Poor leadership, vague communication and the absence of a clear purpose are stopping team success in Britain’s workplaces, according to workplace psychologists OPP.
OPP surveyed thousands of people to find out what the public believes are the hurdles to the success of a team.
Almost one in six respondents (16%) admitted that they did not know what was preventing their team from performing better.
However nearly half (48%) believed that poor leadership was a hurdle to team success. Almost as many (46%) thought that internal communication within the team was holding back its performance.
Around one in four (24%) felt that their team lacked a clear and defined purpose.
Ameet Thakkar, Principal Consultant at OPP, said: “There is no one right or wrong way for a team to work as success factors depend on the people making up the team, their objectives and the cultural environment in which they work. However, there are professional techniques to help teams identify points of strength and weakness, enabling them not only to work more efficiently but also with clearer communication and a common purpose.
“More and more businesses recognise the importance of understanding the various personality types within their teams. This can make clearer the best way to resolve problems, improve communication and achieve better performance as a team.
“Ineffective team-working can have a real and significant impact on the bottom line – so with huge numbers of British workers operating in teams as part of their job, finding a way to maximise their efficiency can only improve a business’s performance. Never is this more pertinent than during and post recession, when teams may feel stretched and demotivated.”
According to OPP, those organisations that succeed in raising individual and communal awareness of the way team members prefer to interact with each other stand a better chance of fostering efficient, productive teams. Tools like the MBTI instrument do just that, by analysing what information individuals prefer to focus on and what processes they use in decision making. In gaining this kind of self-awareness, a team can develop more constructive and enhanced ways of working together.
“Nearly half of those surveyed felt that internal communication is a real roadblock to better team performance,” added Ameet. “Therefore having a framework to instigate team understanding and communication will enable them to perform better and, ultimately, add improve business performance”.
For more information visit www.opp.eu.com
