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Players vs Spectators: Your Team Is Comprised of Both
The Productivity Factor:
The Player-versus-Spectator (PvS) scenario occurs when your team contains one or more people who are hindering the true potential of the team and your carefully designed process.
Despite your best efforts to implement an efficient and streamlined process with a fair workload balance, by which the team's goals can be met, your final results will always be tainted by the PvS factor.
Most managers are rarely, if ever, aware that it even exists to mar the outcome.
Despite your best efforts to implement an efficient and streamlined process with a fair workload balance, by which the team's goals can be met, your final results will always be tainted by the PvS factor.
Most managers are rarely, if ever, aware that it even exists to mar the outcome.
Incidental Spectators:
While each member of the team is enjoying fair compensation for their collective skills and potential ROI, it often happens that a few will become more spectator than player, who will almost immediately become a speedbump on the path to the team's goals.This gradual reversion from active participant to overseer can be the result of recent disappointments, a missed opportunity at work, or experimentation on a low-energy day that was allowed to go unchecked. In the case of the newly-hired, they may be simply allowing their true nature to show, now that the honeymoon is over.
Because humans are creatures of habit, an otherwise active team member who experiments with the spectator status is prone to repeat this behaviour, unaware that they have become a speedbump that the team must navigate every time a new project includes the spectator.
Due to some basic primal programming, spectator status is also contagious.
Spectator traits will manifest in a few ways, and the most common types being as follows:
> The Gab.
The gabber is easy to spot. Common signs include standing around talking junk when everyone else is working; walking away from the project at random times to find a conversation, and similar ways to show the team that they aren't really tuned in.
> The Child.
Being no one's favorite, the child simply refuses to cooperate, and you can't make her. You will pay her in full for her time despite your unmet expectations, and there is nothing you can do about it.
* The child is a new manager's nightmare, but a seasoned leader will quickly recognize the potential for a complete attitude make-over. The child will either mature, or make way for her adult replacement.
> The Boss.
Self-appointed managers tend to set themselves apart from the group at the start of a project, having decided beforehand that they will not be contributing to the hands-on portion of the work. Whether lacking in ideas or manual skills, he/she prefers to hang around at the edges and critique the others.
Bosses tend to be a bit more annoying to the team than other forms of spectator, if only for the constant distractions from the job at hand.
The Enablers:
Your ground-level managers will almost immediately notice that the team is dealing with a member who prefers to watch, and in some cases even refuses to actively participate in current projects.The hands-on type of manager will make a weak attempt to advise the spectator that participating from a distance isn't really considered participation at all, and then move on to more pressing team matters.
This type of enabling won't serve the team's needs, and only feeds the spectator's position as an outsider.
"They only whip the horse that wants to work"
Current people management skills have been tainted by the politically correct and the liberalistic trends that make many managers feel that their hands are tied if an employee displays a standoffish attitude toward team goals, but the truth of the matter is just the opposite.
While it is considerably easier to hire than to fire, in the case of an employee who has chosen to take a spectator position while receiving player pay, you are in effect dealing with a refusal to work, which is a clear violation of both company policy and the employment agreement he/she signed on the date of hire.
This is a key point to maintain in the case of the employee who feels that they are carrying "an ace up the sleeve" in the form of race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other personal status that federal labor laws have deemed as protected from discrimination. This feeling of entitlement is a common misinterpretation of the laws that were designed to protect from abuses, rather than become a weapon that causes your company to lose valuable time and resources.
Who Really Runs This Show?
Trust me: Many of your team members are asking this very question every time a project is hindered from the onset because they were saddled with a spectator who is clearly operating under a personal set of rules, to the detriment of the team's progress.
The team is counting on you to defend their investment of time and effort in the project, by either converting the spectator back into a player, or at the very least, to take the spectator off of the field by assigning her to something less demanding.
“We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”
― Will Rogers
Obviously you will never be able to convert every weak link into a star performer, but this piece isn't about every weak link. This is about the simple difference between Can't and Won't because the spectator status is a personal choice, and like any other choice can be un-chosen.
Problematic employees in other areas of the job who also display spectator habits can be easily considered to be new volunteers for your disciplinary paper-trail system of attitude adjustment.
True spectators who have dug in their heels will not respond to verbal berating or empty threats, since they have made it clear with their behaviour that they won't be pushed.
Mutual respect among your employees is both vital and productive, and it is with this in mind that the spectator requires a refresher in the importance of a balanced workload for each team member.
Anything less is disrespectful to her peers, and in the extreme can be construed by some team members as a form of bullying that has been endorsed by the management.
This latter is a highly undesirable situation that starts with a breakdown of communications, which leads to a decline in production stats, and in all likelihood ends with unnecessary tensions over legal liabilities.
In the interest of fair and ethical treatment toward every member of the team, as well as maximizing the profitability potential of your assets, the spectators will require some specialized face time from you in an attempt to get them back to being active members of the team.
As a firm believer in the "Three Strikes" rule of business, it seems reasonable that the first written warning should be sufficient to bring the unintentional spectator back to the huddle with her head in the game, and a second written notice will begin the process of replacing a poor investment with someone who has the potential to be a new star performer.
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