Why Teams Turn Toxic, and How to Heal Them

This article is by Christine M. Riordan. She is the dean and a professor of management at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver.

In his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni compares high performing teams to expert oarsmen: "If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

I recently observed a team that not only had members rowing in different directions, but they were in three different boats. When the boats got close to one another, the members beat one another with paddles. That team was toxic.

Unfortunately, scores of teams are like that, particularly in stressful economic times.

Research shows that serious strife within teams takes a high toll. Among individuals, team discord leads to stress, low job satisfaction, poor productivity, anger, despair, and physical ailments such as insomnia. For teams, it can impair productivity, learning, collaboration, and even survival. Discord increases organizational costs when firms have to invest in coaching, performance management, conflict resolution, and mediation. Finally, team toxicity affects others in an organization and consumers.

How do you get a toxic team past its dysfunctional behavior?

1. Leaders must initiate crucial conversations. Research has confirmed that a leader’s ability to address team conflict is crucial to successfully resolving toxicity. Ideally, the team’s own leader will address the issue, but if the leader is part of the problem, another team member or someone from outside must initiate the conversation. The true mettle of a team is tested by how it deals with bad behaviors and violated expectations, and its success may hinge on how its leader handles them. Leaders who avoid crucial conversations, fearful of damaging relationships, ultimately pay a price in damaged team morale.

2. Focus on accountability and stopping bullying. Once a leader initiates the crucial conversations, team members must join in and take responsibility for their roles in causing team toxicity. It is far easier to blame and judge others than to look at one’s own offenses. Sometimes members bully one another to get their way. This can take the form of spreading rumors, making unfounded accusations, yelling, glaring, interrupting, undercutting, undervaluing, humiliating, or sabotaging other members of the team. Such actions create a miserable work environment. Members should focus on achieving team results and engaging in behaviors that help the team move forward. Sports teams often call players-only meetings to turn around losing situations, raise morale, and rebuild teamwork—without the coach making them.

3. Work on communication, conflict, and problem-solving skills. Just as individuals can need help with personal relationships, teams can need help developing positive relations. In tense situations, people often make rash judgments and assign blame. Professionally facilitated sessions can help air basic issues and help make people better team members.

4. Create a shared vision and shared goals. Along with clear goals, a shared vision of the larger purpose behind those goals provides structure and direction and a context within which members can make decisions. Involve the team in goal setting to increase each member's buy-in and commitment, and plan well. In toxic situations, everyone needs to move beyond the past. To use the words of John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, team members need to “promise to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater achievements in the future.”

5. Develop a social contract for team behavior. Set ground rules for how members of the team will behave, make decisions, share information, and support one another. Social contracts set the norms for team interaction. They may both prescribe positive behaviors (e.g., be honest, transparent, candid, and trustworthy) and proscribe negative ones (e.g., no negative e-mail blasts to team members).

6. Recognize that disagreements should not ravage a team. Differences of opinion, respectful debate, and constructive conflict can make for a healthy team. Discussions and debates about serious issues can result in better team decisions. But if they get personal, they can be destructive. Team members must know when to stop fighting or complaining and when to start listening or gathering more evidence. They must remain open to new ideas, accept input from others, explore options, and work toward win-win solutions. Each member must recognize that his or her idea may not always offer the best solution, and must accept the chosen outcome instead of harboring grudges against other members.

Dysfunction leads to devastation. Team members must recognize this fact to avoid missing opportunities for the great achievements that only a team can accomplish. As Malcolm Gladwell notes in his book Outliers, No one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone.”