Time to Move
I saw an an interesting article over on LinkedIn by Dr. Marla Gottschalk titled 7 Very Telling Signs Your Job is a Poor Fit. The seven signs are:

  1. You feel lost
  2. Your strengths aren’t being tapped
  3. Challenge is absent
  4. You feel disconnected
  5. You can’t seem to complete anything
  6. You’re in avoidance mode
  7. You are in blame mode

I’ve been able to relate to all of these at one time or another. If these things are only happening to you, then yes, you are probably in the wrong place.

It’s also telling if you see these traits in more than one person on your team. If you do, there’s a good chance you are not in a healthy team environment.

The seventh “sign” caught my attention in particular. I’ve seen teams where blame was so prevalent it was like a “shared value.” People on the team were stuck in the mode of blaming other people inside and outside the team for their own lack of progress or success.

It is one of the fastest recipes I’ve seen for creating a toxic team environment. If this is the case, the question is no longer a case of whether or not you’re a fit for the team, rather it’s a question of how soon can you you find a healthy team to move to.

In my experience the mind tends to manifest that which it focuses on. If a good part of your team is investing large amounts of energy on how everyone else is failing, there’s only one thing your team is going to reap–MORE FAIL.

I really do believe that you get more of what you focus on. If the ongoing narrative of people around you is about how everyone else is failing or has failed, they’ll manage to find it just about everywhere they look, including in you.

The only way to win in a situation like this is to find a new place.