Blending various personalities together into an office team can breed great success or utter failure. If you’re currently dealing with the aftermath of the latter, it’s time to regroup and make some difficult decisions.
Most managers deal with broken down office teams at some point during their careers and your actions in this situation can greatly affect your future company leadership opportunities. Here are five ways to get started.
Address the Problem
The breakdowns of office teams can often be traced to an initial complication or coworker argument. Rather than sweeping the problems under the rug, properly address the situation by discovering what went wrong. After discovering the problem’s source, you can then take the necessary actions to fully resolve the issues rather than having them occur again in the future.
Start Slowly
From working out an argument to regaining trust in the company’s environment, the rebuilding of office teams takes time. Avoid pushing your employees to begin working effectively together when they aren’t fully ready since this typically only causes additional complications. Rather, take the process slowly by allowing the team to rebuild naturally rather than by only partially patching up the problems.
Capitalize on Strengths
While you must fully address the existing problems when rebuilding an office team, you must also ensure the team’s assigned projects are completed on schedule. This can be done by focusing on the team’s remaining strengths while also working through the underlying problems.
For example, if the arguments of two coworkers led to the initial breakdown, separate the tasks of the coworkers for current projects while also encouraging the coworkers to work through the disagreements. This can help ensure your current project schedule will be completed while also working towards bringing the coworkers together again for future tasks.
Encourage Cooperation
Returning your team’s success to normal takes time, patience and encouragement. From monetary rewards to words of encouragement, discover the rewards your employees value the most and use those rewards to foster cooperation and the rebuilding of the team. While conflicts can periodically arise between coworkers, employees must also be made to understand that repeated problems that lead to the team’s breakdown won’t be tolerated.
Analyze the Progress
As the office team returns to normal, analyze the progress that has been made. Assess what worked and didn’t work and ensure your team has taken the proper steps to ensure the situation won’t happen again.
From clashing personalities to workplace competition, many circumstances lead to the breaking down of office teams. While the team issues may not be directly your fault as a manager, the actions you take to rebuild your office team will influence your career future. By effectively rebuilding your department’s team, you’ll likely be looked upon as a better leader and as more desirable for higher levels of management.
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