There is one quick question you can ask to determine if your team is dysfunctional. The question is: “Do you have a team?” If you have a team, it is dysfunctional. Simple as that.

People are not naturally wired to work in teams, and our educational system normally chases out any natural tendencies we may have, encouraging self-reliance and competitiveness. So yeah, your team is dysfunctional. The goal of team-building is to remove as much dysfunction as possible.. much like the old guy who carves decoys. He says: “It’s easy, you start with a block of wood and take away everything that doesn’t look like a duck”.

A group of people is like the carver’s block of wood and the more dysfunction you remove, the more your group will resemble a team.