Are you a new or experienced manager coming on board to an established team? There may be some unspoken rules or team norms that require your time to sort through. It becomes a challenge when these team norms are undesirable and cause issues with quality, service, organization, or interpersonal conflict.
This dysfunction creates an unproductive environment and needs to be addressed for the health of the team. The challenge comes with what to do with a team that has such firmly established poor dynamics – because their previous manager let them get away with it!
After you have finished cursing the previous manager’s name, you need to come up with a plan to get the team back on track. Standards for professionalism need to be clear, boundaries need to be set, and quality work needs to be set as the expectation.
Read on to find out the risks of doing nothing and tips on how to address these deeply rooted behaviors.
Is this really a problem I need to solve?
Simply put, if you do not want to hear the following phrases from your employees, “Well <insert previous manager> always did it this way!” or my most loathed, “This is how we have always done it” blockade for the next few years – you need to address the problem.
How does one adjust their own expectations of a new team when the last manager appears to have let many behaviors slide? Is it worthwhile to just keep the peace as the new manager, or do you call people out on their issues to get everyone functioning up to your standards? Unfortunately – the answer is a combination of both keeping the peace and setting new expectations.
What are the risks to the team if nothing changes?
Team dysfunction causes lowered morale, reduced productivity, and an increased risk of alienating a client by coming off as unprofessional in behavior or missing deadlines.
The challenge ahead
This is not a straight forward process. Nothing worthwhile is easy. But be aware, when you start to get push back from the team – because you will – there will be a part of you that will discover why the last manager did not push past the resistance. You are going to push on, your team doesn’t know it yet, but they are counting on you to come through for them.
One of the biggest challenges to taking over a new team is trying to sort out personality conflicts and weakest links that already exist. We are not the ones that hired the individuals and led the team to their current status. But now we have our own professional standards that we want everyone to adhere to. We may also have direct orders to improve certain aspects of the team to meet new targets they were not able to achieve before.
When the previous manager has let poor performers grow complacent or has let negative behavior go unaddressed, they have left an uphill battle for you to manage. Conflict is not a desirable part of a competent (or sane) manager’s duties – but it does serve a purpose.
Why would the previous manager avoid conflict – and why it may be tempting for you too!
Some of the reasons that manager’s avoid conflict are:
- May not want to stir up conflict on their team
- Protection due to relationship
- Change is hard. The status quo means they don’t have to do any of the effort required for effective change management
- They have poor crisis management skills, and felt completely overwhelmed
- They could have been absent, and may not have been aware of the size of the problem
Sometimes it can get lost on people how toxic a work culture can be – because it is their normal. If some staff have worked their entire life at an organization, and this is all they know.
Ever have that manager that seems completely oblivious to errors around them? They suddenly become hard of hearing as soon as a topic they don’t want to know about comes up.
Creating an Improvement Strategy
Survey the field before you make changes
First things first, do your research. Is this a new behavior, or are employees just testing the water? It’s possible that they are trying to see what they can get away with.
Assume that there is a reason for why existing policies or team norms are designed the way that they are. Seek to find the rationale for everything. Don’t assume right away that the previous person in the role did not know what they were doing.
The benefit of this ‘do nothing immediately’ approach is so that you can get to know the team better. It will allow you to verify your assumptions as to the root cause and allow you to assess your action plan thoroughly before you enact it.
Some of the reasons that the the status quo exists may be due to comfort level of staff, best practices, technology limitations, or industry regulation.
If you can identify the rationale for why certain things are the way they are, you can find the barrier for process improvements and prioritize the easy wins.
For instance, due dates for deliverables may have always been ‘soft deadlines’ and that is all that the team know. You will be able to do better.
Easy wins will help with momentum, and trust on your team for when you have to make larger changes.
Get to know the staff
Try to get to know your staff. They are curious in getting to know you as well as a new leader on their team.
One-on-one meetings over coffee is the most effective way in my experience. A coffee shop is a less formal environment and they are likely to open up about things such as their work and personal goals, motivations, hobbies.
My favorite question to ask during this introduction – which project are you the most proud of? Why? It’s a very revealing question. You are able to see their passion and what aspect of a project that they are prideful in.
Ensure that you are authentic in your conversation with them. Yes, professional boundaries need to be in place, but let them know a bit about you. Let them know some things about yourself. Where you are from, schools you went to, or hobbies are good topics. Marital or medical issues are not topics to be brought up.
If you are able to chime in about shared interests such as your love for musical theater, you will start to develop a valuable bond with this staff member.
Once you get to know your staff, you can start to plan and assess next steps.
Timing is everything
Assess operational readiness for process changes and new expectations regarding professional behavior.
Even if you are ready to go and have a solid improvement plan. It will be an uphill battle if you have not selected the correct time for change.
Assess what your team’s current to do list is. Is it the end of year scramble? Wait until there is a lull in the normal flow of work to make sure staff are not tempted to go back to bad habits as a coping tool for the higher workload.
It also may be beneficial to wait for a bit so you are not “the new one” on the team. You will not get the same level of resistance. Coming in as the new manager, and changing things that “have always been done this way” is a recipe for resentment by your team.
Prioritize tasks
Pick the top one and develop an action plan towards that one. There may be a domino effect that you are not aware of, where if one issue is sorted, others may follow.
Accept that some battles are not worth having. Consider that the previous manager attempted what you are trying to do – and the amount of time and energy was just not worth it. Pick your battles.
As mentioned above, find a few quick wins to put at the top of the list before you tackle the bigger challenges.
Think about any potential for cause and effect. For instance, if you know that you will get some resistance on performance managing one of the staff, ensure that a change that they are a key player in comes first. If they are upset, they are less likely to operate as a key player in your other improvement project.
Boundary setting
With a dysfunctional team, there is going to be an issue with boundaries lurking somewhere. It’s a slow haul to setting boundaries because they have likely been a habit for so long.
Celebrate the successes – carefully. A team member performed something desirable that they previously did not do before? Acknowledge that you noticed, but take care not to overdo it. A simple thank you for the desired behavior, even a simple impact statement will do. Did they positively contribute to a meeting instead of railroading it? Thank them for their productive input, and move on.
Getting ready for quality
There are two facets that you will likely need to fix: individual staff members and team-based expectations and dynamics. These need to be addressed before you can get sustained quality change.
To address individual performance issues, see post, Giving Feedback to Staff that Lack Self Awareness. These difficult conversations are one-on-ones with individuals that do not meet expectations.
Set new expectations for communication, teamwork, collaboration, and work quality. Attempt a group approach first with straight forward feedback. Try not to come in heavy handed when it’s not necessary.
Set up new expectations and lead the way for standards. It doesn’t have to be mean, simple statements as, “I think this adjustment will be more effective”. Give purposeful feedback that leads the team in the direction that you want to go.
Restructure the problem right out.
So, why don’t we just let the problem people go, right? Transfer them to an area where you can minimize their impact and therefore damage?
I previously discussed the cost of a toxic employee in the organization here. That may not be an option. You may be managing in a unionized environment and it’s not so easy to fire people.
Alternatively, the employee does not get disciplined because they have some sort of protection. They could be a jerk – but they are the only one who knows project X or that nuanced and outdated computer program. They could also be well connected in the organization.
Keep an eye on the change
I think that quite a few staff members think that if they just roll with a change quietly enough, it will gradually disappear and they can go back to status quo.
You are not going to let that happen because you will keep monitoring the uptake of the change until it solidifies itself as the new team culture.
Keep a list of process improvements for yourself. It will serve to remind you of things to circle back on, and it can form part of your performance review with your superiors. When you get caught up with so many projects, it’s amazing what you can forget.
You should keep a project list to share with the team on an ongoing basis to celebrate your process improvements. I like to keep a private list of follow ups in my Microsoft Outlook. I will schedule a follow-up for myself one week, two weeks, one month (as appropriate) at 3am. This will be set as ‘available’ so that only I can see that I have something at 3am, although this is an interesting way to show dedication in your work! A reminder will pop up first thing when I get in before I get caught up in other tasks and I can check-in to see if the change is still on track.
Remember, you may not always see the immediate benefit of a change. Don’t give up and get discouraged when you get push back on those around you. Team dysfunction causes lots of long term problems – its up to you as the leader to set the new team norms.