Only by prescribing the right medicine can we gradually improve the team’s problems and build an effective team

Written by◎ Yang Gongmao, Kangshiteng Management Consulting Company 

To build an effective team, you must first identify the team problems

The idiom “prescribe the right medicine” is a very profound feeling for the author this year. The first case was the author’s first episode of vertigo in May last year, and the symptoms of spinning and vomiting were really “scared to death of the baby”, and after a month of medical recuperation, I thought it was cured. As everyone knows, it happened again in June this year, and the frequency has become once a week or two, and getting up every day is like throwing a cup when saying goodbye, and I don’t know if it will happen. I saw three doctors through a friend’s introduction, but I never got better. Later, I went to the doctor I saw last year, and he bluntly said that I had not completed the treatment at all last year, and the previous visits to the doctor did not address the root cause of the disease, and the doctor asked me to continue taking medicine for three months. Sure enough, under such treatment, there has been no recurrence since the end of July. The second case is that one day in October this year, I woke up with unbearable pain in my right shoulder, and I would wake up in pain even when I slept. Later, I met a supervisor who had been a Chinese medicine practitioner in a certain class, and judged that I was suffering from acute inflammation, and if I wanted to urgently relieve pain, I had to use an anti-inflammatory gel containing a certain pharmaceutical ingredient.

The root cause of problems that arise when a team builds is usually not the problem itself

As can be seen from the above two cases, when the author’s body has a problem, the medical treatment process is to start with the symptom first, but the root cause problem is not solved, resulting in poor efficacy. In my career as a lecturer, I have often assisted companies in improving some common team building and conflict problems. When a team has negative symptoms, it is usually the result of several problems that have occurred continuously, and the cause must be found in the daily behavior of each member. For example, I often hear the needs of HR as follows: how to improve the attitude of members to take the initiative to solve problems, and do not always wait for the instructions of the supervisor to act. But where does the attitude problem come from? In the course, we can usually find that the team with the above problems is in the team building designed by the authorIn the challenge activity, it can be seen that the supervisor is a more proactive actor, and even after the lecturer describes the goals and rules, the supervisor usually starts to plan and guide without thinking, and thinks about all the methods and steps, and other colleagues can only cooperate obediently. What’s more, the lecturer sometimes invites supervisors who have prior experience in activities to observe the behavior of colleagues and see which colleagues are potential excellent personnel who can be actively cultivated in the future. From the above author’s experience, it can be observed that employees will be more passive and wait for instructions, and it may be that they do not need to think about any actions in their daily work, because the supervisor usually has a thoughtful idea, and the employee just needs to do it. If you want to improve the motivation of employees, it is necessary to solve the management style that supervisors are too accustomed to meddling and playing chess.

Prescribing the right medicine requires team management and cooperation

First of all, we must have a correct understanding, and the right medicine is not to solve the problem supervisor or personnel, but to face and co-create with the team.

If the problem of the team is in a supervisor or member, to solve the problem is not only to solve the problem member, but also to face the problem together, team management and cooperation are important, because a person’s behavior development must have such an environment, so that such behavior can continue to show or even take rooted. To change this situation, it is not necessary to communicate directly with the problem member or ask him to improve, but to start with the overall team atmosphere, and then make the problem member willing to self-reflect on whether his past behavior has had a negative impact on the team. For example, in order to make it clear to the supervisor that his employees can actually come up with great ideas, usually after one or two team building challenges have triggered team momentum, the author often uses the “Team Key Objectives Table” dialogue discussion structure to invite team members to discuss the issues that the company is concerned about and produce possible action plans. Usually after the teams have presented their results, we can see the boss and the unit manager report that they have rarely seen the team have such an in-depth discussion on these topics in the past, although some of the ideas are not very mature, they also observe a lot of ideas and suggestions that go out of the box, and even better they find that employees actually care about these organizational issues, but they don’t usually have the opportunity to raise and communicate with them.

Through team building activities, we can see each other, develop a different team atmosphere, and create lasting changes

Improvement of team symptoms requires a continuous demonstration of behavior, which cannot be seen immediately

In the case of the supervisor, he sees the positive behavior of the team members who are proactive and brainstorming to think about the course of action, and the employees also see the willingness of the supervisor to create opportunities for everyone to contribute ideas and participate in the process of improving the current situation of the team. If this kind of positive interaction can continue to be shown in the follow-up work, it will gradually develop a different team atmosphere. Such a process takes time, and more importantly, the company’s attention, and managers are willing to “lead by example” and actively take the lead in adjusting their own habitual behavior. Although the current training is only a one-time training, the awareness and team behaviors generated in the process can be continuously brought into the workplace to create real and lasting change.