8 Wretched Ways to Destroy Team Alignment

How you’re sabotaging team alignment, let us count the ways. We get it, no manager or leader intentionally sets out to destroy the alignment of the teams that they’ve built, but it’s what we don’t know that can hurt us. You may not realize these ultra-common ways that leaders are tearing down exactly the thing they’ve worked so hard to build.

Workers, execs and managers alike are fed up with traditional performance reviews for a number of reasons. 40% of employees dislike performance reviews because they are one-sided. Let team members participate in peer reviews for a relevant, inside look. 

Teams that have been together for a while tend to go a little stale; they start to rest on their laurels, and creativity needs a little dusting off. Mix it up every once in a while. Pull someone off, put someone on. Do this thoughtfully and transparently of course, but hit refresh every once in a while. Add a deviation!

“In our research, we’ve looked carefully at both teams that produced something original and those that were merely average, where nothing really sparkled. It turned out that the teams with deviants outperformed teams without them. In many cases, deviant thinking is a source of great innovation.” –  J. Richard Hackman, Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology

No leader likes to look like a tool, but that’s what happens when you don’t give your team the right communication tools. Set them up for success with workplace communication tools with a social element like Yammer or Slack. A solid project management hub would be ideal as well, like Asana.

58% of employees spend at least one hour per day looking for the necessary information to simply do their job. What do you think that is doing to team alignment? Creating roadblocks, slowing down productivity and increasing frustration—that’s what. Don’t just set teams on an island to “figure it out”, be a facilitator.

A post on this blog that we’re particularly proud of, “Stop Killing Diversity in the Name of the Company Culture”, was hopefully an eye-opener for a lot of employers who really thought they were doing this whole culture thing right. This quote from Moz Co-Founder, Rand Fishkin sums it up quite nicely:

“Cohesion isn’t about finding lots of people who are the same, but about making sure there’s no one on the team that detracts from others and that many get more enjoyment and progress from the diverse perspectives their co-workers bring.”

More often than not, teams are thrown together based on availability of talent, rather than crafted to work optimally. If human capital is truly your most valued business asset, how does that make any sense? Start using team alignment tools like psychometric testing to assemble teams optimally.