#team dysfunction

very good at violence

emotionally unavailable

looks amazing in sand and sweat

Team Dysfunction – Why It Happens and How to Fix It?

“Success comes only for those groups that overcome the all-too-human behavioral tendencies that corrupt teams and bread dysfunctional politics within them ” – Patrick Lencioni

The workplace culture of any company is paramount to business success. It is noteworthy to understand that culture is present in all organizations. However, sometimes, a deficit of positivity from the organizational…

Digitally-enabled team peer assessment: a fast, fly-past

In situations of group work, how do we 

Raise group members’ employability competencies

Minimise free-riding

Identify dysfunctional team behaviour

Calculate a fair grade or bonus based on contribution, leadership, and teamwork?

We propose that conducting at least two peer assessments, one formative then one summative is the best practice solution for raising individual results, team performance, employability, and minimizing risks (Mellalieu & Dodd, 2019).

The video presents a fast, fly-by of a digitally-enabled solution addressing these issues when they arise from group work in higher education, such as team-based learning (TBL).

An effective solution provides a flexible and comprehensive platform for team coaches and teachers to manage the group-based peer assessment and peer feedback processes. These processes contribute to several positive feedback loops that improve team effectiveness, academic results and employability (Mellalieu, 2019).

Decision criteria

What factors are relevant to making a choice about a preferred platform for managing peer feedback and peer assessment in teams? 

Amongst the criteria we suggest are

Result preview, publication, and update

Speed to deploy

Team and individual dysfunction alerts

Personal result calculation

Teamset management - ability to adjust the composition of one or more teams during the progress of a peer assessment

Standardised qualitative and qualitative rating rubrics

Automated deployment and notifications to team members and teachers

The video illustrates the relevance and importance of these features from the perspective of both a teacher and team member.

Learn more: Best practice in academic team assignments

View our experience-based best practices for peer assessment preparation, diagnosing team health, and team feedback in our recorded webinar

Improving Group Assignments through Peer Feedback and Peer Assessment. 

References

In the last post we discussed how a team can be dysfunctional.  To refresh, there are five dysfunctions that can affect a team: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.  In this post I would like to address solutions and tools that will allow a team to overcome dysfunction and succeed.  Lencioni offers multiple suggestions…

Why do teams fail?

  In an ideal world, a team would come together in perfect harmony, making decisions, hitting targets, and developing organizational strategy.  But honestly, typically  nothing is farther from the truth.  As a team builder you will be dealing with many different personalities, levels of knowledge, and varying levels of skill that make cohesiveness challenging.  So, how do you work through team…