Teamwork skills: 4 signs of bad teamwork

We have all heard everybody’s favourite teamwork quote: “Teamwork makes the dream work.” However many of us don’t know the conclusion to author and leadership legend John C. Maxwell’s famous saying. The full quote goes “Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.” This means that the first step to successful teamwork is knowing what doesn’t work. Here are 4 signs you may be working with a bad team. 

There is a ‘me first’ mentality

A sign of bad teamwork is a group of people who don’t work as a group. When a team works as individuals with ‘me first’ attitudes, they result in ‘me-only’ outcomes. An individualistic mentality leads to team members working in silos poorly communicating at a team level or not communicating at all by keeping key information, leads, ideas and best practices to themselves.

There is conflict

Conflict is virtually unavoidable when it comes to working with a team but when teams run into more friction than collaboration, the environment can become toxic, territorial dysfunctional and unproductive.

The common goal isn’t in focus

When individuals within a team are more focused on personal success or glory rather than the success of the project, team or organisation as a whole, it is a sign of a bad team. This can happen when individual performances are rewarded with compensation based on quotas rather than rewarding and encouraging team or department success.

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Unique strengths and weaknesses aren’t used

Every member of a team possesses individual strengths and weaknesses. Not recognising and utilising individual skills while developing weaknesses is a recipe for disaster and bad teamwork.

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