III. Barriers to Effective Teamwork
Because team building and development are difficult, team leaders and managers are interested in what factors hinder teamwork. This is in line with Larson and LaFasto's subtitle phrase - "What can go wrong." This paper will speak more on this subject in the section titled "Struggling through the Stages" in Chapter 4.
Koze and Masciale conducted interviews with business leaders and a survey of 4,500 teams in 500 Canadian organizations concerning barriers to teamwork. They found two main factors influencing team effectiveness: 1) organizational factors, and 2) individual factors. The highest ranking organizational factors were 1) inadequate rewards and 2) compensation for team achievements. The highest ranking individual factor was the "personal mind shift" of team members (Koze and Masciale 8)
Scholtes lists ten barriers to teamwork (The Team Handbook 6):
1. Floundering
2. Overbearing participants
3. Dominating participants
4. Reluctant participation
5. Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts
6. Rush to accomplishment
7. Attrition
8. Discounts and "plops"
9. Wanderlust: digression and tangents
10. Feuding members
Woodcock and Francis defined the stages of teamwork and barriers at each stage (10):
Stage: Barrier:
ritual sniffing (immature/uncertain) excessive domination
infighting (struggles for influence and position) unresolved conflict
experimentation (committed but ineffective) apathy
effective (competent procedures for problem solving) low management skills
maturity (close and resourceful) insularity
Hackman calls barriers to teamwork "trip wires." Hackman gives five barriers to teamwork: 1) to call the unit a team but really manage members as individuals; 2) balance of team and managerial authority; 3) let groups work out the details is a problem - not enabling, not supporting; 4) skimpy organizational support; 5) an assumption of competence (493).
Resistance to teamwork may arrise because of a natural aversion to change. Osborne suggests several tips to overcome resistance to teambuilding: 1) define mutual needs, 2) elect a gatekeeper, 3) promote participation, 4) discuss both sides of an issue, 5) explore alternatives, 6) turn rhetoric into reality, 7) monitor progress, 8) recognize and reward results (Osborne 2).