Analyzing Your Team's Process

An essential skill in leading teams is the skill of analyzing the team's process. To be an effective and helpful team leader, it is necessary to analyze whether or not the team is headed in the direction of the team purpose and working on those tasks that will lead to accomplishment of that purpose. What is the team doing? Where is it headed? What should the team be doing? How can the team leader help the team understand both the positive and negative aspects of its process?

The successful team leader will watch carefully what the team is doing rather than only what is being said. This is called the team's process and is the bigger picture. Much less attention is given to the words said or tasks done, what is called the team's content. This is a bit of an oversimplification, since process includes content, but content does not include process.

Talk and tasks seem to get the attention of most team leaders. But, smiles, glances, fairness, inclusion, rapport, and a host of other things are also significant parts of a team's experience. What counts is how all of them together make up the team's process—what is really happening—the team's overall functioning.

Let's imagine a team of six people who have the purpose of creating a new, more efficient physical work environment. It is not an ongoing team, but made up of individuals from various teams within the organization. Once its task is done, the team will be disbanded.

For their first three meetings, this team focuses strictly on the task of creating a better physical working environment. This is the team's content. The team leader would conclude the team is in the process of thinking of ways to change the physical location of things for improved productivity. But, a closer look would find many more process tasks taking place, such as the team's efforts to bring out the best contributions of each member, efforts to make the meeting comfortable with joking, personal concern and refreshments, efforts to identify all relevant aspects of a problem to be solved, etc.

Then, in the fourth meeting the group begins to complain about upper management. Disagreement and hard feelings erupt. Suddenly, the team process is failing, especially when analyzed in light of the team purpose to redesign the physical environment. The content would not be related to the specific purpose and would interrupt an otherwise positive process.

Many team leaders would be very satisfied because the discontent needs to be discussed and resolved. But, the competent team leader would not. He or she would help the team recognize and deal with the deteriorating team process.

Content is an important ingredient in a team's process. Content is what people say and must be analyzed as to whether or not it helps the team toward its purpose. What people say may be smart, funny, wise, or naive, and either hinder or help the team's process to accomplish the team purpose. For example, joking might be helpful in building a sense of friendship. But, instead, that joking might be angry ridicule or avoidance of work. It could be robbing the team of valuable time needed to work on its purpose. If that joking ever became offensive, then it might actually become lethal to the purpose of the team.

Another key ingredient of a team's process is the interaction between members. Is there synergy? Is more happening than merely the sum of the behavior of the individual team members? Are verbalizations and actions interactive and interdependent or merely independent and autonomous? Almost all teams will start with independent and autonomous communication. Only with the team leader's help will a team develop interdependent and interconnected content. An example of autonomous and independent content would be a team member saying, "I think the only smart way to handle this situation is such-and-such." Interdependent and connected content would be that same individual stating, "I think we should handle this situation this way. What do the others of you think? Am I right? Am I wrong? Is there something Im missing?"

To illustrate how a team leader can encourage the development of interactive and synergistic communication, the team leader might say to a person, "Do you want the team's help to see if you fully understand that aspect of the project (job)?" When the person acknowledges that he or she would like such help, then the team leader merely says, "Why don't you ask the team for its help?" If done consistently, such team leader encouragement toward getting help from the team will create high-level teamwork.

The team leader asks himself or herself, What is happening in the team? He or she is thinking about what has been said interactively or independently and what each person has done or not done. Even sitting and saying nothing or just doing the job (without much interaction with others), what we often call inaction, is analyzed. Then, the team leader asks himself or herself, What is really going on here? In this way the team leader is asking about process. Is there an effective process that will eventually lead to attainment of the team purpose?

To illustrate, let's envision a certain section of a team meeting where three people are destructively arguing about a work task procedure. The team leader is watching all eight people, not just the three arguing. One person is fidgeting, indicating anxiety about the conflict, and four people are sitting passively, two of them not even looking at those who are speaking, indicating that they would rather not deal with what is going on, because it is either intimidating or disgusting to them.

The correct analysis will be that the team is not working as a team, and that everyone has shifted into individual, autonomous behavior, either for self-protection or for victory in the argument. In other words, the team process is avoidance of its responsibility to bring the argument into line with the team purpose. The team is avoiding dealing with what is going on. In this case all the individual members are also avoiding dealing with what is going on, which is that the team purpose is being ignored and the team's cohesion is being threatened.

But, one of the team members might comment, "We cannot let this argument lead to hard feelings." If the team does not take up this clarion call and do something, then the team is definitely working at avoiding what must be done. Those arguing are avoiding the fact that they are part of a team with other members who can shed light on their argument. And the silent ones have forgotten that they are critical members of a team that has to work for unity in order to avoid problems, especially team dissolution and lowered morale.

After analysis that the team's process is not working, the appropriate team leader behavior is to give work to the team, to warn the team of the possible consequences of its avoidance. This skill of giving work to the team will be discussed in a future Follow-Up Newsletter.

Let's take this example in the opposite direction. Suppose there are no passive people and that the other five people are active in helping those arguing to see one another's points of view, to develop tolerance for different viewpoints and positions, and to keep comments cooperative in nature. Now, the team leader would see a positive team process. The team would be working hard to keep the discussion constructive.

The team leader must constantly be analyzing the team's process, hearing content and seeing everything else. This is a very active task. When one person is talking, everyone must be observed. There is a lot to consider, not just the mere words that are being said. What do the words really mean? Do people mean what they are saying? What does their body language say? What is the whole team working on? Is everyone listening? Is everyone thinking? Is the team in control of its own process? Is it getting the job done? Is there resistance to the team's advice by the two or three who are arguing? Are they saying the same thing over and over again? Does the team need to change its approach? Will the team eventually come to understand that it needs to change its approach? Or does the team leader need to ask the team if it thinks it is getting someplace or needs to do something different because the team is stuck? Will they understand then that they need to change their approach, or will the team leader have to just come out and state that the approach needs to be changed? Add to these a host of other such questions.

As you can see, much observation, both audible and visual, is required before verbal contributions are made by the team leader.

The successful team leader will need to be very familiar with the tasks a successful team must do. (These were discussed at the training, and a handout listed them.) Knowing the critical tasks that successful teams do will save a lot of time and trouble for the team. From time to time the team leader will see that to continue on toward its purpose and goals, the team should focus on a particular critical task.

While analyzing what it is that the team is working on, the discerning team leader will identify work themes—those recurring issues that come up over and over again. A team, for example, over the course of a year might occasionally work on such themes as creating a safe environment in the team due to member distrust levels, learning how to confront constructively, racial prejudice and what to do about it, fairness in work assignments, ending meetings on time, helping one another out when behind, etc.

The team leader should devote a page in his or her notebook for each of these issues, keeping dated entries describing the team's content and process.

I remember a therapy group of disturbed sixth graders I worked with many years ago. No one's attention span was longer than 20 seconds. Unless someone else came in within 20 seconds with a new thought connected to what they were presently concerned about, the work theme changed. With the focus of what they were talking about constantly changing, I had to wait until the group would return back to a theme before I could help them with that issue again.

Adults, on the other hand, dont return to a discarded or avoided theme so quickly. It might be weeks before it comes up again. And the team might avoid the issue indefinitely. Once in a while, this is disastrous to the team. Then the leader should point out that the team once worked on such-and-such an issue and hasn't ever returned to finish its work.