Almost 90% of teams are ‘unhealthy’. Here’s how to nurse yours back to peak condition

Research from tech Goliath Atlassian has found that 88% of teams operating in the US and Australia are in some way ‘unhealthy’.

With the threat of The Great Resignation hanging in the air, that’s cause for concern for employers.

The State of Teams report focused on four key indicators of team health: engagement, performance, sustainability and team climate — that is, whether people within the team feel supported, aligned in their values and psychologically safe.

While only 12% of teams scored well in all metrics, 36% fell short in all four.

We can see where businesses are going wrong, Atlassian work futurist Dom Price tells SmartCompany Plus.

The question is: what can business owners do about it?

Luckily, within small businesses, small changes can have an outsized impact.

Boosting your team’s health doesn’t have to be daunting, Price says. There’s no need for expensive consultants or reams of new tech. You don’t even need new policies.

These are the six steps to assessing your team’s health, and starting to improve it.

Conduct a health check

This simply means measuring your own team against the four health metrics, and it doesn’t have to be a high-tech, arduous or stressful task.

With his own team at Atlassian, Price recently conducted a quick health check over a video call using a ‘thumbs-up or thumbs-down’ method. Team members simply voted on what was working and what was not.

Business owners could also use a free, anonymous survey tool or one-to-one meetings. The point is simply to identify areas in which team members are not satisfied. Then, you can start to address them one at a time, Price says.

Involve teams in decision-making

One of the major themes that came out of the survey was around trust. Trust is a “massively overused” word in business, with many different meanings depending on the context, Price says.

“But without it, teams just don’t operate.”

Many of those working in unhealthy teams highlighted a “problematic organisational culture”. Either they don’t have trust in their leadership, or they don’t feel decisions are made openly.

If a decision is made, and staff members are told about it after the fact, they may feel excluded and disempowered to have any impact in their organisation. That leads to a ‘just a job’ mindset.

Ask for your team’s opinions and input before the decision is made, Price advises, and they will instantly feel more engaged.

Reflect on what hasn’t worked

The survey suggested a strong culture and connection to people is more important for innovation than tech tools.

Atlassian is itself a purveyor of such tools, and Price acknowledged the irony.

But he says leaders can easily fall into the trap of relying on tech, while forgetting to focus on the culture of the organisation and the psychological safety of the teams within it.

Of those teams that scored highly for innovation, 95% said they discuss what hasn’t worked, as well as celebrating what has.

Atlassian’s teams have fortnightly ‘retrospectives’, Price says, discussing what has happened, and what the team should start doing, stop doing and continue doing.

“Those conversations are free, human-to-human conversations,” he notes.

“It’s very empowering.”

Embrace the ‘ritual reset’

Atlassian has also recently rolled out what Price calls ‘the ritual reset play’ — something of a spring clean for the way teams work.

A ritual reset is essentially a pause, giving leaders and team members a moment to assess which practices, meetings and habits are adding value, and what could be cut back.

“Despite what I should know, I keep on copy, cut and pasting my working week from the office to home, and then being confused as to why it doesn’t work,” Price admits.

He now conducts a ritual reset with his team every quarter. If there are any meetings or other rituals the team can’t quickly explain the purpose of, they can generally be cut.

“People need a sense of purpose in their work, but we’re a bit distracted trying to do all the things.”

Adapt your leadership style

Customer and worker demands are changing. Many businesses are facing stiffer competition, and the way consumers and employees interact with business is evolving.

All of that means leaders have to evolve too.

Pre-pandemic, Price would often conduct workshops with his team in person. When they shifted to remote work, he started running them online instead.

As an extrovert, he’s always felt this type of collaboration is best done face-to-face, he explains.

However, a member of his team suggested taking an asynchronous approach, whereby a document is shared for 24 hours, allowing everyone to add their ideas in their own time, for review afterwards.

It has meant he’s now hearing more input from more introverted members of the team.

“Suddenly, we had more diversity of views and different opinions in there,” Price says.

He urges leaders to think about how they can do the same work in more practical, more pragmatic ways, getting people to engage differently for better results.

Do less, not more

Many of these workplace health concerns have been exacerbated by COVID-19, which has caused upheaval and uncertainty in everyone’s lives.

But the issues existed previously too. The pandemic has seen some leaders take their eye off the ball when it comes to team wellbeing.

And Price doesn’t blame them.

“There’s this assumption that leaders need to be superheroes right now,” he says.

Business owners and leaders are under pressure to be inspirational during difficult times; to demonstrate care for employees’ mental health; to manage the shift to hybrid working; to be vulnerable; to drive the company forward; and to do their best work themselves.

They should stop trying to do any more, Price says.

“Let’s just pause. What are the two or three things we can do to be effective?”

By shaking up the way you operate and getting the team to help you do it, you can free up time and resources to work smarter while also empowering employees and moving the needle towards a healthier environment.

“The team takes more responsibility for their ways of working, which instantly signs you up for agility, nimbleness and the ability to adapt,” Price explains.

“You’re going to get net gains as an organisation. You’re going to have happier people who are more engaged, with more motivation, doing better work. So happier customers.”