subject: Rebuilding a Defunct Team: Is it worth it? or There's a Snake in my Boot! [print this page] Rebuilding a Defunct Team: Is it worth it? or There's a Snake in my Boot!
When there is dissention in the ranks of the management team what options do you have to rectify the situation? There are twelve basic personality types and seemingly endless combinations and variations that come into play in building a management team. Placing the wrong person in the wrong position can cause havoc on your team. It will grow like a cancer; slow and steadily infecting other members of the management team.
Unlike a direct, bold, straight-forward attack on the team leader having the wrong person in the wrong place on a team whose personality is such that they prefer back-stabbing, under-handed, half-truth, manipulative tactics will bring your team to a crashing halt. There is one basic personality type that fits this mold. It is the snake.
The snake is active, decisive and judicious but can be easily provoked and dislikes to be proven wrong.
Snakes have magnetic personalities. Charming and sophisticated in a sensual way, they usually have a good sense of humor but can be jealous and overly possessive. The snake seldom lets anyone know what he or she is truly thinking and are known to be secretive.
The female snake is bewitching and sophisticated. She dresses well with special attention to the tiny details.
The male snake isn't strong in the communication department.
The person born in the year of the snake often makes their way to the top of success. Unlike the dragon however, they are more restrained and refined. They are by no means, pushy, yet have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. They make decisions quickly and firmly.
Because they are intelligent and careful, snake-people make good research scientists, philosophers, detectives, or professors. They have a very analytical mind, yet seem to have an ability to "sense" a good thing when they see it.
They lean toward elegance and expensiveness. It is rare to find a snake person wearing bold colors and gaudy dress. In money matters, the snake has good fortune, but is often considered a tightwad.
The snake and its complementary sign, the dragon, form the "House of Mystery". The dragon is the gaudy magician; the snake is the contemplative mystic. The snake is closely associated with plots and counter-plots, scandal and corruption. The expression "long snake" in Chinese means "intrigue".
Ultimately, they don't make good team players. It is their nature to be involved in plots, counter-plots, scandal and corruption. Eventually they will begin to work their charms on others, think Eve and the Snake in the Garden of Eden. They can't help it. It's just the way they are.
Because they are highly intelligent, analytical and have a knack for positioning themselves, and all the other not so upright traits, they tend to become the poison apple on an otherwise productive team. Once the snake has its prey in sight, it cannot let go; and one-by-one weaker team members fall prey to their manipulitive charms.
Slowly, steadily, the team falls apart and collapses. Eventually the snake loses interests and leaves; leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As the team leader, you have to take action. You cannot let this destroy everything. Even your position is in jeopardy because a snake is in the wrong place. So it should be clear that understanding the twelve basic personality types when hiring, puts people in the right positions from the start.
Having a snake employee is a good thing. Having them on a management team is not. Having a snake employee who comes in, does their work, without much social interaction, and then goes home is good. Finding a place for a snake to flourish is a challenge, but well worth it. Snakes are good employees, they just don't play well with others. They can be happy and productive if left to their own devices away from other people.
But once a snake has corrupted your team, has turned members against one another can that team be rebuilt? Can hurt feelings be mended? Can trust be reestablished? Can members of the team forgive and forget? Is it fair to subject people to the venom of an angry snake, time and time again? Can a snake be put in its place, made to back down and place nice with everyone?
The answer is yes.
But for how long?
Once a snake shows its true colors, reveals its nature, most people understand that it is only a matter of time before it will start all over again. There is always an expectation for the snake to strike. Then what kind of team do you have? Your smart, possivtie, motivated members who have been vitimized by the snake aren't going to stay around to see what happens again. Your dedicated, faithful members will grow weary of the constant upheaval and suspicions and will seek employment elsewhere. The ones you want to stay will go, the ones you want to go will stay and feed on the new members as they come in. All is lost.
The correct action is to remove the snake from the team. The team as a whole will funtion better with the snake behind a glass wall. It is better to reposition the snake, force them into isolation, with job expectations that require them to not be in contact with others and not have influence on other employees. They will be just as happy and productive and better behaved.
What of the others? The ones who fell under the snakes charms and have had a hand in the corruption of the team. Simply removing the snake may not rebuild a stronger team. There are trust issues that have to be resolved. The snake can be used as a scapegoat, but only for so much. Usually when seeds of doubt, distrust and malcontention have been sown, the stronger team members cannot easily trust the betrayers. People can apologize. People can fogive. But those seeds have been sown. And they will grow. A chism in the team is created. Individuals we are, individuals we remain. We can put aside our individualaity for the benefit of the team but the rift remains. Sometimes it can't be repaired.
In order to be productive, a progressive team has to be cohesive. We all work with people we don't like. But this issue is bigger; this is badder than having to work with someone you don't like. This is about repairing the damage done by a decietful and manipulative team member who intentionally set out to hurt others.
The snake can still be an influence to the weak-willed members of the team, even after a repostioning has occurred. We cannot control what goes on outside of the business, but the snake can keep it stired up from the outside and the seeds of trust and benevilance will never take hold. Simply removing the head of the snake doesn't kill it. You may not be in a position to keep reassigning team members. So other actions need to be taken. Proactive disiplinary actions may have to be taken. As the team leader, you can make me work with somebody, but you can't make me trust them. Once your true colors have been shown, it's hard to take them back. It's hard to rebuild a team contaminated by distrust. It's hard to put a cat and a mouse in a room together and not expect the mouse to be eaten. How many mice are you going to go through before you realize they are all going to be eaten?
Remove the snake from the team. Help the others mend fences and broken hearts. Help guide them to a reconciliation. But don't let parinoia seep back in. Parinoia fosters the seeds of discontent. If your team can't hang together, surely then, you should take the appropriate actions to build a new team. Once the seeds of discontent take root, you are better off cutting your loses, salvaging what you can, and developing a new team with a fresh outlook than you are attempting to rebuild a dysfuntional team.
