Cooperation?

We already do

18 years ago, I and my then colleagues made the decision to develop a programme to support team cooperation.
We are now 18 years on. And one discovery stands out above all other learning moments: As soon as a team comes under pressure, the will to work together effectively gets out of the picture. And with it the decision to take a step towards improving cooperation - sometimes with short help from outside. A team sinks further and the pressure to blame one of the team members increases, once the bomb bursts, there is air for a while and the process repeats itself of 'blaming a scapegoat' with less and less trust in each other.
The teams we have supported at their own request in recent years have almost all been cooperating teams. Teams that get it: it's not about the person, it's about what individuals do in conjunction with each other. They see the importance of maintaining their mutual cooperation. They look forward to everything we bring in, could filter from every input what could help them. Because they are also curious about cooperating with us.
As if there is some kind of rigid boundary between teams that recognise the value of good communication and teams where people also recognise it but do not invest in it themselves. "Not me but the other person has a step to take!"

Why is that anyway?

When I talk about my work, I often hear 'well, then you should come and join our team, plenty of work to do'. And then, if there is agreement on what is needed, it happens. That might be the catch. Sometimes there is a lack of agreement on what is needed:
- Looking at communication is 'soft'. We have a tough culture of calling each other to account here, you have in it to do what you are told. This is about tasks, not jobs. You get a salary and for that you have tasks to do. The rest is whining.
- The decision-makers also see that it is not working well, know that they too need to take steps in this, but Bringing 'mistakes' to the surface has also a risk, after all, there is a culture of playing the man. Those who expose come under fire.
- There are conflicts, nobody wants to play the man, we continue to be nice to each other, but that doesn't bring the contradictions to the table, and change goes awkwardly and slowly.

Learning from mistakes in cooperation

Learning from mistakes gets out of the picture in these situations. It makes an organisation unwieldy and slow. After all, admitting mistakes is risky. As a result, nobody develops themselves anymore thanks to help from colleagues. The fact that you can catch and learn from employees' mistakes together has become 'dangerous'; before you know it, something is used against you. New employees feel 'thrown to the lions'.
The team is no longer functioning optimally and someone (high enough in the organisation) recognises that this is not because of the individuals who have come under pressure, but because of the culture of communication. Tasks and relationships are under stress. Sometimes hard helps, sometimes soft helps and sometimes both are needed to make the cooperation healthy.
Reasons to do something about it abound; reorganisation, merger of companies, difference in culture and style of communication between employees, pressure from the market, lower salary scales, self-management, staff shortages, use of more and more self-employed people, all good reasons.

How do you make the switch?

The question to us usually boils down to: "how do these employees make a switch from 'pressuring each other' to 'supporting each other'?
A team challenge in a safe setting To answer ourselves is what we do. Supporting groups of employees to work together with (even) more fun and efficiency. Even if it sometimes seems far away, the answers are already in the team. Getting communication about it going, which is our mission.

And maybe still nag first... ?