The Wisdom of Teams

TLDR: The Fundamentals of Teams Managers think they know what teams are, but often they either don't know what it takes to make a team function well or they don't apply what they do know, even when it is accurate as discussed by the authors.

Abstract: The Fundamentals of Teams Managers think they know what teams are. Most understand that their organizations’ need for good teams may be growing in the face of increased change and its challenges. However, often they either don’t know what it takes to make a team function well or they don’t apply what they do know, even when it is accurate. To work well – to truly cohere – a team needs a “demanding performance challenge.” Teams often come into being to rise to a diffi cult challenge. However, as you form a team, don’t overlook “team basics”: how large the team is, what skills its members have, to whom it reports and what goals it pursues. Performance is key to creating teams. A company with “high performance standards” is likelier to create high-performance teams than a company that simply teaches teamwork. No matter what your company emphasizes, high-performance teams are uncommon. Many people think teams work best in a horizontal structure, but that’s not true. Teams function best when they can depend on their leaders to set clear standards and create dependable, supportive processes. “Understanding Teams” Even though most of your employees probably were raised with a bias for individualistic approaches, you can still build great teams. Your main tool is discipline. To make people accountable, be sure that superior team functioning serves their individual interests. People have to work together repeatedly, in a focused way, to create teams. Teams that develop and take responsibility for performance standards will outperform groups that lack such standards. By building shared standards and communication patterns, teams can speed up your organization’s response to problems, allowing it to react in “real time” rather than waiting “Much of the wisdom of teams lies in the disciplined pursuit of performance.” “We believe that teams – real teams, not just groups that management calls ‘teams’ – should be the basic unit of performance for most organizations, regardless of size.”