tricky interview question on teams

elvis2002

What do you think would be an acceptable anwser to this question.

'Say you are in a small team, 4 or 5 people and you notice that one of the members in not pulling their weight in the team, What would you do ?'

I had this in an interview a while back, I know I made a complete balls of an answer.

daveg

I would say I would have a private quiet word 1-1. If this did not resolve the situation I would escalte to my superior. Thats the standard answer to the dealing with conflict question.

Bluetonic

daveg wrote:

I would say I would have a private quiet word 1-1. If this did not resolve the situation I would escalte to my superior. Thats the standard answer to the dealing with conflict question.

I'd say if someone had a private quiet word with me I'd tell them to mind their own business as they are not my superior, nor my team leader.

As a team member your role is not to supervise or control other team members. Any issues within a team should be rasied to the supervisor of that team and not directly to another team member.

Civilian_Target

elvis2002 wrote:

What do you think would be an acceptable anwser to this question.

'Say you are in a small team, 4 or 5 people and you notice that one of the members in not pulling their weight in the team, What would you do ?'

I've actually been in this situation and I think I did the right thing at the time.

First, have a friendly chat with the guy in question, without telling the rest of the team. Don't say "You're not pulling your weight," but rather sort of question if they could be doing better and mention that you're surprised, given how intelligent they seem to be, that they're not delivering what they said they would. Try and pick out motives too, it might be that they're having trouble at home or something.

If things don't pick up, have a chat with the rest of the team and have a meeting with everyone. Figure out what's been done, what's needed to be done, and it'll be plain for all to see that your compadre's not delivering. You need to say "Bob, we need you to actually deliver this, you're not really pulling your weight here" or something to that effect.

If you're still not getting a response at this point, and the project needs to be fininshed - you need to delegate work over the reliable members of the team, and talk to your manager. You need to make it clear that your colleague isn't pulling his weight and that the rest of you are going to have to pick up his work as a result. At this point, you've probably just put a nail in your co-worker's career but such is business. Expect your manager to ask nasty questions like "Do you think we should fire him?"

One thing you should not do is mention this to people whom it doesn't concern, it reflects badly on you and your team. It's an issue only for your team, your manager, and potentially the people for whom you're delivering your work, should it jeprodise your deadlines.

subway

Bluetonic wrote:

I'd say if someone had a private quiet word with me I'd tell them to mind their own business as they are not my superior, nor my team leader.

As a team member your role is not to supervise or control other team members. Any issues within a team should be rasied to the supervisor of that team and not directly to another team member.

not a team player, eh?
most people have more respect for someone that would bring an issue to their face, rather than running off to a superior to "tell tales"

to the op, the standard answer is to bring the issue to the person,
and if they dont respond, or tell you to mind your own businees, bring it to a superior.

nesf

daveg wrote:

I would say I would have a private quiet word 1-1. If this did not resolve the situation I would escalte to my superior. Thats the standard answer to the dealing with conflict question.

Sometimes the standard answer is have a word with the "team leader". Depends on the business really and how they stratify their teams if at all.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

presume the distinction between the two answers depends on whether you personally rely significantly on that person in order to deliver your own working responsibilities - in which case you have a word with the person first.

subway

in my opinion its implied when they say you're working in a small team of 4 or 5 people.
small implies close knit, and close knit implies reliant on each other.