes Wrong, and How to Make It Right
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Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 1 The NEW why teams don't work what goes wrong, and how to make it right harvey robbins and michael finley Harvey A. Robbins 2475 Ridgewater Dr. Minnetonka, MN 55343 612-544-9260 VOICE & FAX EMAIL: [email protected] Michael Finley 1841 Dayton Ave. St. Paul, MN 55104-6013 651-644-4540 VOICE 651-644-5226 FAX EMAIL: [email protected] Copyright © 2000 by Harvey Robbins & Michael Finley. All rights reserved. Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 2 INTRODUCTION One problem with being team gurus is that when we visit with other teams, or meet with our own, everyone wants us to give their team a bill of clean health. And that, five years after the first edition of Why Teams Don't Work, is still hard to do. Our own bookwriting team has its share of shaky moments. How to explain that, after the two of us solved every conceivable problem teams are prone to, teams are still imploding, still trashing the hopes of members and of the organizations that deployed them? One explanation is that no book is so powerful that it can eliminate all the ambiguities and perplexities of group interaction, everywhere in the world. But the explanation we prefer is that not enough teams read the book. That is why we are delighted to reissue it, in expanded form, to get the new millennium off to an error-free start. What's new in this edition? Lots, actually. We've added 20,000 new words, and deleted 10,000 old ones. This edition feels more radical to us, and fiercer about the human needs of teams. The biggest single change is one of scope. We started out with a broad vision of teams, that went beyond the customary definitions of "self-directed teams" or "cross-functional teams." You don’t hear those terms much many more – they were the fad. Our team vision was broader when we started, and in this edition it's gotten even broader. We are on many more teams than we realize. The PTA committee we meet with in the school basement is a team, facing the same serious problems as a company team. A neighborhood block watch is a team. A phone call lasting 20 seconds may bracket the creation of a team, the completion of a task, and the subsequent dissolution of the team. Teaming has everything to do with that kind of rapid dynamic today, and much less to do with a designated work team sitting around a table staring at one another, which was all the other team books talked about. Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 3 Any time two or more persons band together, for any period of time, to do something together, that is a team. And every time that happens, the opportunity for miscommunication, for confusion, for disappointment, for irritation, for team breakdown, is great. If we could correct one misconception about our book, it would be the inference people make, from the negative-sounding title, that we lack confidence in people's ability to work together. In truth, we feel we are passionate advocates for teams. We believe in people. We very much like people -- honest. But we do get angry sometimes, and we do lose heart, and we do have negative thoughts when we see how brutally organizations treat teams, and how teams mistreat themselves. If this is an "anti" book, then it is anti-betrayal, anti-lying, and anti-stupidity. We'll accept that negativity. Why, we'll wear it on our lapel, like a white carnation. Remedying these team failures is the reason this revised edition exists, and we commend it to you for use in getting the teams you are part of to work better, and provide greater satisfaction. Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction................................................................................................................................2 Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................6 Chapter 1 The Team Ideal................................................................................................................................8 Chapter 2 Team Instinct.................................................................................................................................19 Chapter 3 Individual Needs vs. Team Needs.................................................................................................23 Chapter 4 Teamwork vs. Socialwork.............................................................................................................28 Chapter 5 Misplaced Goals, Confused Objectives.........................................................................................30 Chapter 6 Bad Decision Making....................................................................................................................39 Chapter 7 Uncertain Boundaries....................................................................................................................43 Chapter 8 Unresolved Roles...........................................................................................................................47 Chapter 9 The Wrong Policies and Procedures..............................................................................................52 Chapter 10 The People Problem.......................................................................................................................56 Chapter 11 Dealing with Difficult People........................................................................................................69 Chapter 12 Leadership Failure..........................................................................................................................81 Chapter 13 Faulty Vision................................................................................................................................103 Chapter 14 Toxic Teaming Atmosphere........................................................................................................106 Chapter 15 Competitive Hazards....................................................................................................................116 Chapter 16 Communication Shortfalls...........................................................................................................121 Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 5 Chapter 17 Rewards and Recognition............................................................................................................131 Chapter 18 Trust Hell.....................................................................................................................................139 Chapter 19 Change Issues...............................................................................................................................154 Chapter 20 The Myth of Adventure Learning................................................................................................171 Chapter 21 The Myth that Sport Teams and Work Teams Are Similar.........................................................175 Chapter 22 The Myth of Personality Type.....................................................................................................178 Chapter 23 Myths of Team Leadership..........................................................................................................181 Chapter 24 The Myth that People Like Working Together............................................................................184 Chapter 25 The Myth that Teamwork Is More Productive than Individual Work.........................................186 Chapter 26 The Myth of 'The More, the Merrier' on Teams..........................................................................187 Chapter 27 The Myth that Teams Must Somehow Have More than One Team Member to be a Team.......189 Chapter 28 The Myth that Teams Work Everywhere ....................................................................................191 Chapter 29 Moving Teams through Stages toward Success...........................................................................193 Chapter 30 Teams and Technology................................................................................................................206 Chapter 31 Long-Term Team Health.............................................................................................................216 Epilog: Toward Team Intelligence...........................................................................................................221 Robbins / Finley 4/10/11 Page 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book's success was not a greased path. It began in 1988 when Harvey conceived a book about team strife called Turf Wars, and contracted with Mike to help with some of the writing. We made a good team, but the publisher was swallowed up in a corporate acquisition and Turf Wars vanished from shelves. Then Harvey wrote a slim book on How to Speak Effectively, edited by Andrea Pedolsky, then of Amacom. Andrea liked Harvey enough that when she was hired away by Peterson's, a small publisher determined to make a go of a business imprint, she began talking to Harvey about a book about the new phenomenon of teams. Harvey brought Mike into the picture, a deal was inked, the book was written, published -- and again vanished without a trace. Peterson's did not know how to sell business books. Then a funny thing happened. The judges of the Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Awards dug all the way to the bottom of the bin