Three Habits That Kill A Team

If you are looking for a way to completely destroy your team – or your school, or your business, or your organization, or your church, or your family – it is as simple as permitting three habits to develop. These three habits do not take much effort. In fact, they occur naturally, usually without even having to think. We never have to teach or train people how to do these three things. For some people, these habits began when they were very young. Now, they have perfected their skills in these habits and have brought them to your team. Many learned these things from their parents and have just continued to practice them in their own lives.

There are many teams and organizations who have lived for several years with the three habits, but "living" is a relative term. It is more accurate to say they are only existing. They are certainly not thriving. Some know they have a problem, but they don't realize what the problem is. The three habits have become such a part of their normal culture that they cannot see that these three things are actually killing them.

Some do not even realize they have a problem with any of the three habits. In these cases, it is usually because the three killers of a team run rampant from top to bottom. When the leadership – the primary driver of the team's culture – participates in these three things, it naturally trickles down to the team members and becomes a way of life. These teams know no other way of behaving. They are miserable and they do not even realize it. Therefore they have no plan to fix it.

What are the three habits that kill a team? I am sure there are more than three, but these are among the most common of the team killers:

COMPLAINING

BLAMING

EXCUSES

Sure, there are lots of other things that can contribute to the detriment of a team, but there is perhaps no more deadly poison than one of these three things being permitted to continue. Just one of these three things can be fatal for any organization, but often when one of them is present, the other two are lurking around and eventually rear their ugly heads as well.

And, I will just speak bluntly here. A team or organization that has all three of these things is an outright failure and disgrace. If there is no change, no effort to eliminate these three habits, then I guarantee it is an organization that is rapidly in decline and will eventually dissolve.

You just cannot exist for very long with any of these three habits. They are killers.

So, what can we do about it? Here is what I suggest. First, recognize it. We can do nothing about our problems if we do not recognize one exists. Recognize when you or someone else is complaining about something we have no power to directly control, influence or change. Recognize when something or someone is being blamed for anything that we should be taking responsibility for. Recognize when excuses are being made for failure, rather than taking ownership and working on getting better.

This is a complete game-changer for any team, organization, school, business, church, or family: to focus on 100% elimination of complaining, blaming, and excuse-making.

Here is how it works. Are you ready for this revolutionary advice? Get out a pen and paper. Here is how we turn the ship around. YOU decide to live a life completely free of complaining, blaming, and excuse-making. YOU do it. And I mean 100%, forever. Completely eliminate it. This is not a temporary goal. This is absolute resolve. This is not something about which we say, "Let's try this for a week and see how it goes." Nope. I can honestly and confidently tell you that there will never be a good time for complaining, blaming, and excuse-making. Why would we make this a temporary goal? Why would we want to add these things back into our lives?

Think about this rationally for a moment. Even if we agreed that a portion of the things we complain about or make excuses about are justified (they rarely are, regardless of how much we believe so; but for the sake of argument, let's say half of what we complain about are things that are real issues that you feel justified complaining about); okay, great! Let's ask ourselves an honest question. Does complaining, blaming someone or something, or making an excuse take that situation and improve upon it?

Of course not! The only thing complaining, blaming and excuse-making does is take an already bad situation and make it worse. Some people will balk at this idea and say things like, "But Chris, are you saying we should just do nothing? If we see an injustice or a problem, should we not complain about it?"

There is a difference between what I will call "mindless complaining" and what I will call "problem solving." Of course we should seek solutions to problems, but know the difference and be cognizant of which of these you are actually doing. One is part of the solution, the other is part of the problem. One contributes, the other denigrates. Problem solving might initially begin by seeing a problem and pointing it out, but then immediately the focus moves toward solutions. Mindless complaining sees a problem and points it out, then continues to focus only on the problem and the causes of the problem.

And yes, there are times when it is better to do nothing. For example, if you see a problem and you have no control to influence any kind of solution to that problem, then yes, you should do nothing. Nothing is better than complaining. On the other hand, if you CAN positively contribute to a problem, then point it out and discuss it with others who have influence and let's come up with some solutions.

Let's be honest, most of the events we complain about are completely out of our control. It is actually one of the reasons why we complain, because we feel a need to do something, but we can't do anything so instead we gravitate toward others who are also disgruntled and we have our own little complain party.

"What are you saying, Chris? That we should just endure frustrating things?"

Sometimes, yes! Take the energy we would normally expend complaining and put it into developing some mental toughness, resilience, and endurance. The energy we put into complaining could change the world around us, if only we would redirect it!

Still, some people say, "I am just not naturally inclined to think this way. I am not naturally positive. I tend to be a realist. I am critical by nature, that is just who I am."

Okay. So, you know that about yourself. Are you just going to ignore it, or are you going to do something about it? Acknowledge that this is not a constructive thing. Being a complainer does not help to build excellence in any context, neither for yourself personally nor for your team, organization, family, or anything else you are part of.

I realize, many people just want to complain. Perhaps it is a notion of justice inside us, or a desire for fairness in the world around us. Here is a good way to remedy that idea. Don't expect the world to be fair. It never has been fair, and it never will be fair. Cultures and systems have been created all throughout the history of the world in effort to try to make things "fair" and they only end up causing more harm and greater depravity.

Fairness is a tough one. We want to make everything fair in the world, but we just can't. Obviously, we should do whatever we can to balance things out. But honestly, in most cases we can't do anything about it. Most unfair things are completely out of our control. It is in these circumstances that we most often find ourselves being tempted to complain.

Plain and simple, no good comes from complaining. It is a sure way to kill a team.

We've talked a lot about complaining, but blaming and excuse-making are a little different strands of deadly poison for teams. Basically, blaming is taking no responsibility for anything. I cannot think of a faster way to lose the trust of your teammates than to be a person that never takes responsibility, but instead passes blame.

Is this you? When something bad happens that involves you, what is your first thought? Do you immediately determine who was at fault, other than you of course? Are you always the victim of someone else's failure to perform? Or perhaps you are not a victim but a narcissist. You can never be wrong, which means if there is ever an instance where you appear to be at fault, what do you do? Cast blame on someone or something else.

A person who participates in blaming is often thought of as arrogant, someone that sees themselves as able to do no wrong. The arrogant person has an overinflated view of his or her abilities, and sometimes the only way to retain their elevated status is to blame others for any failures that might have occurred. Unfortunately for the arrogant, another consequence of their behavior is that they rarely work on improving themselves. They already believe they are at an elevated status.

Believe it or not, blaming is sometimes a symptom of low self-image. I know that this seems antithetical to what we just discussed regarding the arrogant. Yet, blaming often occurs because a person has so little confidence in themselves that they look for reasons to pull others down to where they are. They believe, subconsciously, that by doing so they will somehow improve their own self-image.

Blaming is a disease that must be dealt with, and the way to deal with it is by eliminating it altogether.

Excuse-making is just as deadly, and here is the scariest thing about excuse-making. This is one that often starts at the top, with the leaders. Coaches, take an honest self-assessment. While complaining and blaming might not be our issue, too often excuse-making falls directly on us. When we make excuses for the poor performance of our team or the failure to get a job done, that only opens the door for excuses to be made for anything and everything else that fails.

It is a slippery slope, and it is a killer of teams. Excuse-making. Many teams will even hang banners or post memes that say "NO EXCUSES." Then we make one. Why? What causes us to make excuses? Self preservation.

We were supposed to get something done and we didn't. Here is why... (insert excuse here). What happens is, if you are like most human beings, when you fail you immediately feel the pressure of falling short. This can cause an impulsive emotional reaction to protect yourself, and to do so we give an excuse.

For teams, it sounds like this. The official screwed us. The field conditions were horrible. We don't play well in the early morning. The weather was cold. We had exams that day.

What about personally? I haven't gotten much sleep. I am too sore from lifting, so I can't exercise today. I haven't eaten much all day, so I will now eat this thing that is terrible for me. I deserve a break, so I will do something unproductive and meaningless.

Excuse-making is a deadly habit and a hard one to break. Recognize it. Stop it in mid-air. Refuse to permit it.

But how can we be sure to completely, 100% eliminate these three deadly habits from our teams? If we remove something that has been a large part of who we are, it will leave a hole. That means, we must fill the void with something else – better habits – or else the old ones will come back.

This is what we will discuss in the next blog post, "Three Habits That Build a Team."