Why Isn’t Team Building Fixing My Team?
Team building doesn’t work very well when the thing getting in your team’s way has nothing to do with team building.
And this time of year, when companies are planning next year’s leadership development, training and professional development budgets, it’s worth asking what problem you’re actually paying to solve.
We’ve All Been the Person Sitting in That Room.
Think about almost any conference room scene from The Office.
Michael Scott is standing at the front completely invested in whatever he has planned.
Everybody else is waiting for it to end.
Most of us have probably experienced a more professional version of that.
You sit through the development day thinking, “This is fine, but it isn’t going to change anything.”
Then years later, you become the manager, department head or business owner looking at your own struggling team and thinking:
Maybe we need some team building.
Before you book it, I’d ask a different question.
What Problem Are You Actually Trying to Solve?
“Dysfunctional team” describes what you’re seeing.
It doesn’t tell you what’s causing it.
Maybe communication really is the issue.
Or maybe everybody is talking, but nobody is clear on who owns what or who gets to make the decision.
Maybe departments are working in silos because their priorities don’t line up.
Maybe the leader says they want people to take more ownership, but delegated work keeps getting pulled back, redone or second-guessed.
Maybe a role that made sense three years ago no longer matches what the organization needs from that person today.
All of those things can show up as:
This team needs to work better together.
But they aren’t the same problem.
And they probably don’t need the same solution.
A Workshop May Still Be Exactly What You Need.
I’m not anti-workshop.
I use assessments. I coach individuals. I facilitate teams. Helping people better understand how they communicate, make decisions and work with one another can absolutely be valuable.
But the tool needs to serve the problem.
Not the other way around.
Organizations reverse that all the time.
They decide, “We need a workshop.” Then they start figuring out what should happen during it.
I’d rather start with:
What is happening now that needs to be different afterward?
If ownership is unclear, work on ownership.
If every important decision circles back to one person, figure out why.
If delegated work keeps coming back late, incomplete or needing to be redone, the issue may be how the work was handed off in the first place.
If two departments are protecting their own priorities instead of working toward the same outcome, putting them together for an afternoon doesn’t automatically resolve that.
If a manager is avoiding a conversation they need to have, learning everyone’s communication style may be interesting. It doesn’t eliminate the conversation.
That’s the difference between doing team building and improving how a team actually works.
Your Team Probably Knows Where the Friction Is.
Ask the people doing the work.
They usually know.
They know which meeting never produces a decision.
They know who everybody has to wait on.
They know where responsibilities overlap.
They know what keeps getting handed back.
They know which problem everyone has learned to work around because, well, that’s just how things are done here.
They may not call any of that “team dysfunction.”
They just know what makes doing their job harder than it needs to be.
That’s information worth having before you prescribe the solution.
Before You Put Team Building in Next Year’s Budget.
Don’t start with, “What should we do with the team?”
Start with, “What are we actually trying to make better?”
Then keep going.
Where are decisions getting stuck?
Where is ownership unclear?
What keeps coming back after it was supposedly delegated? Are you taking the work back when it gets uncomfortable or misses the mark?
Are expectations as clear to the team as they are in the leader’s head?
Are the right people sitting in the right roles for what the organization needs today?
And what might leadership be doing that contributes to the problem?
You may discover that a workshop is exactly what you need.
You may need coaching.
You may need clearer roles, stronger delegation or different decision rights.
You may discover that what looked like a dysfunctional team is actually a capable group of people operating inside a system that keeps making their work harder.
Diagnose First. Then Decide What the Team Needs.
The goal shouldn’t be for everyone to leave saying, “That was a really good session.”
The goal is for something about the way the team works to actually be different afterward.
Otherwise, you’ve just created a more professional version of the Dunder Mifflin conference room.
Team development should change how the work happens, not just how people feel for an afternoon.
Not Sure What’s Actually Getting in the Way?
Let’s talk about what you’re seeing before deciding what the solution should be.
45 minutes. Bring one real situation. We’ll start there.