6
- Assess what cooperation and support the team will need.
- Follow the progress of the work to reward and
reinforce results.
When problems occur or personalities clash, you can revert to
your mentoring or counseling role. The steps in working with your
team parallel problem solving with an individual.
- Communicate what appears to be the problem.This
may not be the actual problem, but by bringing the issue
into the open you can start the process of dealing with it.
The number one reason problems aren’t always solved is
that people are dealing with the wrong problem. An
example: There is a negative attitude that makes coming
into the office unpleasant. There is a lot of frowning and
mumbling; no one seems to be looking at each other. - Discuss what is happening.Gather facts, ask people’s
opinions. This lets you and the team identify what is the
real problem. The team may respond: “It isn’t any fun
around here. Everybody is stressed. The deadlines for
three projects are hitting the fan, and now there is more
being dumped on us.” - Redefine the problem. Take the facts and input of the
team and restate what really is the problem. The earlier
this is done, the easier it is to deal with the real issues. You
might respond to the above example with: “So deadlines
are clashing and we didn’t anticipate the additional
projects coming at us? This is adding to stress and
frustrating everybody.” - Discuss alternatives for dealing with the problem.Ask
the team their ideas for handling this. This step
underscores the necessity to plan your meeting. Consider
having separate meetings so that people have time to
think. A caution: A brainstorm session becomes
ineffective after about five minutes of spilling out ideas.
Likewise, negating any idea during the brainstorm tends to
stifle the flow of ideas. - Decide how to address the problem.Again, this might
be accomplished in one meeting, going through Steps 1
Integrating the Individual and the Team