Businesses are becoming more aware that they can suffer as a consequence of ineffective teamwork. Some teams, for example:

• Don’t gel together
• Are not cohesive in their approach
• Don’t see eye to eye
• Can’t resolve conflict or professional disagreements that crop up

This can be a nightmare for companies and can come up quite regularly.

The symptoms that a team is not working are initially vague, however they can gradually steam roll into huge problems that affect the team’s performance. The type of statements that are initially heard (or overheard) from the team members are something to this effect:

• ‘Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to look into that issue’
• ‘Weren’t you supposed to draw up the document, I thought you would be handling it’
• ‘I wasn’t sure which one of us was going to visit the field; my understanding was that it was going to be you’
• ‘That’s not my job; Tom was supposed to handle it’
• ‘I was not aware of it, nobody informed me’

What seems at the outset as a miscommunication can actually be a huge symptom that most companies miss. It can mean the team members are not talking often enough, not consulting each other, not sharing information and not interacting enough. The result is team performance that is below par, with unnecessary blunders.

Communication glitches are more than just simple miscommunication. It is important to be wary of this first symptom. This is a warning sign that other problems could exist in the team. If you want to avoid the adverse effects then actively look for ways to identify the real problem and work out a solution.