Canadian HR Strategy

13 g iven the choice, most of us would prob- ably prefer a calm, agreeable, harmonious team to one that's yelling, screaming and throwing things across the boardroom or over cubicle walls. Constant conflict and verbal smack- downs are clearly not conducive to a pro- ductive, healthy team — but what we oen don't realize is teams that are too agreeable can have insidious impacts as well. Generally, no one looks at a team that agrees too much and considers it a problematic team, said Liane Davey, vice- president of team solutions at Knightsbridge in Toronto , and author of You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done. "For many of us, this team where everyone gets along re- ally well, and there's lots of nodding heads — that's our proto- type of a healthy team. So many of us have been on teams that are toxic because of too much conflict, or too little in com- mon between the members, so when we see a team where ev- eryone's getting along, and they seem to be able to decisively come to consensus and move along, we think 'Wow! ey have this nirvana — they have team effectiveness,'" she said. "e other risk is we've created a culture in organizations based on the employee engagement boom of the '90s and into the 2000s where we put employee engagement above all else, and, unfortunately, we mistake satisfaction and harmony and seamlessness — a smooth ride — with engagement." e risk of that is we overplay the need to have all employ- ees always be happy and comfortable, she said. "We miss that healthy teams are about tension and they're about debate and diversity of thought, which is not comfort- able… So I think that's where we've gone off track — we've sort of overvalued the harmonious, cohesive, happy team, and missed that teams aren't really doing their job if every- thing is smooth." A team that's too agreeable can actually be even more insidious than obviously dysfunctional teams because it's not oen identified as a problem, said Davey. And by fly- ing under the radar, the problem is allowed to continue unchecked. "Everybody thinks that this team is doing so well, and they're busy worrying about the teams that are throwing things around the boardroom, and missing that this is a team that is letting risk build — oblivious to risk building. "If all you're doing is supporting one another and encourag- ing one another and validating one another, this risk is building because no one's saying, 'What about this?' or 'Are we paying attention to this trend?' or 'How is this changing as the world is changing?' or 'What aren't we thinking about?' So the reason it's so risky is that, superficially, everything looks lovely. But it masks a lack of attention to new ideas, to trends and things that are creating a new environment that may be risky." The bobblehead team One type of team Davey identifies is called the "bobblehead team" — basically, a boardroom full of yes-men who don't dare to disagree. "A bobblehead team is a group of individuals that you would look at as a naive outsider and think is a really great team. It's sort of the prototypical harmonious, aligned, pro- ductive team. When you look at them, all appears to be well. But the risk associated with a bobblehead team is that there's very little diversity of thought, and alignment has actually gone too far," she said. "So the lack of critical thinking in a team where everybody is busy being aligned or harmonious is very risky because it not only reduces some of the positive aspects of a team like innovation, but it also contributes to poor risk mitigation or even risk mitigation." What distinguishes the bobblehead team from the "bleed- ing back" team (where backstabbing is rampant and the agreement is only a façade), is that team members truly don't disagree — they're not complaining and they're not question- ing decisions, even in private. At first glance, this sort of team can be tricky to distin- guish, said Cheryl Otto, founder and CEO of Ounce of Pre- vention Solutions (OOPS) in Vancouver. Healthy disagreement is critical – bobblehead cultures, 'bleeding back' teams can have insidious impact By Liz Bernier

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