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How to Rebuild a Broken Team

Dave Rutter
5 min readMay 23, 2021

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Is your team toxic? Are there constant arguments, silence, threats, accusations, and blaming? Does everyone seem to be just going through the motions, turning up but lacking the drive to do anything more than the bare minimum?

Photo by Headway on Unsplash

Get to the Heart of Problem

Getting to the heart of the problem and identifying the core issue is key to being able to rebuild the team. Many organisations think that simply sending a team on a team building day will resolve everything — but this is simply not the case. Here are some steps you can take to identify the problem with the team:

One on one interviews: Getting everyone alone takes more time, but it could allow some people to speak more frankly and openly than in the group setting, especially if they do not feel safe to speak up in the group. You will need to compare stories, or different points of view which could be conflicting.

Team Retrospective: If you think that everyone in the team will be able to speak openly, then a team retrospective (or retrospectives if one doesn’t get to the heart of the problem with the team) could be the most efficient way. You can help the more reserved in the team be heard by following a facilitation format like 1–2–4-ALL. There are positive retrospective formats that help to remind the team of the positive aspects of the team — this…

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Dave Rutter
Dave Rutter

Written by Dave Rutter

Change and Agile Professional, founder of The Art of Teamwork, writer, adventurer, and traveller.

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