The power of shared learning

One of my clients is struggling with a pretty dysfunctional leadership team. It’s a small team, but they have all the classic characters:

• Colleagues who are unwilling to give critical feedback and make hard calls.
• Team members who have been around a long time and are stuck in “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
• A new team member who brings new ideas to the table and is facing resistance and criticism for trying to change things.
• Team members who are completely uninvolved with the core work of the organization and aren’t interested in learning about it.
• Team members who see pushback as a personal criticism rather than a desire for mutual improvement.

My client and I have been working through some different approaches, and this week we talked about one of my favorites: a shared learning experience.

Sometimes, when the team gets to a certain level of dysfunction, we get buried in defensiveness and it can feel like there is no way out. Instead of coming together, the gaps get wider.

One strategy I have seen work is just to step away from the day to day work and engage in a shared learning experience. Something that is new to everyone, not one person saying “I’m an expert in this and I want you all to learn it” or “this is my favorite book and you all would be better for knowing it.” Selecting something that is new to everyone levels the playing field. Everyone is a learner. And it gets the team away from “you don’t know as much as I do about my work.” or “you don’t understand how we do things around here.”

Depending on the resources you have available to do this, this approach can take a variety of forms.

• An article discussion about something tangential to your work.
• A book study; perhaps a personal development book or even a novel.
• A cooking class or cultural experience.

Taking the focus away from the work and the conflict for a brief moment can allow people to make connections with colleagues with whom they are typically at odds. It allows people to find common ground and perhaps even understand better what makes their adversary tick.

In my experience, sharing a learning experience with colleagues in a different context will break down some barriers. Returning to the work, there have been moments of compassion and understanding, igniting a shared desire to resolve the constant conflict.

It’s not a guarantee, and it certainly isn’t going to fix the dysfunction completely, but it could be a good place to start.

Have you had success with this approach? What else have you done to successfully shake up a team that feels hopelessly at odds?

Share your suggestions below!