Diagnosing & Fixing Dysfunctional Teams

Harvard Management Update, April 2009 

Article Contributor, Laura Stone, President

The perfect team doesn’t exist.  Because teams are made up of fallible human beings, they have flaws and failings. Even so, they get the work done – most of the time.  But in some cases, a team’s fallibilities are so pronounced that the team does not get the work done, or it generates as many problems as solutions. In the current global economy, when organizations need to wring the maximum value out of every last resource, such dysfunctional teams need to be fixed, and fast.

“Without a clearly defined goal, every team resource is going to be under leveraged. Unless teammates fully understand the team’s objectives, they will inevitably work at cross purposes.”

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