Finger pointing.
( And I’m not making reference to any profane middle finger pointing). Rather an instinct to blame others. Many times it can occur on a macro level – it wasn’t us it was Accounting, or Shipping, or Marketing, or Operations. “It was Sales that promised we could deliver with 2 hours!”.
- Top Team members start looking out for themselves and “me” becomes the accepted motivator over “we”.
- Lacks of confidence. When a commitment is made to read a report, return a phone call, respond to an email or attend a meeting – on time, there is little confidence it will be done.
- Absence of respect. It’s very difficult to respect someone you don’t trust. Also displayed when team members regularly speak over each other in meetings giving the signal the team member’s opinion isn’t valued.
- Cooperative effort is scare or completely absent. It’s difficult (perhaps impossible) to work together and produce a quality outcome if you don’t have trust in one another to do their part.
- Avoidance of Risk: Team members are not willing to take risk and perhaps challenge themselves and each other beyond their comfort zone. The result – too many suggesting too many things are impossible.
See also “How Important Is Telltale Signs Trust”.
About the author: Charlie Selcer has provided organizations with employee training and development through Strictly Success Inc. for over 15 years. Strictly Success is a U.S. based employee training company for both the public and private sectors including some of America’s Fortune 1000 companies. Strictly Success specializes in high performance teams and teambuilding, employee motivation, employee accountability and change management.