How to counter dysfunctional behaviour in a self-sabotaging team

By N. Anand and Jean-Louis Barsoux

The CEO of a European city’s public transit authority recently called us in to coach the organisation’s new head of HR. Having joined the executive committee six months earlier, Jocelyn (not her real name) was having difficulty integrating with the team. According to the CEO, her attitude was holding back its efforts to develop a strategy for meeting the city’s growing transportation needs in a more sustainable way.

In speaking with Jocelyn’s subordinates, colleagues, and boss and with external stakeholders, we were struck by the contrast between her peers’ views of her as withdrawn and uncollaborative and her subordinates’ impressions of her as professional and supportive. And it became clear that the team’s struggle to come up with a coherent strategy predated Jocelyn’s arrival. Our interviews revealed a major tension: The team was torn between increasing the transit infrastructure for less-connected parts of the city and making the system greener; it lacked the funds to do both.

We’d been called in to fix a person, but it was the team that needed help. Overwhelmed by its strategic challenge, it had become stuck in a pattern of infighting. To escape anxiety and self-examination, its members were unconsciously deflecting blame onto a convenient scapegoat: the newcomer, Jocelyn.