Mitigating Bad Team Habits

Every team goes through multiple phases in their life span; bad habits can form at various stages of the team lifecycle, especially among those with a long work history. Great leaders recognize poor behaviors as they emerge and put an action plan to dissolve them as soon as possible.

There are seven common poor team habits: social loafing, free riders, group thinking, escalation of commitment, group polarization, group potency and the Abilene Paradox. We will define each habit and offer tips to mitigate against the behavior while preserving team relationships.

Social Loafing

This occurs when team members exert less effort than they would if working alone, often due to a false sense of their contribution’s value. This behavior indicates a loss of motivation or loss of interest in the designated work.

To minimize social loafing, a leader needs to remind the team of their collective goal, emphasize the importance of each member's involvement and ensure individual contributions are visible and rewarded.

Free Riders

Free riders are those members who benefit from the team's efforts without contributing much themselves. To address this poor behavior, leaders must incorporate individual expectations and team performance metrics into team agreements. They must encourage the team to develop, and abide by, a team charter putting a framework on how they operate.

Other team members can also combat free-riding by applying pressure or reducing their own extra efforts.

Group Thinking

Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), happens when the desire for consensus overrides good judgment. This behavior is often seen in teams that consider themselves invulnerable and morally correct.

Monitoring and reducing the team size, easing pressure for uniformity and encouraging diverse thinking are some of strategies leaders can undertake to counter group thinking.

Leaders can also appoint facilitators to play devil's advocate and invite external perspectives to encourage different viewpoints.

Escalation of Commitment

Escalation of commitment happens when teams continue on a losing strategy despite clear evidence of its potential failure. To mitigate against this habit, leaders must know when to stop pursing a losing cause themselves and encourage their teams to back off from the futile commitment. They need to recognize sunk costs and consider involving external reviewers to prevent bystander effect or tunnel vision.

Setting limits on continued investment will certainly minimize this behavior.

Group Polarization

Polarization happens when discussions intensify opinions leading to extreme judgments than if individual views were considered separately. According to Leigh L. Thompson (2015), Making The Team, this behavior is driven by two factors: “the need to be right” and “the need to be liked”. 

Introducing scientific facts and appointing an external governance body for review will help bridge opinions and encourage idea collaboration.

Group Potency

Group potency happens when the "we can do it" belief overshadows actual ability. While maintaining a positive attitude is a good thing, excessive positivity can lead to a "God Complex," which can be detrimental.

Leaders can mitigate against this behavior by presenting facts to their teams and reevaluating the group's structure and composition.

The Abilene Paradox

This phenomenon happens when team members prioritize consensus over critical thinking to avoid conflict, even if they disagree with what's being presented. The behavior is especially prominent when:

* Someone with expertise is among the group.

* A compelling argument is made.

* A team member (or several) lack confidence in their ability to contribute.

* The team operates under dysfunctional decision-making styles.

* There is pressure to conform.

To mitigate against Abilene Paradox, leaders can introduce a private voting system and provide a forum for controversial views such as segmenting discussions into pros and cons.