‘We like the teamwork idea, but Billy won’t let us play with his ball.’
I have been part of a leadership team for the past five years. It has been dysfunctional with poor communication. My feeling has been these colleagues are not to be trusted and I couldn’t find ways to relate to them. By my nature I am comfortable with conflict so my attempts to address issues were viewed as hostile and aggressive. Two years ago a new leader joined the organization. This new supervisor observed the team’s dysfunction and was attempting to correct the dynamic.
After a number of failed attempts at resolving it ourselves our team leaders decided to bring in outside facilitation. At the time I was unaware of the actual process or terminology but as I was reviewing the information the Psychodynamic Approach it became clear this is what we had experienced.
One of the first activities in the process was sharing about our by deep past experiences and how we felt those experiences impacted our current behaviors. This process was incredibly impactful to almost all of us. “When the link between present and distant past relationships is made meaningful, leaders are more likely to arrive at tipping points for change.” (Northouse, 2015, p. 309) I believe this moment helped us reach a tipping point. Through this process of connecting and raising our group knowledge of each other we engaged in breaking down the barriers between each other and softening our relationships. Mirvis (2008) stated that these moments “…a “consciousness-raising” experience that cultivates participants’ self-awareness, deepens their understanding of others, and helps them to relate to society.” (as cited in Northouse, 2015, p. 309)
Our leadership team now functions at a higher level with much more cohesion. The only team member who didn’t participate fully in the process has now left the team while the rest of the team has thrived. It’s been a great learning experience.
Northouse, Peter G. (2015). Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
I am not particularly a fan of the psychodynamic approach. I believe most of the methods are outdated, biases, and not practically applicable. However, I find this concept of revealing an important even in your life that you believe effects your personal behavior and/or work style to be intriguing. Not only do you have to think about yourself, you can start to see how this attribute effects others. Coworkers would also find ways of relating if the experience was similar to one of their own.
Most companies require some sort of “icebreaker activity” during company meetings, but this may actually be beneficial. Knowing about someone’s pet Chihuahua will hardly help another coworker understand how the person ticks, but knowing that they were the youngest and only girl in a family of 12 may give insight into their personality and how best to deal with certain situations.
Thank you both for the comments.
I felt like this intervention was very useful in the professional context. Previously, we saw each other or at least I saw these colleagues as adversaries that I was necessarily battling with for resources. This caused distrust and a lack of communication. It was much more political than it should have been.
With this intervention each of us were asked to be vulnerable in a personal way which then deflates our perception of those around us as villains while also creating a trust fall style activity by exposing each of our soft underbellies. This access to the real person created a stronger bond and increased trust allowing for clearer communication.
The individual who didn’t participate was in the room but she didn’t commit. She didn’t open herself to us in the same way the rest of us did. The distrust still existed. In the nearly year since the intervention she continued to isolate herself and was repeatedly comfortable with the new dynamic we had created. Part of her discomfort was with one of our new ground rules being we had each committed to say what needed to be said. It is a trust based rule but that peer accountability is part of what has helped us to transform our team dynamic and personal relationships.
I agree that is is fortunate that you had a leader willing to get involved and resolve the team issues. It’s interesting to see the real-world applications of these theory. You noted the relation to psychodynamic theory and reaching a tipping point through a transformative experience. In a previous class I’ve studied the significant benefits of self-awarneess. There seems to be a good bit of research on the relationship between self-awareness and effective leadership. In addition it seems to improve both personal and professional relationships. Did you notice that this experience changed your behavior or perspectives, outside of this group context? Or, do you feel the takeaways were more specific to this group and the problems you were having?
I might also assume that there each of you reached a heightened sense of emotional intelligence through this experience. Would you agree with that?
You mentioned that only one team member did not participate and that individual is no longer part of the team. Was participation optional? If so, I give you all credit for going into this with a willing attitude despite your differences. It seems to have paid off for those that took the leap.
It is most unfortunate when teams can’t seem to get along and work as a cohesive unit. You are also very lucky that someone took the initiative to try and solve the problem instead of letting it fester. I have had a similar situation where there were deep rooted problems within a unit but no one wanted to take the time and energy to try and fix. Conflict management is just as important to the supervisor and company as it is for the employee and should be dealt with as soon as conflict arises. This is important because it doesn’t take long at all for negative behavior to infiltrate a group and cause irreversible issues. Rules of appropriate behavior should be established and followed from the beginning in order to foster positive relationships and proper work etiquette. (Northouse, 2016)
I’m glad that this type of mediation worked for you and your group. Nothing is more frustrating when you have to work with people that can’t get along but then have no recourse or someone to help solve the problem. It’s all a learning process!
Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.