Three dysfunctional types of teams and how to fix them

TRANSCRIPT:
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G’day.I’m Scott Sanders.And I’m Derek Hannah.Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designer give you one solid practical tip for Gospel Centre ministry every week.One thing’s brought to you by Reach Australia.We want to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches.And what does that look like?

0:24

Well, God willing, it looks like churches being launched and started, new gatherings multiplying in healthy churches and church leaders pursuing a whole bunch of different strategies to see the lost one all across Australia.

0:40

Derek, mate, it’s been a while.Had you been on long service leave?So how was your?How was your break?It was amazing.Thanks very much.I’ve only been back for five months now this, but this is the first time we’ve spoken since then.So yeah, it was excellent.

0:56

Thanks.Very.Much highlight just so we can live vicariously through your long service leaf.Oh, the highlight.If I had to name one, I couldn’t, I’d probably name them all.Look, we went to New Zealand.That was pretty special.Yeah.We went on fun Yax in New Zealand.Fun Yax.

1:11

Fun Yax, Yeah.Go up in a speedboat up the river.Yeah.And then you come back in rafts.It’s like living in Lord of the Rings.I was like Frodo, but a much taller Frodo.Well, it’s interesting.We did, we did a similar fun Yax.Well, I, I got to I got to send off a, a leadership cohort.We we just completed a leadership cohort in New Zealand and for the challenge exercise in the second intensive they did, they did caught rafting up the river or rafting down the river and then they speedboated back.

1:38

Oh, they should’ve done the other way well.I think it’s gotta do with the flow of the river.Maybe.I don’t know, but who knows.I should.I’m not very good with rivers.I’m better with oceans, really.Yeah, that’s another podcast there, isn’t it?Hey, I should say people have been really interested in my garden ’cause I mentioned that before it went away.How’d your garden go?Lots of ever been asking for that?

1:54

Yeah, nothing happened with it, so please stop.It did.Did things die though?That’s the question that I asked.Died, yeah.Yes, well, for now you press play on another episode of The One thing Problems of Senior Leadership Teams.Today’s podcast is brought to you by the Reach Australia Team Development Programme.

2:13

Running over 2 years, the team development programme helps ministry leaders and ministry teams develop personally and professionally.If you’re interested in the team development programme from Reach Australia, even if it’s early days for you, get in touch, head to the Reach Australia website and look under Healthy Churches.

2:29

And now back to the podcast.Yeah, Derek, today we’re going to be pressing into an HBR article that I, I, I found one of the things I enjoy doing and reading is, is kind of reading outside of our space.

2:45

And I always find HBR, Harvard Business Review has interesting articles because often they’re research based and they give lots of case studies, lots of examples.And so today I want to talk about an article which will link in the show notes, Why leadership Teams fail.

3:01

There was an article that came out in the September October 2024 edition by Thomas Keel and Mariano Zangrillo.And they did some research into teams and the dysfunctions that they saw in leadership teams in a whole bunch of commercial, you know, organisations.

3:20

And they identified 33 ongoing sort of symptoms and things that they’ve seen.So I want us to to to press into that conversation today.Well, I think it’s an appropriate conversation to come back into after a long service.Lead this one for.

3:36

US ’cause you got a chance to reflect on a whole bunch of dysfunctions, yeah.I actually wrote this article under a pseudonym.No I didn’t.No, I didn’t.Well, how about this?Let me give you the three things that they say, 3 dysfunctions in team, and then you can dissect them for me.OK, so just very quick summary.You get this for free.

3:51

Everyone.You don’t have to buy the article yet, but you can do it after.So they say there’s three dysfunction, three team types.First is a Shark Tank.Everyone’s in competition with each other, lots of conflict.Everyone in ministry setting could be like siloing, but everyone has their own ministry and they just do that.They compete for resources.

4:07

Lots of conflict.That’s a Shark Tank.The second one is, is what they call the petting zoo where there’s no conflict.Everyone is trying to keep everyone happy.Everything happens to the end that there is harmony within there no conflicts.And so, you know, lots of things don’t get done because there isn’t conflict.

4:25

And this is often what church teams can be like when they’re trying to live out that the the graciousness that we want to see in the gospel without the conflict that comes from actually addressing sin and shortcomings.You know, that’s the petting zoo.The third one is mediocrity where everyone just keeps doing what they’ve already done.

4:42

Again, no conflict, no real collaboration either within that.You just do what’s on your job description and you just keep doing it.And I’ll think about how you could change ’cause that’ll rock the boat.Again, Lots of siloing going on there now, Scott, with those 3.

4:58

You wouldn’t name nothing, Yeah.Name names.If you look on the website, there’ll be pictures of people, though we wouldn’t do that because that’d be us.But where do you think churches tend to in these three?Where do they tend towards which one?Yeah, I’d say they tend to more towards the petting zoo and and mediocrity.

5:14

I feel like the Shark Tank, I think the Shark Tank happens sometimes.So we, we get that siloing where you get people competing for resources, but I guess it doesn’t come out in that kind of, you know, lots of, you know, lots of conflict.

5:30

And, and I think often what happens, you know, what happens in a, in a church context is that it that staff, you know, staff often, you know, leave, you know, rather than kind of all, all jockeying and jostling for position like the the article describes, You know, in, in some senses, the, the lack of health in a Shark Tank environment, it’s probably existing in siloing, but but it doesn’t have that experience of conflict.

5:57

Yeah, not as much Archie Bargie as you might see in the corporate world.I think because people at at least if you put a negatively covering it over with a a fake sense of graciousness or generosity that that sounds terrible.But you people honestly what I mean anyway, what else?

6:13

Yeah, but but again, siloing is a real problem in church life.And you do see where people are, are kind of almost working against each other.There is limited resources and the impact of it.If there’s not that kind of hard conflict, is it you actually, you know, get people moving off in different different directions and and that means that you’re actually not moving towards the one place that we’re actually aiming, aiming to go.

6:39

So the petting zoo, I think this one is, is, is what we often see.There’s that desire to have peace.There’s a desire to, you know, to have good relationships with each other.And so we just work hard to collaborate.

6:55

And in some sense, we’re so busy trying to keep everyone happy that we actually don’t, we actually don’t get stuff done.And we often, I guess in some senses, the impact of this on a team member is they pour them, they all pour themselves out.And so, you know, get stressed out, burnt out, worn out, and, and it actually, if we have the good conversation, the good healthy conflict that every time should have, then then we can actually say, well, we can’t do this now.

7:24

We need to, we need to prioritise this in order to see this shared collaborative goal that we’re actually moving towards.And there’s overlapping these, like we’ve mentioned conflict, we’ve mentioned soloing a bit, but the mediocrity one, how do you see that play in teams?

7:39

It’s the third one.Yeah, again, this is this is probably, this is probably the, the opposite of the first one in terms of the Shark Tank.But this is the one that that I think we see more often, you know, in church life that that we’ll just get on with it.

7:55

We focus on, you know, the the line, the line and the ministries that we’re involved in.There’s not a lot of cross functional meetings, but there’s not even cross functional meetings where we’re talking about people as well.And so we’re, we’re often loading up, loading up people with lots of ministries and they’re in multiple teams or we’re just getting on with what we’re doing and not paying attention to the other pieces in the ecosystem.

8:19

So that, you know, potentially our area might be doing great, but there’s other areas that are that are falling down.And in NCD, the NCD have this kind of image of a bucket.CD.It’s the natural church, natural church discovery, I think is, is what it is, but it’s a it has this image in in there tool of a bucket, you know, with slats.

8:40

And in some senses you can only kind of achieve, achieve as much as the lowest slats.So they have like 9, I think, health markers and and they use this really helpful diagram that kind of suggest, you know, it says we’ve actually got to get all the slats kind of working well in order to achieve the vision.

8:57

Now that’s not me saying you got to put the same amount of resource into each of the ministry areas.Some some areas have less, but they all need to be moving towards, you know, that large overarching goal.And so I think we don’t see a lot of shark, shark tanks.We see more the mediocrity where there is lots of sailing going on, but we actually see stagnation.

9:17

So we actually see churches just in maintenance mode.We just continue to keep doing what we’ve been doing and actually not asking that question of well, let’s let’s change some things.Let’s put more resources into other areas.Let’s have the healthy conflict that says, hey, this is not working and what can we do collectively as a group?

9:33

To do so, we’ll get to some solutions that they suggest and we might just tweak them a little bit at the end there as well.But if you’re, how is it you find out as a team which one you are?Do you?Think yeah, I think if you’ve got if you’ve got movement in your team and and you’ve got a new stuff coming in, coming in new new stuff coming into a team means often that you’ve got outside eyes coming in, but you’re also re recreating A-Team.

9:54

So you’re going into that forming, you know that forming storming pattern again.So that often disruption throws up good conversations about, well, you know, who needs to meet with who are we having the right meetings?And, and it can, can also sometimes bring conflict because, you know, a new staff member comes in and they get resources or they just ask the questions that no one’s, you know, what no one’s been asking.

10:15

I think, I think another way you can actually find out about it is, is you do have a conflict and there is a there is a bust up and it requires significant levels of, of communication and and sorting out.You know, you might get an external peace, you know, peacemaker or peace wise person come in, but it actually requires that third party to come in.

10:34

So in some senses, conflict, conflict and, you know, can be a good thing and, and should be something we do regularly as part of the healthy functioning of our teams.But a significant conflict can be the, you know, the Canary in the mind that says, Hey, there’s actually something that’s that’s not going on here.

10:50

I think as well.We can see it often in, in team members, you know, team members being, you know, worn out and, and that, that can give some insight to this.But you know, it’s, it’s more complex and your team, your senior leadership team’s got a problem.

11:07

So that’s, that’s one way of, of working out.And I think I think one of the things we don’t, you know, we don’t do lots in our teams.We actually don’t talk to each other about how we view change and how we view conflict.So I think one of the things, you know, that I often ask, you know, leaders in, in sort of coaching relationships is, you know, tell us about, tell us about your team and how they think into conflict or how they think into change.

11:30

And I think having a team that’s self aware and socially aware about that can be, can be really helpful because you can have someone who doesn’t, doesn’t like pursuing conflict.And so in the meeting, they could be silent and you know, not and not say anything, but you know, internally they’re frustrated.

11:49

You know, they’re, they’re losing energy in terms of moving and driving towards a goal, but you’re just not aware of it because because their process is not actually exploding or you know, or letting it out.I, I wonder whether with some of these things, like when you get to solutions in a second that they, that they, I, I think one of the things that it’s just, it’s always hard to know where to start.

12:09

You’ve got problems with the team problems and relationships that you, you know, I think everyone wants to solve at some level, but the, it’s hard to know where to start.But I think what I, from what I’ve seen, the key component, the key characteristics actually encouraging.So it’s, it’s that understanding of the confidence I have in myself who I’m in Christ.

12:30

If I’m confident in that, you can begin to push into think other things that might actually impact you and your role and your job.Because it’s a nerves of some people.I’ll feel lesser if I help other people and I lose.Or alternatively, people will think I’m being miserly if I don’t help other people much.

12:46

But actually there’s a gospel character saying no, I think I’m secure.I’m in Christ.I, I, I want to love this person.Well, as they’re actually stepping into that conflict with that gospel courage in that I think that’s the first step.And until it’s modelled by someone, it’s really hard to see how it can be everyone.

13:04

I think often within these team dynamics thinks it’s either unhealthy, too aggressive to create too much to creating disharmony.So I, I think on the reach team, we do, we don’t know perfectly, but I think we actually do this pretty well.We’ve had a, we’ve had a history of having, having pretty hard conversations, one on one has teams.

13:24

And so it’s been interesting.The team has grown and changed.We’ve had to work out how we do that and involve people in that because it can feel quite from confronting at points.But I think having that gospel courage to step into those moments begins to shape culture within them.So how do how do we deal with each of these things?

13:41

Again, can I encourage you to read the article.HB article is always great because they summarise things and have a a quick idea as well.But what are some things we can do to deal with each of these problem problem teams I guess.So, well, here’s what they say.They they’ve got four things.

13:58

Develop a clear vision and purpose, focus on alignment, outline responsibilities and establish behavioural norms.I suppose I’m I’m pushing into that last one first, establishing behaviour.So you’re talking about culture?I’m doing my culture.But you’re just saying super intelligent when you say established behavioural knobs well.Everyone.

14:14

You are quite learning now because you’re doing D min so.Notes, I’ve just read it off in articles.I’m not that learning, but like they start with a clear vision purpose and I think that’s right.You’ve got if everyone, if people are on a different page with why you’re on this team, they will continue to pull in different directions.

14:30

Which is, which is clarifying the way.Yeah, working hard to do that.But then you’ve got to keep keep doing that.I think.I think we see church teams often.We did vision.We did vision last year, you know, like, and it’s on our bulletin every week.Yeah.But actually, you got to keep coming back to it and cast it, celebrate stories that affirm it, pull out your stats so you can talk about it.

14:48

But just you as a, as a team leader, you as a church leader need to constantly be doing that at the the large level, but then also with your teams as well, just so that people are clear about where you’re going.Yep, and alignment.What do you mean?Well, again, I think you got to really fight hard for alignment and that again, that is part of having that trust that’s built up so you can have good, good conflict because there’s a, there’s a reality.

15:10

We all want to do well in our own area and we are all competing for limited resources.And so sometimes you have to, you know, your team has to miss out or you have to go, you know, down the priority list in order for another person on your team’s, you know, goals and aims to be to be done.

15:27

Yep, I think, I think where the conflict happens is that often is that third thing where we actually don’t, we’re not clear on responsibilities.And so there’s, there’s an overlap or there’s just a lack of clarity about what we’re trying to achieve.And so fighting, fighting for that is, is really important, pausing and stopping to say, well, OK, where, where are we?

15:46

Where, where is there overlap?Where is there not, you know, where is where is our our kind of our job description or our responsibility kind of grown and gone greater because the reality is over time, we all tend towards complexity and adding things.We often don’t do the pruning process and actually stop.

16:03

Yep, Yep, 100% now.In terms of in terms of the, you know, the Shark Tank and dealing specifically with the Shark Tank, it’s actually about having good culture, having people aligned in terms of values and vision.But it also means, I think, particularly for the church leader, that they have to actually have to live this out and, and be part of the team and, and also sacrifice, which I think often for the, the, the, the church leader.

16:30

It means, you know, you kind of sit in this place where you’re, you know, you’re driving vision and culture and direction, but you’re also sitting in the system.And so you actually have to play by the rules of the system.And so that means actually doing that, which I think can be hard for a lot of leaders.

16:46

I know, I know I wrestle with that at times and I just have to say sorry and I have to actually do what the team needs me to do.In terms of the petting zoo, there’s a recognition we we need to have conflict.So you actually, you actually need to press into that.

17:03

I think, you know, doing, doing something that helps give you self awareness as a team.You know, again, just do some something that helps you talk about, OK, how do we respond to change?How do we respond to conflict?But also how is it that we actually, you know, get that feeling and that and that out because everyone, everyone on the team’s going to have a, you know, a different approach to that.

17:22

And in terms of mediocracy, I think the forward planning is a real hard function that I think because of the nature of ministry, which you just caught in the seven day cycle that I don’t think we do well.And, and also a lot of the creative energy of our church.

17:38

So this is actually, I think, sucked up in the regular activity of of preaching.And so it’s something you got to fight for as a leader.I think particularly in church, you got to fight for that time to sort of have feet on desk time to be able to pause and to be able to look ahead.So I’ve been talking about in leadership development Co Co, it’s about creating a wonder document, you know, a document where you’re actually looking ahead and it’s not a strategic plan, it’s not formal, but it’s just you thinking through, OK, my ministry area, what would it look like if we saw the growth that we’re actually wanting to see?

18:09

How many, you know, small groups might that mean?How many leaders might I need to train?How many leaders might we, you know, have a what, what’s the size of it like?It just helps you think and plan.And I don’t think we’re very good at doing that because we’re caught up in, you know, what’s in front of us.Yeah, it’s hard.To be all right, Well, what’s the one thing that you want ministry deems to think about or avoid in terms of dysfunction?

18:31

I’ve, I, I’d encourage people to read the article and reflect on whether your team has some of the dysfunctions that are present there and, and press into a, a conflict conversation of, of talking about how it is you’re going this and you know, God willing, it might be nothing, you know, nothing serviced and you might actually go, no, we’re, we’re exhibiting none of these things and we’ve actually got a really good, healthy team.

18:54

Yeah, my gut feelings.There’s always something to work on.I’m giving you the best place.But anyway, yeah, there you go.I’m the optimist, Eric.I’m the obvious.I love it.All right, well, few things in the toolbox.Just to help you think through this, Scott, do you want to talk about the Lencioni ones?

19:10

And I’ve got a couple of them as well.Yeah, so Lencioni’s real thoughtful on this again, I reckon.Lencioni has got a great idea that he just talks about regulating all his books.So jump into the original 15 dysfunctions of a team, but particularly if you want him to push into silos and politics to turf wars.

19:27

I think that book by Patrick Lincioni is is the one that sort of press into some of the issues that have been raised by this article.Yeah, great.Well, my ones are my book of the year 2024.That’s last year, obviously, apart from Herdie’s Growth and Change and Steve Mcalpine’s Future Proof.

19:45

Apart from those, my book of the year last year is a book by Burns Guthrie Chapman, who wrote Brazilian Ministry as some people heard, but it’s called The Politics of Ministry.It’s excellent just thinking about what it looks like to navigate in healthy gospel way, relationships within church.So really relevant here.

20:02

The other one which I think is really helpful is a book called Polarisation and the Healthier Church.It does take family systems and looks at churches and teams and things like that by Ronald Richardson and I I find that I found that a really helpful book just to have some categories to think into why I’m sometimes I over functioning or under functioning.

20:19

But yeah.Well, if you’ve got a topic that you want us to cover, please email us at [email protected] dot AU.I’m Scott Sanders.I’m Derek Hannah.Chat soon.