Sales Team Moves From Dysfunction to Award Winning
Background
The Sheraton Birmingham sales team was struggling to reach their numbers and communicate within their organization effectively. The team was moved from several remote locations into one office building in hopes the physical change would have a positive impact on the team’s performance. The opposite occurred. Once the staff moved from their cozy offices into a bullpen of cubes together, no one spoke. It was apparent that fuzzy boundaries for job and departmental responsibilities left a trail of distrust. A staff member brought a copy of The Five Dysfunction of a Team to her boss, Sales Director Harry Traylor and boldly stated, “Our team has all five dysfunctions.”
Approach: Self-Facilitated, books and products
After realizing that a location change would not fix their problems, Traylor committed himself to improving his group’s teamwork. First, Traylor required his 26 member sales force to read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Then, Traylor scheduled an offsite for the team and used the Five Dysfunctions Facilitator's Guide to help him confront his team’s shortcomings. To better understand each other and develop a common language for addressing issues, team members took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This work allowed the team to openly and honestly address their strengths and weaknesses. The team discovered a newfound appreciation for each other and what they could achieve as a group. They symbolized this new way of thinking by burning papers that represented past team behavior.
The leader capitalized on the momentum from the offsite by employing Lencioni’s meeting structure (found in Death by Meeting) to keep key issues on the forefront. The foundation of trust and newfound structure created an atmosphere where team members could feel “safe” airing their opinions. The team was able to have healthy, productive ideological conflict around issues which prompted the team to make faster, smarter decisions. Once decisions were made, team members felt more comfortable holding their peers accountable for performance and behaviors.
Outcome: Team is transformed, more productive and recognized for their achievement
After barely being able to work together, the team’s work around The Five Dysfunctions of a Team proved to be transformational. The group went from barely being able to be in the same room together to a cohesive, high performing group. Their hard work and progress did not go unnoticed. The sales team went on to receive many national team-based awards including Sales and Catering Team of the Year by their parent company. Traylor states, “Many people have been through teambuilding exercises in the past that haven’t really made much of a difference. But, given the fact that The Five Dysfunctions of a Team model is focused on accountability and results, I think that people see the benefit relatively quickly.”
