Dan brings the conversation for "team" into the domain of
performance. He seems to be saying that "high performance work
groups" aren't and can't be teams. Why not?
Sure there are organisational and cultural inhibitors but these are
not insurmountable and are not inherently preventing teams.
I look for "team" in performance standards which are extraordinary
compared to the individual peformance history and expectation of the
individuals involved. I look for "team" in the performance of
creative, innovative, adaptive behaviour that is extraordinary. I
look for "team" in the coordination of thinking and action beyond
expectation.
Where I look - for the purpose of getting our hands on something we
can have a say about - is for the presence of emergence. For
distributed intelligence, will and action. What cannot be explained
by previous performance or analysis is the emergent. "Team" itself
is an emergent pheonemon and its performance is also emergent.
The standard objections of wide variance in pay, outside control,
interference, external systems are not sufficient conditions to say
that teams can't occur. Not if professional sports can be said to
have teams, at any rate.
What is inherent in the workplace that teams can't occur Dan? Or
weren't you saying that?
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk