Teamwork is inevitable for every business organization; it cannot be compromised as it is very important for colleagues to work well together in order to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives. This means that people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback aimed at achieving a common goal. As the saying goes, “if one team member fails, the whole team fails.” Like in any other business practice, teamwork can be laden with many challenges; how well you deal with them as a leader can either make your team a high- performance team or just a mediocre team. Look out for these dysfunctions; Mistrust of team members: Trust is critical in building a high-performance team. The obvious sign of lack of trust is that a team member would not bring up any issue which will portray him/her as weak or vulnerable, hesitate to offer help outside his/her own areas of responsibility, jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without attempting to clarify them, fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences and also conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another. Do you think your team members are uptight and ‘have the guard on’ all the time? A dysfunction for sure! Avoidance of disagreement and argument: Any attempt to prevent disagreement and argument while deliberating on issues would result in a situation where conversation and feedback cannot be frank and difficult questions cannot be asked because of the fear of conflicts. Team members would ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success and suspect the motive of the person doing the questioning or commenting. These create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive. Basically, the dysfunction is seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate. No team survives under such conditions. Weak belief in the ideas of the team: When team members do not strongly believe in the ideas of the team, they are reluctant to be committed to putting it into practice. Lack of commitment from team members is a dangerous dysfunction of a team. Think about it this way; because of the fear of disagreement and argument, most decisions do not get to be discussed extensively, team members feel they have not been heard and hence do not buy into the decisions being made. This gives rise to situations where the actions of team members oppose team decisions and set rules. The team is deemed incompetent, ‘lost’ and subsequently, loses the respect of their peers. Guess what? There is ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities, which breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure. Irresponsible actions from team members create a culture where individuals in the team shy away from being answerable for their actions; blaming all their failures and problems on others in the team or to external factors. They avoid accountability in its entirety. The resulting consequence is that it creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance, encourages mediocrity and gives room for missing deadlines and key deliverable, thereby ducking the responsibility to call peers on counterproductive behaviour, which sets low standards. Lack of focus on results: When there is no accountability and commitment to decisions, results suffer. A team that lacks focus stagnates or fails to grow, rarely defeats competitors, loses achievement-oriented employees, is easily distracted and encourages team members to focus on their own careers, status, ego and individual goals instead of team success. As you look out for these pitfalls in your team, encourage active participation by team members, build trust by encouraging team members to talk freely about their problems and weakness and be sure to offer help where necessary. Be clear on defining job roles and responsibilities by setting measurable team objectives to encourage accountability and commitment in the team. Provide a forum for regular feedback. Setting and enforcing punitive measures would also serve as a deterrent on members to avoid disagreements and unproductive arguments and further ensure a clear focus on results. Nobody wants to fail and neither do you. Do away with all the dysfunctions and bring out the best in your team to achieve the needed results. Solace Vivian Obuor, HR Officer, African World Airlines