Disadvantages of Working in Teams

Many problems can hinder good team dynamics. We don’t usually have the luxury of picking who we are going to work with on a team. Dealing with different personalities and personal agendas is a common challenge in working within a team. Other common challenges include poor leadership, a lack of focus, dominant personalities, bad communication, groupthink, and social loafing. The key to combating these challenges is to be able to identify when they are taking place.

Poor Leadership

There are a few things an individual can do if the poor team leader is your boss or someone with authoritative power. First, be supportive. If your boss trusts you and you are supportive, you may be able to influence decisions by suggesting alternatives. If the poor leader did not assign a devil’s advocate, suggest it during a team meeting and explain why you think it would be beneficial. Once the devil’s advocate is in place, coach him or her to bring up alternatives. When alternatives are out in the open and debated, the weak leader may see that there are stronger ideas available.

Lack of Focus

Lack of focus can make a team just a group of individuals. Keeping the team focused takes constant effort. A good leader can keep teams focused and on task by assigning roles and enforcing accountability. A good method to keep teams focused is using an agenda and distributing it before meetings. An agenda can get people on the same page and will encourage them to prepare based on the topics under discussion. Even a functional and mature team should have meeting agendas and planning documents to be sure no one is making assumptions about the group’s direction or undertaking a plan that has not received consensus.

Dominant Personalities

Dominant personalities are difficult to deal with. The loudest voice doesn’t always have the best ideas. Sticking to an agenda, establishing protocols during meetings, and having an effective leader can be used to combat strong personalities.

It’s essential to acknowledge that these same strategies have sometimes been misused to suppress diversity and stifle voices advocating for themselves, potentially silencing valuable perspectives and perpetuating bias.

Bad Communication

Bad communication is a quick way for a team to be unproductive and ineffective. By using a scribe and lessons-learned tracker to document team meetings and activities, a team can be kept up-to-date and in the loop. An effective team leader can assign tasks and hold people accountable for their contributions, which can prevent social loafing and encourage good communication.

Groupthink

Groupthink is simply going along with the team on a decision because that seems to be the consensus and they want to avoid conflict. It can also be the result of the group talking itself into a decision that doesn’t fit the facts. Having a strong devil’s advocate will help reduce the chances of groupthink.

Social Loafing

Social loafing is when one or more group members fail to do their fair share of work within the group. You may have witnessed this behavior firsthand on a team or school project. There are two main consequences of social loafing: The free-rider effect is when one or more team members do not put in their share of the work, assuming others will cover their shortfall. The other is the sucker effect, where other team members reduce their effort in response to the free rider’s behavior.

Several causes exist for social loafing. A member may not be motivated by a goal and may not want to work to achieve it. Or a member may feel that his or her contribution to the team will not be recognized, so the member is not motivated to contribute. Both of these causes are more pronounced in large teams. Social loafing is also more likely when there isn’t an individual evaluation system in which the performance and contributions of members are regularly reviewed. Finally, if there is unequal compensation and the members of the team feel the compensation is unfair, they will be more likely to lessen their efforts.

A good manager should monitor employees to watch out for these social loafers. The manager is responsible for making sure all team members are carrying their fair share of the work they have been assigned. If the manager doesn’t address occurrences of social loafing, they can create a stressful work environment that may turn into conflicts among coworkers.