I’m an HR Manager. The General Manager of our company goes out of his way to build teamwork among his direct reports. His reports are seasoned, talented, long term employees who have been with the company longer than both of us. The previous culture was, “we don’t care about the problem, just who can we blame.” He is trying to break this habit and encourage problem solving and prevention, but his direct reports continue to fight each other and run to him to report on each other – sometimes with inaccurate information and without previously discussing with their peer. He spends a lot of time seeking the truth, coaching, focusing them on problem solving and attempting to make peace. But they remain resistant to getting along together! It seems they like to fight! How can I help him?
The Team Doc Says…
It’s tough to work in an organization when the leadership team acts like a bunch of two year olds, isn’t it?
It’s time for you to do some coaching. It sounds like your GM’s collaborative style is just exacerbating the problem.
If they “run to him” for every little issue and he takes ownership of it, that is fueling the problem. His direct response to anyone bringing him this type of an issue should be:
- What action have you taken to resolve the issue or problem with your peer?
-
What solutions do you have for the problem that will further the company goals and objectives?
-
What are your next steps?
He also needs to get everyone in the room and talk about what is and what is not acceptable behavior for the leadership team. In this meeting he should spell out his expectations for their behavior. This will probably be very uncomfortable for him and you can help him prep for this meeting.
You can bet that this type of behavior is like a virus in your organization. Team members don’t listen to what leaders say, they watch what they do. What a waste of time and resources to spend each working day worrying about who to blame the next problem on.
If the leadership team needs a process to follow for resolving team conflicts, please feel free to pass on the conflict resolution process detailed here.
Best of luck to you. Please check back in and let me know how this works out.
Anyone else have additional suggestions? Please leave a comment.
About Denise O'Berry
Hi,
Thanks for the nice post. I would like to recommend a book which teaches corporate games for training session and I just wanted to let you know how successful a book called No props ideas have been with all our corporate groups training. It is really amazing, because most of the middle aged men thought they wouldn’t get anything out of these “games”. However, I just can’t tell you how much I have personally got out from the wonderful ideas that had been organized well.
Hello Ethan. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I haven’t seen your “No Props” book, but did have a chance to download your icebreakers book and think it would be helpful for many people.
Hi Denise
I am in the process of developing an Evaluation Framework which is meant to measure the effectivness of a children’s services network. One of the things that we are trying to meausre is innovative practices, and specifically, organizational culture with respect to creating ‘blame-free environments’ which allow staff to feel they can bring problems forward in a safe environment. Do you know of any ‘indicators’ that we might be able to measure in order to determine where the network is with respect to shifting their organizational culture?
Thanks so much!
Lynn
Lynn — I would measure positive feedback output and the rumor level of the organization. If positive feedback is at a high level and the rumor volume is low, that would indicate to me a healthy organizational environment.