Low performing teams have a lot in common. These teams often lack some of the basics. Low context, no direction and no understanding of purpose. We can summarise these basics into one thing: a lack of leadership.

Reflecting on failing teams, I've identified how I would nudge/how I've nudged a group of under performers into a team that delivers impact. Often there's a single missing ingredient and the team needs a catalyst for change. This can come from within the team and doesn't have to come from a leader.

Most failure patterns occur in companies that rely on organic organisation, as they've determined that autonomy is at odds with any intentional organisation design.

Things that are done with an intent in mind will always lead to a better outcome, otherwise you're just leaving it up to chance. We can have both, autonomy and organisation.

Failure case 1.

Everyone's a leader.

Communication is good, avoiding a decision is bad. In teams where everyone thinks/tries to be a leader the team behaves as if it were leaderless.

Individual contributors will state what they believe ought to be the best direction but it ends without consensus. These meetings are pointless as members stick to the idea that they've presented, and a team with 5 members will have 5 directions.¹

This pattern is hard to notice since they usually come to light when you're in the middle of a stressful situation and everyone is sharing an opinion as a means to turn the ship around. It's also easy to be absorbed into giving your own bit of advice in order to feign contribution.

The members present a large amount of information and set no goal, or goals are highly individualistic. There's no point in calling yourself a team if there's no underlying vision/goal to achieve. You could now say this is hardly even a team and you would have saved time by not having a meeting at all.

The best way to address this situation is to take a step back and be honest. "I'm not going to remember half of this meeting." Then direct the attention to someone that is meant to be taking a leadership role and say: "Maybe x can summarize these thoughts into one or two points and we can focus on this, so we leave this meeting with the same aim". What ever is said next will certainly be remembered.

If you are the leader, then don't let your team leave more uncertain about how they should address the situation than when they arrived. A mature leader might even recognise that there's a team mate that's probably the most knowledgable and should use the opportunity to direct them to state the focus.

It's similar to a half time chat, you can't have 11 people in the team telling you what you should do better in the next half. That's not how a rally works.

Agreeing to commit to a direction and a goal is all part of being a team. Someone needs to stand up in moments when there's dysfunction.

Failure Case 2

No one is a leader.

Communication is good. Some teams are just sitting around waiting to be told what to do, if there's a sit around culture then nothing impactful gets done.

It's quite easy to tell if you're in a team that lacks leadership since no one will know what work should be done or how their own work fits into the bigger picture of the organisation.

Teams without a leader will lack context and purpose which are all traits that lead to lower motivation. Assuming that people will just know what to do, without forming some consensus is naive and might lead the team to doing pointless work.

Turning these kind of teams around requires a little more diagnosis of the no-leader symptom.

1. Why is no one grabbing initiative?
2. What are the risks involved in grabbing initiative?
3. Is fear involved?
4. Do we provide positive examples that initiative is rewarded?

You might come to realise that no one want's to take on the risk that comes from taking initiative, especially if there's only downside and no upside. Initiative should always be rewarded in organisations even if the wrong initiative was taken. Learning from mistakes is always better than sitting and doing nothing.²

Diagnosing why the team is behaving this way can lead you to notice that your org is not incentivising the correct behaviours.

There can be other reasons, like a lack of experience in taking ownership. There could also be a lack of hiring with intent leading to a skill misalignment. What ever it is, if there's a team that appears leaderless then there's a problem that needs fixing.

Leaders

In truth leaders are in a team not to be dictators, but to hear the concerns of everyone and distill it down to a direction and focus. Getting the whole team aiming at the same target can shift a low performing team to a high performing team over night.

Having a team aim all over the place will result in weak performance.

Motivating teams, is about context and purpose - you can leave them to do what they want as long as they have context and purpose. Without this they're directionless and will not meet expectations.

Some situations are a prime ground for someone to take ownership, just make sure you're awarding this behaviour.