Have you ever been working on a team project where one person does nothing? Most of us have, and it’s easy to chalk it up to the other person being lazy. But, since relationships are two-way streets, the more than likely scenario is that we helped cause it.
“Excuse me?” you say. “All I did was work really hard.” Maybe so, but let’s think about it for a minute.
Currently, one can find many business management resources that discuss the idea of employee engagement. I’m going to pull from Gallup’s 2015 book How Full Is Your Bucket by Don Clifton and Tom Rath. In the preface, Rath explains that negativity is a form of disengagement. Gallup calls it “active disengagement.” So, while you may think you were engaged because you were busy working on the team project, you might have been actively disengaged by being critical. Rath writes, “One negative person can quickly bring down the well-being of colleagues, customers, friends, and family members.”
Now, I’m not accusing you of being a negative person in general. Still, if you were verbally negative during team discussions, your negativity might have helped cause the other team member to stop working. But if you were, don’t beat yourself up about it. Because actually, we can get excited by this notion. It means there’s something we can all do to keep this from happening in the future.
Gallup research has revealed that team leaders can almost eliminate disengagement (lowering it to only 1%) by focusing on team member strengths. In contrast, leaders who focus on member weaknesses are looking at a 22% chance of disengagement. Even worse, if leaders ignore member strengths and weaknesses, disengagement could rise as high as 40%. So, ignore members and their input at your peril.
Next time you are working on a team project, instead of assuming you are going to have to do all of the work yourself, learn to discover and focus on the strengths of your teammates, refrain from being verbally negative, and, whatever you do, don’t ignore the other members.
Please report back and let me know if this information helped!
And check out the great little book from the article… How Full Is Your Bucket