Marcia's Leadership Q and As: Do You Really Have Teamwork?

Q. Our company has our executive, project, and process improvement teams. But most teams struggle, have dysfunctional behaviors, and are slow to accomplish their goals or any significant results. One of our cultural values is collaboration, but how do we make it real?

A. Collaboration and teamwork are listed as important values in many organizations. However, there are multiple barriers that deter teamwork. Some barriers are a lack of leadership, respectful behaviors, a clear aim, focus, relevant data to make decisions, and more.

A list of words (values) without any discussion or leadership to make the behaviors and communication consistent and real, is meaningless. Leaders are accountable in creating a workplace where collaboration thrives. The foundation is respect, the ability to listen, hear and discuss diverse perspectives. When people understand that the goal is to constructively dialogue and work together to generate and expose as many possible solutions to problems as possible.

When collaboration and teamwork are not thriving, the work culture is open to internal competition, fear, criticism, judging, bullying, and blaming—and eventually an organization self-destructs and fails. People don’t want to work in a place that tolerates bad behaviors.

Great leaders communicate and model acceptable behaviors and do not tolerate poor language or behavior. If necessary, they transform their culture. It’s hard work, but it is the job of leadership.