“Well, the bonus was designed to promote teamwork. At the end of the year, if they made their team goal, everyone would get the same amount of incentive from the pool,” Naomi explained.
“And?” I prompted.
“And, it turns out that some team members feel like they are doing all the work and that other team members are not contributing at the same level. A little resentment. And it goes both ways, the others say they are doing their best, but circumstances are preventing the team from reaching their goal.”
“And, what is your role, as the manager?”
“My role? I am trying to stay out of it. The consultant said to let the team work it out. This group dynamics stuff, you know.”
“And how is that approach working for you, as a manager?” -TF
I am confused by this post – what consultant would tell a manager that he is not responsible for setting the behavoir and accontability of the team.
If the manager falls into the, “I am staying out of it” what happens is the team then says, “why should we care if you are not accoutable, if the manager says nothing it is not my job to keep the team in line.”
This resentment you write of is developed from the team keeping score of what is happening, this is a poor set for team dynamics. If the goals are not being reached, perhaps you need to re-examine the goals, or examine which team members are on the team that has this goal set, or examine the team members existing responsibilities and see where they are not fulfilling the goal.
Those who are felt to be “not contributing on the same level” this sounds like a myopic view. View a longer term team scale and see how the balance lies.
I would take an educated guess that what was said by the consultant and what was interpreted by this manager are not the same thing and the information was not fully understood. Management is not learned in a weekend and consultants would probably prefer long term follow ups to what they teach for that reason.
Managers should ask questions, reassign duties, ask for involvment, and engage the team. What things happened in the rope course that required the team to come together? What worked? Did this manager take notes on those sorts of things?