Why is it that managers think teamwork is better than employees do? Everyone says that managers are oblivious to reality and don’t really know what’s going on in their companies but until now, I have yet to see this reflected in research.
We just surveyed 500 knowledge workers to see what they think. The survey has shown that managers see their work much more positively than do their employees. Either something isn’t getting through to management or they are ignoring problems.
Whatever the cause, the result is that managers don’t put in the programs that are necessary to improve teamwork at work.
We wanted to look at how knowledge workers view their organization in terms of teamwork and the people they work with. To do this we looked at five specific attributes of the workplace: Teamwork, Positivity, Trust, Commitment, and Respect.
In the first of the findings, we determined that most employees think that they work well together as a team. In fact 73% agree or disagree with the statement “We work well together as a team.”
Unfortunately, managers seem to think that teamwork is a lot better than employees do. While managers have a positive net promoter score of 2%, employees have a negative score of negative 3%.
You can check out the results of the research here.
There is a blurred line between thinking positively and thinking realistically. Our leaders are adopting the new-age (or scientific?) philosophy that positive thinking leads to positive results; so it makes sense that managers are giving higher ratings. With employees being tasked to achieve positive results while working in very real conditions, it is understandable that employees can pull the numbers down – perhaps even to a lower rating than may be actual.
I wonder if the median score in each category is a realistic measure of each criteria? This would still indicate that employees have a distinct mistrust for their co-workers and managers – a pretty important prerequisite when discussing teamwork!