Help! Our Team Has A (Role) Identity Problem

Has your business grown rapidly in the last few months? Has your team added new members? Has your organization focused on a new business direction?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might have a role identity problem. How can you tell for sure? If you regularly hear, “I thought that was my job,” or “I thought that was your job,” or “I don’t know who does that, but it’s not me,” it’s a sure sign of role confusion. Role confusion costs your organization in lost time and repetitive activities. And, major conflicts can arise when roles are not clarified.

What can you do about it? Ensure roles are clarified by conducting a work session with all of the team members impacted and work toward role alignment. You’ll want to clarify where your team is at now and then decide on what roles are important to your team. Go through a step-by-step process to find the root cause of the issue and develop solutions.

- Conduct An Assessment Of Roles
- Identify Concerns About Roles
- Identify Problems Created By Role Confusion
- Explore Ways To Minimize Role Confusion
- Develop An Action Plan

Completing role clarification and actions that the team has identified will take some time. Try not to lose sight of why role clarification is important in the process. The benefits will be worth it in increased productivity for your company.

Denise O’Berry (aka ‘Team Doc’) provides tools, tips and advice to help organizations build better teams. Find out more at http://www.teambuildingtips.com

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