[Animated characters representing a team of four—two men and two women—appear on screen. Then, the sentence How is your team doing? appears on the screen.]

Roger McCarty: Your team has been working together for more than ten weeks, and you have established patterns of how you work together. So, let's ask an important question: How was your team doing? Are you working effectively and making great progress? Are you meeting all of your goals and deliverables? But as you make this progress, are you noticing any of the following situations in your team?

[Animated characters representing the four team members appear on screen. The dominant team member speaking is larger on the screen and ignores the other team members’ attempts to speak.]

One guy dominates the team. Does he or she try to control everything and put down other people's ideas so that they are not even considered by the group? Are they great at telling everybody else what they should do but not very good at listening? 

[Animated characters representing the four team members appear on screen. Three males are on one side of the screen and one female is alone on the other side of the screen. She throws a shoe to try to get attention but is not acknowledged.]

Are females on your team dismissed and treated differently than the males? Is she not fully engaged with the team? Are her ideas overlooked by the males on the team? When she talks, are her ideas ignored?

[Animated characters representing the four team members appear on screen. Two women and one man sit at one end of a table pointing and laughing at the other male team member who is alone at the other end of the table. The text Zinger Rule appears on the screen. The lone male team member’s thoughts about how he can get back at the others appear in a thought bubble.]

Do you jokingly put down other people's ideas? Even as a joke, they can be hurtful and minimize contribution. I used to call this the zinger rule. When someone zings you, you disconnect from the meeting and you are thinking about how you will get back at them, or you are thinking, "I'm not gonna say anything else and get zinged again." Either way, you have lost the thoughts and attention of that person, at least for some amount of time.

[Two animated characters of male team members appear on screen. They begin speaking with separate speech bubbles showing conflicting ideas as different shapes, then the speech bubbles combine into one with a single combined shape, showing that agreement on a third idea has been reached.]

When conflicting ideas are presented, do you argue about which one is better, or do you identify the positives and negatives of each idea and try to synergistically build a third idea that takes advantage of the best parts of both ideas? The best idea is never the first, second, or even third idea discussed. The best idea is almost always a hybrid of multiple ideas discussed by the group.

[The text Value the Contributions? appears on screen.]

Does your team value the contribution of all team members? Let's look at this story to see the impact of valuing everyone's ideas:

[An animated scene shows a professor and Korean student talking in the professor’s office.

A Korean student came to my office about mid-semester. He didn't feel connected to his team and doesn't feel like he is contributing to the team. The results of his 360 survey tell him that he isn't a valuable part of the team. He and I discussed how this happened. 

[An animated scene shows the Korean student’s team of four students sitting at a table discussing their different ideas. The Korean student is silent and a question mark appears above his head.]

In the first meeting, everyone is throwing out all sorts of ideas without any basis for the ideas. In Korea, this would be considered crazy. The Korean student stays quiet; he doesn't know what to say.

[The animated scene then shows the Korean student trying to share his ideas with the group. They turn away and ignore him.]

I explained to the Korean student that he does his homework before saying his idea; that is his culture. When he tries to start expressing his ideas, his language is a barrier, and because he hasn't spoken in the past meetings, the other students don't listen to him. Now, because of these experiences, the other team members aren't trusting this Korean student or valuing his ideas.

[The word Solution? appears on the screen. The animated scene returns showing the Korean student again at the table with his three other team members explaining cultural differences to help build trust. The text Help the Team Build Trust appears on screen. The other team members nod and give a thumbs-up to show understanding.]

What could be the solution? I suggest he brings the 360 surveys to the next team meeting and explains the cultural differences and asked the team to allow him to help the team build trust in him while he tries to express his ideas like an American. If it doesn't work, he will come back to me for more help. So far, he hasn't come back, so maybe his teammates began listening to him. 

[Two animated characters appear on screen illustrating the differences in the thought processes and interactions between idea people and analytical people.]

It's not just international students that can get lost. Let's look at the idea of how analytical people get treated. Idea people are those people who can go into a room and bounce a thousand ideas off a wall. Analytical people want to think about it for a week and then give their idea. Their idea may be dynamite and very concrete because of the time and consideration they have given. In many cases, they will be much better than the ideas that are thrown out as part of a brainstorming session. Analytical people need time to think. In a meeting, if you just throw your idea up and say go, the analyticals will be left out of the meeting. To avoid this problem, send topics out a week in advance so the analytical people can think through the idea a week before the meeting. 

[Animated characters representing four members of a team—two male and two female—appear on screen. The word Reason appears on screen. Then, one female member of the team is highlighted to show that she may not be happy.]

These are just a few examples of dysfunctional teams. You may not think your team is dysfunctional, but that might be because you are the source of the dysfunction. Talk to team members and particularly look for people who you do not think are fully contributing. There is probably a reason, and the team can help. Remember, even in a big happy family, there may be members of the family that from time to time are not feeling all that happy, even if the rest of the group is happy.

[Text Are you experiencing any of these issues in your team? appears on screen.]

Are you experiencing any of these issues in your team?