Team Interactions

Sometimes during team meetings, members are unresponsive to questions and issues. The discussions may break down, leaving some issues unresolved or preventing the team moving forward. POSSIBLE CAUSES Team may become non-responsive under conditions like the following: • The topic of discussion is ...

Overly talkative team members dominate the discussion and slow down the project team’s progress. Other team members cannot contribute their information, ideas, opinions, and expertise. Other team members may perceive their contributions as not being important. Ultimately, the team’s creativity and effectiveness may suffer.

Silence should not be viewed outright as unproductive behavior by members who do not participate in team discussions. Silence is reasonable when a team member is in general agreement with what is being said, has no contribution to make, or needs to hear more before commenting. However, team members may be quiet for other reasons, and their silence may be detrimental to the team’s efforts. It will be up to team members to encourage the participation of their quiet colleagues.

Some team members may raise issues which are not relevant to the issues under discussion. This can be counter-productive to the team members’ ability to work together and achieve their mission. When people keep raising irrelevant issues, the meeting gets off track and off schedule, and other team members become frustrated. For example, at times, a team member may try to get the team to revisit theories that were previously rejected because the data did not support them.

It is very common that team members may hold side conversations during a meeting. While these conversations can become a minor annoyance, they can also be extremely disruptive to the process if not brought under control.

A good meeting is an open exchange of ideas. As the team discusses and debates the ideas on the table, there may be conflict. In these situations, it is important to view the conflicts as one of ideas rather than of people and feelings.

Throughout the project, team members will exchange many ideas and consider many suggestions before they solve their quality problem. Very few suggestions will contain the entire solution. More likely, it will take the best parts of many suggestions to solve the problem. Disagreements are expected, but outright summary rejections must be prevented. If members feel their suggestions will be ridiculed or dismissed, they may stop making any suggestions. The team should work to avoid this problem and alleviate it when it occurs.

Often a project team is comprised of individuals who represent different levels of authority within the organization. The presence of the more senior members may inhibit other team members. (The presence of a technical expert may also have a similar effect.)