Original Leader Mentality

The evolution of organizations started with men who, professionally, were great in business but who, personally, were emotional dolts. These are people who believed that there was no room for "feelings" in business. So they repressed all feelings by asserting coercive power. Their perspective: if you show feelings, you can forget about that promotion. As a result, people without power, who worked for them, did not show their feelings at work, for fear of ending their career advancement opportunities. Unfortunately, over time repressed feelings caused a lot of problems in those businesses.

Dominant Leader Styles

The leaders I am speaking of came into power via one of two categories. There were the “Repressors”, those that repressed feelings themselves, and the “Aggressors”, those that let them out inappropriately. In psychobabble terminology, they call them the Parents and the Children. The Parents were benevolent and parochial. There job was to protect their employees. ‘Fathers Knows Best’ is their mantra. Don't tell employees too much; it will confuse them. I'll make all the decisions for them. Mr. Brady from the TV show the Brady Bunch is a good personification of this style of management. Then there were the Children. They let out their feelings at will because they are the boss and they have the power to do that. Bobby Knight best personifies this style of management.

Put these two styles together and it spells problems. For years, bad communication reigned supreme in most organizations. It was mainly because both these dominant styles of management made it perfectly clear to workers that they were not to discuss their true feelings. The Mr. Brady’s would say "don't talk like that." And the Bobby Knight’s would say, "stop whining, shut up and do what I tell you to do."

Of course, repressing what we are really thinking and feeling eventually causes dysfunction. For years, organizations tried to function as machines, with people as nothing more than replaceable parts. We now know that this does not create or instill excellence. Yet, companies continue to get by in this manner, with one huge side effect: they are wasting a lot of potential. Unfortunately, they don’t know this, or just don't care.

Today

Anybody with a pulse and experience working in any type of company will tell you that bad communication happens and interpersonal dysfunction is the norm. There are varying degrees of dysfunction. Some places are worse than others. And yet, some minimal level of dysfunction exists in every organization I have ever worked for.

So, we've got a problem. And it is a problem that everyone knows. If asked “do you have any teams that could function better than they currently do?”, realists say ‘yes’ and people in denial say ‘no’. Granted, your team may not be what you would call dysfunctional, but it is not a model for excellence either. Bad teams and good teams can get better with the proper team workout.

Team building is Worthless

The problem is, for the last forty years, the training antidote to be ‘better’ has been team building. And team building is worthless. Why do I say this? When the term ‘team building’ is mentioned, you get a range of responses from gag reflexes and rolling of eyes. A few think ‘it is OK’ and even ‘fun’. Ask anyone, however, if team building actually helps their team back at the office and you get a resounding ‘no.’

Team building in general has become so impractical that nobody likes it anymore. Corporate America went from one extreme (repressed feelings) to the other (love fest). The concept of team building (working on strengthening our team) is good in theory, but something goes horribly wrong in practice.

The Oprah Lovers’ have seized their opportunity. Business people are clearly bad at feelings and communication. So consultants thought “let's package up some activities and sell them on the illusion that these activities will help their dysfunction”. And presto, a thriving industry was born.

The team building industry is actually a continuity business. Teams do not work out their problems and dysfunction in these flaky activities. They may have some fun, but no real changes happen back at work. Problems continue and the team building hucksters say it's because you need more team building. Let's play more expensive business games, waste more time and money.

I'm making a gag reflex as I write this. If you don't believe me, do a Google for the term "team building”. Check out the sites that come up. You see a lot of people playing games and having fun. They are also spending (wasting) a lot of time, energy and money playing games and having this fun.

Team building is Still Worthless and Maybe Even Worse

And what are the discernible business results? Nothing. Sure, people may get to know each other a little better, but you could do that at a holiday mixer, a breakfast meeting or a luncheon.

The problem has grown even greater because team building is getting more and more touchy feely and impractical. Fortune magazine ran a story in April 2006 about a company that sent two hundred of its people to a week long team building event in New Zealand at a cost of nine thousand dollars a person. That’s $1.2 million for what?

Let's face it, one of the biggest problems teams have is that they either avoid conflict or have destructive conflict. How much better is this problem after the $1.2 million dollar boondoggle? Try worse. First of all, there are forty four thousand eight hundred people pissed that they didn't get a free trip to New Zealand. Secondly, the people that were there were competing AGAINST each other for the entire week. Wasn’t the point to improve ways of working better TOGETHER?

Now what?

So, let's review. Because we have either Mr. Brady or Bobby Knight running the show, we have teams that have some problems. The only solution in today’s environment (fluff team building) actually causes more pain and is frustrating because it gets no real results. We go and maybe have some fun, then get back to our usual dysfunction du jour as soon as we get back to work.

Can't we find some middle ground here? We have teams that have problems and are in need of improvement. Most teams are just OK and are not on a path to excellence. Team workout sessions are a way for teams to get together and discuss interpersonal issues that are holding them back from achieving their goals. With a team workout, teams always end up with clear action steps that have responsibilities, deadlines and accountability.

You can build a better team without engaging in stupid and embarrassing activities.