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Team Behaving Badly? Five Steps to Address It

The Bailey Group | May 11, 2015 | Blog | Leadership Team Development | 2 minute read

angryteamDo your executive team meetings feel more like a nursery school free-for-all than a productive adult collaboration? If the answer is yes, you are not alone. Most CEOs face challenges with their executive team at one time or another and these issues are amplified by the current pace of change and industry disruption. It is equally challenging to know how to address these concerns and the temptation to avoid dealing with it can be significant. As much as you’d like to, you can’t put the whole team (or yourself) on a massive “time out.”

What can you do?

  1. Call out the bad behavior. When things get wooly and executive behavior devolves to the point of putting a two-year-old to shame, don’t avoid it and hope it will stop on its own (it won’t). Name the behavior that is troubling you – share your observations of the troubling behavior and its impact on the team’s effectiveness.
  2. Reiterate the reason the team exists. Pull out the five-year vision, strategic plan, annual charter, or whatever document incorporates the overall goals for the organization. Remind the team that their singular purpose is to lead the organization in realizing this vision, plan, etc. The power of the team’s collective is far greater than the sum of individual efforts.
  3. Articulate the behavior required for success. Paint the picture of the behavior you want to see. Ask the team to share examples of how they have behaved productively in the past. Add your observations to their examples.
  4. Identify obstacles to productive behavior. If the team knows what’s expected, what’s getting in the way of behaving accordingly? What are some strategies to deal with these obstacles? Be open to the possibility that you or other individuals on the team may be among the obstacles.
  5. Prioritize team alignment. Team alignment isn’t a one-and-done exercise. The first four steps are the starting point for an ongoing way of functioning that requires constant reflection, feedback, and leadership. Revisit the team dynamic in future team meetings, keeping it front and center amongst your priorities.

 
If you try this and still need a whistle and a flak jacket when leading your team, contact The Bailey Group. We’ve helped countless executive teams behave like grown-ups – we can help yours, too.