During analysis meetings with clients, we are often told by Managers about their company’s troubles dealing with Synergy. They describe how some departments don’t work effectively together; people blame each other for problems that arise and they do not take initiative to solve them, low responsibility and lack of accountability, people working individually and not being team players. It results in an unhealthy working environment and inefficient work within and between departments.
Lack of Team Synergy at the Workplace
Lack of Team Synergy is a very common problem in the corporate world. Whether it’s an international group of companies or a local business, as long as humans are running the business – not robots, there’s going to be human relationship problems in the workplace.
Teamwork challenges are inevitable because every individual involved in a team has different ways of doing things. Many people don’t realize that teamwork is more than just working together to get things done, more importantly it is about achieving results that are much greater than the sum of each person’s contribution.
The Importance of Team Synergy
Lack of Team Synergy is caused by human discrepancy such as difference in individual priorities, talents, interests, ego, habits, poor management/coordination/strategy, ineffective communication, poor leadership and followership, individuals not playing as team players, or people simply not putting their own contribution.
The by-product of lack of team synergy in essence is low productivity; non-coordination, inefficiency, overlap or gap of work, individuals not performing at their best, lack of responsibility and accountability, people not mindful about holistic processes, people blaming people, etc.
A Team Peak Performance can be achieved if every team member knows their roles and responsibilities, takes upon them what is their share of the load, works at their best and furthermore collaboratively sees the whole process through to completion. A sports team doesn’t become champions because one of the players single-handedly rushes the football for each touch down – it takes the whole team’s effort.
I’d like to share with you the Basic Fundamentals in Creating a Positive Synergy:
1. Shared Vision, Values and Goals
Company Vision – Mission Statement – Core Values – Strategic Objectives – Goals & Targets.
Begin with the end in mind. Give your people a sense of purpose as to why they come to work every day and contribute to the company’s success. Goals and Targets work as a motor for motivation; however a shared goal needs to be matched with clear roles, by putting the right people at the right place, doing the right thing at the right time. When each team member has clear roles and responsibilities for them and others’, the risk of overlap or gap of work can be reduced significantly. A team that has dealt with a demanding situation and come out successful together will typically have a stronger relationship.
Evaluate – evaluate – evaluate; whether your team has or has not done well together, always evaluate where things went right or wrong – and make an ‘improvement action plan’ for continuous progress!
2. Good Leadership and Followership
Without followers, would there be leaders? Who would they lead? Who would become leaders if they were not first followers? Leadership is an interactive activity: leaders depend on followers and vice versa. Team efforts are valued highly in today’s workforce and such efforts require active followers. Followers set the levels of acceptance for leadership. And in many ways, it is more important for leaders to understand followers than for followers to understand leaders.
Followership can be defined as the willingness to cooperate in working towards the accomplishment of the group mission, to demonstrate a high degree of teamwork and to build cohesion among the group. Sounds pretty similar to leadership, doesn’t it? Effective followership is an excellent building block to effective leadership.
In our coaching programs, we place great emphasis on the importance of Delegation and Empowerment by leaders, which goes hand in hand with taking Responsibility and Ownership by the team members/followers. We talk about the manager as a coach of his team.
3. Trust, Respect and Compassion
When every individual works and communicates with the basis of trust, respect and compassion, everyone will feel that their contribution is as valuable as the next person – and vice versa, and therefore each person will give their best work for the Team. A compassionate individual will be conscious of the impact of their action on others. In result, everyone will put their full capacity, and collaboratively reach Synergy. All team members have the same responsibility to each other, no one is at a better or worse off situation than the other, and one person’s success is the team’s success.
4. Positive Environment
Like human relationships, Synergy is a constant process and must be properly managed. It’s not a destination that you arrive to and just halt, it’s a never ending journey that you and your team as the crew of a ship, embark upon together and must constantly row and work to reach the destination. Effective communication is key to creating and maintaining Team Synergy, and part of it is Conflict Resolution. An effective Team is capable to resolve differences by finding and managing the best solutions from the team member’s contributions, despite differences of skills, opinions, strengths, weaknesses and talents. Managing and resolving human relationship conflicts clearly differs from fixing a broken machine. There’s no surefire formula to do it, it’s not as straightforward as 1+1 = 2; in which, aside from knowledge and skills, it requires practice, experience, time, patience and commitment. In order for Synergy to thrive in an organization, a positive Teamwork culture as foundation is paramount, where engagement of each team member is encouraged. Fine management is an important element to create order; nevertheless great human relationships are the key ingredients in creating harmony.
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