Let me take a minute to explain that I wish in no way to detract from the
value of high performing work groups. I often wonder why we even try to
differentiate high performing groups from true teams. Then I run across a
manager who refers to his/her organization as a "team" and then complains
that they don't work as a team. Yet, when you talk to the employees, they
feel as if they ARE working quite well as a team. Sometimes a group of
employees feel that THEY are working as a team but that THOSE OTHERS
aren't. This all comes back to a common definition of what constitutes a
team.
Just about everyone has had some sort of team-based experience in their
lives. Once acknowledged as such, this forms the basis of their future
expectations for teams. Unless this definition is either broadened to
include other types of teams, or reduced to the basic elements of what
qualifies a group as a team, these situations will continue.
Once we know what a team IS, we can set about developing applications of
teams to fit specific situations. Again, as I said originally, each
person/group will learn at its own pace and in its own way. When I teach
others (usually managers) about teams, it is simpler to start with the
basic definition and proceed to "what does it look like FOR YOU?"
If a large group already thinks like a team and performs well and feels
like it is a team, it may not fit my definition of a team (size, variety
of specialties, etc.) but I am not going to tell the members that they are
not a team unless it is something they want to know about. To assume that
responsibility feels, to me, like a level of arrogance that I believe to
be inappropriate. If they believe that they are a team, more power to
them. I just want to make sure that their management doesn't place
unrealistic expectations upon them which result in the destruction of that
level of teamwork and "teamness." And, sometimes, this is just not
possible.
-- Clyde Howell The Howell Group orgpsych@aol.com