Canadian HR Strategy

Spring/Summer 2014

Human Resources Issues for Senior Management

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23 "A lot of people react when I use the word 'toxic' — it's a very strong word. But I chose it very deliberately because toxic teams are very much like toxins in our environment. ere are toxins circling that you can come across that will cause you to keel over im- mediately. And some of the toxic teams are teams that have absolutely ground their or- ganizations to a halt, and it's a very, very ob- vious problem," says Davey. "But there are other toxins in teams that are actually not things that you can see. ey're not things you might even recog- nize but, slowly and surely over time, they begin to bog down the team, make it less ef- fective — and those are the kinds of things we probably need to be even more aware of." Two of the more obvious types of toxic teams are the "crisis junkies" and the "royal rumble" teams, says Davey. A royal rumble type is a team that frequently boils over into loud, confrontational arguments — while a crisis junkie team is exactly what the name implies. "Crisis junkie teams are teams that can only function in a crisis. And what happens is they start to manufacture crises. But as you start to manufacture crises, they have to be bigger and bigger and more critical crises to actually get people to li their heads. And then in business as usual, things stagnate — they get nothing done," she says. en, there are the less obvious types of toxic teams — which can o en be the most insidious, says Davey. e "bleeding back" team uses passive- aggressive behaviour, back-channels and backstabbing as its modus operandi. By all indications, this team seems to work really well together in meetings and face-to-face — but don't turn your back. "If you go to the water cooler or if you are in the washroom or behind a closed door, you wouldn't recognize that as the same group of people or the same conversation that you saw in the (meeting) room. Pas- sive-aggressive behaviour. Gossip. Sarcasm. Re-opening of decisions through back- channels. So this is a really scary kind of team. And it's actually, in surveys that we've done, the number one most prevalent team in Canada," says Davey. "I'm pretty convinced that this is actu- ally one of the great sources of the Canadian productivity gap." Other more subtle toxic teams include the "bobblehead" team — where everyone seems to always be in agreement and there's no con ict or diversity of thought — and the "spectator" team. " at's where people show up, report out and then tune out. 'I did my bit, this is my marketing report — that stu , that's not my stu . I'm just gonna check my email,'" says Davey. "Picture the Olympic hockey team. ey're in a really heated game, back and forth… and imagine that, all of a sudden, you're a defender and you see the puck go down into the other half of the ice — so you pull out your phone and you check your email. It's stupid when you say it like that… but I bet you've done it in a meeting." So how do we "teach people to team?" e solutions organizations turn to most o en are "tissue issue" counsellors and consultants, or team-building activities, says Davey. "We do fun, silly, super cial team- building, thinking that it's going to address the toxins," she says. "Ziplining, cooking, paintball — whatever else isn't going to x the problem." Instead, there are two areas teams need to work on to address their issues. One is aligning the team with its business pur- pose, says Davey. "What is your organization counting on you to do? And only a er you understand that can you build the dynamic that will al- low you to execute on it," she says. "Once you have this north star, this clari- ty about 'this is our unique value'… then you can totally realign meetings, agendas, what you're spending time on, what you need to take o the agenda. And the most frequent outcome of this is actually to cut meeting times for the team." A er the team's purpose has been rmly By Liz Bernier elling, screaming, backstabbing and passive-aggressive behaviour – ———— these are just a few of the things that come to mind when thinking of dysfunctional teams. Liane Davey has seen more than her share of these over-the-top behaviours. But devolving into a screaming match is not the only way for a team to become dysfunctional, she says – ———— in fact, the most insidious teams are often the ones that don't appear dysfunctional at all. That was the core message of a Strategic Capability Network event in Toronto delivered by Davey, vice-president of team solutions at Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions. The promise of a great team is that everything works better, faster and easier, says Davey. But, all too often, that is not the reality. "Unfortunately, for many of us, the sad reality of teams is that we spend way too much time in meetings because everyone has to speak and somehow we've decided that all people must agree before we move forward. There's passive-aggressiveness – ———— we nod our heads in the room and we then try and re-open decisions through back- channels. The reality of teams today is either unproductive, uncollaborative or, in many cases, truly toxic to individuals at the organization," she says. Just like environmental toxins, sometimes these issues can be immediately obvious, while other times they are di cult to spot.

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