Straightforward Thoughts - Antonio Hallage

Overcoming team’s dysfunctions A team that intend to serve Rotary or through the Rotary Foundation either at the club, district or international levels may be suffering of some of the main dysfunctions that a group may experience while trying to be effective. They are: the absence of mutual trust, the fear of conflict, the lack of committment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.

Because team work is needed and at the same time difficult to be measured, we can propose some roads to an analysis of how to overcome some of its dysfunctions.

Even before we start any analysis, we must ask: “Are we really a team?” A team is generally composed by 3 to 12 persons that have common purposes and goals and that share results and responsibility.

From there we can start to analyze the inefficiencies and find ways to overcome them.

Developing common trust - For a team to develop an effective relation of common trust, its members must have the courage, beginning with the team leader to risk losing face in front of the team and demonstrate their vulnerabilities first. By sharing their vulnerabilities an empathy is developed between the members of the group, that starts to learn that when someone disagrees of one’s opinion, this may be a result of prior personal experiences and the consensual decisions become smoother to be taken.

Administering conflicts - The conflict, looked towards its positive side, is essential to build a strong team. On teams that there is 37