Many hands make work light, but sometimes it can be problematic. Working in teams means more productivity, fun, and success, but is it true all the time? Even the best of high-functioning teamwork often fall apart if they are unclear goals, conflicts between teammates, and a lack of proper leadership.
Every manager wants and expects their teams to work seamlessly with each other towards a common goal without any personal or personality conflicts. Be that as it may, teams face several unaddressed challenges today. Let’s look at all of them in detail and how you can overcome them:
Lack of trust
Teamwork fails when collections fail, and connections fail when there is a lack of trust amongst team members. And trust is not something you can wire into human beings. Being able to trust someone or earning people’s trust is a gradual process that takes time.
There’s only one solution to this. Trust the process! Make a genuine effort to know your fellow team members and understand their goals, needs, and desires. Furthermore, at the same time, be yourself in every conversation you have with your team members to establish honest and stronger relationships at work.
Working in silos
Working in silos and calling yourself a “team” is yet another challenge that many managers face with their teams. Weren’t we taught in our schools that working in groups fosters creativity and keeps the bullies away? That’s the exact reason why we shouldn’t work in isolation but in groups. Working alone reduces the performance of the team and kills creativity. It also takes longer to finish a task when you’re working alone. On the other hand, when you are working in a team with collective thinking, it increases the productivity of everyone exponentially.
Low engagement
Low engagement is one of the biggest challenges faced by team managers in workplaces. Teams with low engagement levels tend to have less productivity than the teams that regularly interact with each other. To overcome this challenge, managers can find ways to support their team members outside work. You can organize some weekly team building activities and outings to keep a check on how your employees are doing and keep check on their individual development. Some people also believe that the factor of corporate social responsibility in companies also keeps employees engaged with each other. You can think of organizing some CSR activities like blood donation and plantation drives and encouraging your team members to participate actively.
Personality conflicts
It is a no-brainer that all your employees will have varying ideas and opinions that can give rise to conflicts. These conflicts make it difficult for people to work in collaboration. It is impossible to avoid such scenarios, but it is not difficult to mitigate them. As a manager, you must ensure you embrace all the opinions and perspectives and do not act based on stereotypes and pre-conceived emotions. No employee of the teamwork should feel that their opinion is valued in the workplace as that can create tension and make it difficult for them to innovate and work with other team members.
Unclear goals
People who are most prone to facing this issue are the ones working in cross-functional teams. These employees keep jumping from project to project without any clear understanding of what they have accomplished so far. The only solution for this is to slow down! Give your employees time to breathe – even if that means sitting over coffee and discussing their progress in the workplace! If you and employees have a shared understanding of clear goals, objectives, and expectations in mind, they are less likely to get exhausted and work with a positive outlook.