My Team is Losing Feeling of Belonging

Loss of team spirit and belonging occurs often in teams that spend a lot of time apart. If you find yourself in a similar situation, you might benefit from some of our tips below.

The Leader Deals With Breaking Team Spirit and Lost Feeling of Belonging

In the second challenge, which you can join on this site, you can witness Tom, our Time Travelling Leader, struggling with the team spirit. In the PDF case study he talks about his team is being “robotic, without spirit, without jokes and interest in each other.” These and some other symptoms point towards the problem – the lack of belonging.

When Dealing with Team Spirit and Belonging, Taking Obvious Steps Consciously Will Help

After reading the case study of the Time Travelling Leader, we analyse the situation below. Although some points might seem obvious, many leaders do not take them. If you find yourself as a leader in a similar situation – or support such a team from an HR position – don’t underestimate the power of simple solutions.

Burning Issue: Lack of Belonging in the Team

The team is exhibiting various symptoms pointing to the same problem – they have lost the intangible part that makes the team feel like a team, the belonging. The team members say that they don’t know what is happening to the others. The people who used to crack jokes and boost the atmosphere are no longer doing that. Everyone is robotically executing work, but they no longer feel like a team. There is one culprit behind – lack of interaction caused by prolonged remote work period and missing common experiences.

Leadership Recommendation: Help People Reconnect

The leader should take conscious effort to once again re-set or improve the communication flow in the first place. Then, dedicate more time to informal interactions, promote gratitude and use team building opportunities. In the recommendation PDF below you can find further information.

Recommendation for HR: Support Leader in Team Building and Onboarding in Hybrid or Remote Setup

In this case, again, HR can play an important role as a solution consultant. Talk to the leader and the team to gauge the situation. If need be, consider involving some diagnostic tool for more difficult situations (e.g. sociomapping, if you feel the need for re-setting the discussion on information flow). Also, be aware that the leaders might not have the capacity to search for or organise the team building activity – providing a good overview of available online and offline options, or getting an on-demand solution might come a long way to help.

Lack of Ideas, No Opposing Opinions and No Questions?

The third challenge of the leaders that we will discuss in the Time Traveller series will tackle the problems such as:

• people not sharing opinions,
• people agreeing to the leader’s opinion with no opposition,
• no one taking and initiative,
• and more.

Leave your email at the dedicated site and you will receive both the case study assignment as well as the next set of tips for leaders.

If you currently face similar challenges in your teams and organization, tell us more in the contact at bottom of the same site.