Managing Inherited Teams

Many managers would prefer to build a team from scratch than to inherit one. While recruiting and selecting staff is not easy, it is often less arduous than trying to manage an intact team that someone else put together. I don’t want to imply that inherited teams or team members are bad. I’ve been blessed many times over the years to manage very strong and effective teams that were in place before I arrived. I owe much of what I’ve learned about leadership to the informal mentors and guides who were “subordinate” to me in rank but knew much more than I did. Wisdom is certainly not the unique domain of those in leadership roles.

Though inherited teams can be an advantage for a manager, there are times when they can be a colossal challenge. This is especially true when a manager is given a mandate that includes a significant change agenda. The manager must find ways to influence, convince, persuade, cajole and sometimes push team members to buy into the new plans. This can be complex because the team already has well established group norms and a litany of individual and collective experiences that may serve to slow or resist change. I call this “history.” History consists of the expectations, mental models and behavioral patterns that have formed and become imbedded over time. Inevitably, some of this history collects as baggage. I see baggage as a mix of “rights” and “slights.” Let me explain. With respect to rights, I’m not referring to legal rights or the rights and privileges granted to employees by their employer. Instead, I’m talking about assumed rights, such as, “I don’t do tasks A, B or C because I am the senior member of the project team.” These rights are not written down anywhere. That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t exist. The problem is that they are hidden away in people’s heads. Worse, they are acted out (usually badly) instead of being spoken out. In other words, a new manager is not aware of these personally held rights until he/she violates one of them.

The book of “slights” that people log over time is a bit different. Slights consist of persistent, unresolved feelings of unfairness, mistreatment, disrespect, isolation, etc. that team members harbor because of some past experiences. They may be objective or subjective in nature; either way though, they are very real to the person who holds them. In the mind of the employee, these slights were inflicted by other team members, managers or the ubiquitous, nameless and faceless “they” that we discussed in last week’s blog post. Just to be clear, my use of the word “slights” does not refer to grievances, discrimination complaints or other formal matters. Instead I am using the term to give a name to the negative, internalized feelings which individuals develop because they feel “dissed” in some way. These are the kind of feelings that adversely impact attitudes, enthusiasm and productivity. For example, “I always get passed up for promotion because I’m not afraid to speak up about how things really work around here.”

Baggage gets in the way of team effectiveness and needs to be carefully and skillfully sorted through and resolved. Ignoring baggage or stowing it away is a bad idea. Think about baggage in the literal sense. Consider that what you’re dealing with is alligator skin. It’s extremely tough but needs to be treated with great care. It’s highly detestable to some but very precious to others (especially to alligators). By the way, we all have baggage, so it’s best not to go around pointing fingers.

In working with inherited teams, the objective of the manager is to understand the history as much as possible. The new manager can never be part of the history but does need to be a good student of it. The old adage applies, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I would say it another way for today’s discussion, “Managers who fail to understand the history of a team are destined to stumble over a lot of baggage.” This is where good listening and observation skills are vital. It’s important to identify when team members have feelings, perspectives and mindsets that create resistance to change. Instead of immediately labeling these individuals as poor team players, it’s helpful to try to understand the genesis of the resisting forces. For example, teams are slow to engage in change initiatives when there is a history of very strong starts but very poor finishes within an organization. Promising new initiatives are kicked off with great fanfare but fizzle out before the implementation stage or are quickly replaced by something else that comes in vogue. Teams with this type of history tend to be reticent about jumping in with both feet. They reserve their energy and tend to discount change initiatives using their internalized “probability of success meters.” A manager faced with this type of obstacle might try creating a series of small but consistent changes that provide a very tangible benefit to team members. The manager in this instance is trying to establish credibility that will help to counteract the skeptics who will be applying the discount factor. It’s not a quick process but it can be an effective one.

Next week we’ll discuss the strategy of using “Amnesty” to engage teams that are carrying a lot of baggage. It’s a unique and provocative way of resetting the dial for teams that need a clean slate and a fresh start.