Why Your Best Teams Can't Work Together
Last week I returned to an organisation to see how two teams were doing a month after my program Partnership Patterns™ completed (full confession, it wasn't called that when I did it but it is now!). This program is about helping two teams in the same organisation who find themselves in predictable friction.
Before I started working with this organisation, both teams were high performing, had the same fabulous organisational values, the same aspirations of service to the stakeholders, the same goals. Both too, were full of lovely people (I only work with lovely people!).
Big problem though, together they could not partner well.
When I see this, I know there are repeating issues experienced because of a partnership pattern. In my initial discovery, the senior leader who managed both teams gave an exmple of a critical client decision being delayed for three weeks because neither team would take ownership. Other frictions she gave were:
People are leaving because of team friction and the clunkyness of work
Clients complaining about mixed messages and slow responses
Senior leaders spending hours mediating instead of strategising
Eye-rolling and 'bad' behaviour in meetings
Story telling and 'us vs them' language
Unfotunately, I don't think you'll be unfamiliar with this clash of teams that creates friction not flow.
Here is my process (simplified!).
Step 1: Patterns in Individual parties My process of mediating is to meet both parties (departments/teams/individuals) seperately to really understand what lies underneath. In each department/team/individual it is not uncommon for me to find patterns outlined in previous Silverlinings. In the organisation I was working with, Team A had a pattern similar to Absolutism Grip (there is a right and wrong; a good and bad; a thorough and poor quality) and Team B had a pattern similar to Armoured Shield (defensive; protective; secretive; blocking). These individual party patterns are useful to unearth because they help each party understand any prohibition of success or situations where their pattern doesn't work for them. I help each party through a workshop open up to thinking how to and when to flex the pattern for success when working with others.
Step 2: Partnership Patterns™ While there may be some structural or process driven differences that make partnership hard, there are also, repeated sometimes unconscious but always predictable behaviours, thoughts and emotions that happen between the two parties. It is crucial for us to explore, see and name the pattern that 'we', both parties, fall in when we partner. The people in the teams in the organsiation I worked with, through the program, realised that their partnership pattern was characterised by undermining and devaluing and that these emerged most often in differences of time and pace as well as power and control.
By labelling the 'between us pattern' we move away from blame (and therefore defense). We see this as a joint problem that impacts us both. What is crucial is remember that we are different, we have different capabilities/experiences/paces/responsiblities etc. We both desire to create Partnership Patterns™ for success without loosing or expecting any of the good stuff from our differences to dampen.
In the follow up last week, the teams are continuing to partner to design solutions together instead of designing ways around each other. The eye-rolling has stopped. The 'us vs them' language shifted to 'what if we...'. The senior leader who'd been spending 6 hours a week mediating? She's back to strategy. And most importantly from my perspective there was an energy of lightness about the issues that the two teams still find, an energy of resolution as opposed to an energy of battle.
The issues of difference will not stop (nor should it unless we want to stop cogitive diversity), but the relationship can shift to working together as opposed to working against.
Ready to help your teams transform their collision into collaboration? I'd love to discuss how our program Partnership Patterns™: Designing Success Between Teams can turn your team dynamics from liability into competitive advantage.
Book a discovery call
#Silverlinings #leadership #patterns #workplacedynamics #workplacemediation #partnershippatterns #successbetween