Do you find meetings with your team disintegrate into dysfunction and chaos, resulting in ineffective decision-making, inadequate solutions, and team members — including yourself — with deflated morale? “Team” is a misnomer for these bodies; “group” is more accurate. Group members are accountable to the boss but not to each other; they often work in individual silos, oblivious to the bigger picture. At best, groups are inefficient and ungratifying; at their worst, they make consequential mistakes through poor communication and bad decisions. To turn your group into a team, you need curiosity. Curiosity encourages you to pause before problem solving and engage your team members in productive conversation, rather than talking past each other. It invites colleagues to contribute their honest perspective. And with a newfound understanding of collective and individual frustrations, you can learn to empathize with each other, work better together, and become a team invested in a shared outcome rather than individual agendas.
