Barriers to Effective Teamwork

Because team building and development are difficult, team leaders and managers are interested in what factors hinder teamwork.

Koze and Masciale conducted interviews with business leaders and a survey of 4,500 teams in 500 Canadian organizations concerning barriers to teamwork.

They found two main factors influencing team effectiveness;

i) organizational factors, and

ii) individual factors.

The highest ranking organizational factors were;

i) inadequate rewards and

ii) compensation for team achievements.

The highest ranking individual factor was the “personal mind shift” of team members. Great scholar Schultes lists ten barriers to teamwork:

· Floundering

· Overbearing participants

· Dominating participants

· Reluctant participation

· Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts

· Rush to accomplishment

· Attrition

· Discounts and “plops”

· Wanderlust: digression and tangents

· Feuding members