teams & teamwork
Groups that form to do work and produce results tend to fail due to poor design and wrong expectations. A task force or working group must become a team before it can achieve optimal performance.
This means incorporating certain design features. In The Wisdom of Teams (1993), JR Katzenbach & DK Smith outline their research of more than 30 successful organisational teams, plus a range of working groups and pseudo-teams for negative comparison. The quotes compiled below are a distillation of the key points of the authors' thesis (original italics preserved). Note where the authors distinguish a quality difference between the common notion of teamwork and the dynamic of an effective team, with the relatively greater success of the latter deriving from performance challenges.
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."
"Virtually all the teams we have met, read or heard about, or been members of have ranged between two and twenty five people. The majority of them.. have numbered less than ten."
"Teams must develop the right mix of skills, that is, each of the complementary skills necessary to do the team’s job."
"No team arises without a performance challenge that is meaningful to those involved."
"Real teams always find ways for each individual to contribute and thereby gain distinction. Indeed, when harnessed to a common team purpose and goals, our need to distinguish ourselves as individuals becomes a powerful engine for team performance."
"Teams develop direction, momentum, and commitment by working to shape a meaningful purpose."
"Teams also need to develop a common approach — that is, how they will work together to accomplish their purpose."
"Only through the mutual discovery and understanding of how to apply all its human resources to a common purpose can a group really develop and agree on the best team approach to achieve its goal. At the heart of such long and, at times, difficult interactions lies a commitment-building process in which the whole team candidly explores who is best suited to each task as well as how all the individual roles will come together. In effect, it establishes a social contract among its members that relates to their purpose, and guides and obligates how they must work together."
"To meet the economic and administrative challenge, every member of a team must do ‘equivalent’ amounts of real work that goes beyond commenting, reviewing, and deciding. Team members must agree on who will do particular jobs, how schedules will be set and adhered to, what skills need to be developed, how continuing membership is to be earned, and how the group will make and modify decisions, including when and how to modify its approach to getting the job done."
"When people do real work together toward a common objective, trust and commitment follow. Consequently, teams enjoying a strong common purpose and approach inevitably hold themselves, both as individual and as a team, responsible for the team’s performance."
"No group ever becomes a team until it can hold itself accountable as a team."
"At its core, team accountability is about the sincere promises we make to ourselves and others, promises that underpin two critical aspects of teams: commitment and trust. By promising to hold ourselves accountable to the team’s goals, we each earn the right to express our own views about all aspects of the team’s effort and have our views receive a fair and constructive hearing."
"Groups become teams through disciplined action. They shape a common purpose, agree on performance goals, define a common working approach, develop high levels of complementary skills, and hold themselves mutually accountable for results. "
"Groups that lack mutual accountability for performance have not shaped a common purpose and approach that can sustain them as a team."
"Teams are more productive than groups that have no clear performance objectives because their members are committed to deliver tangible performance results. "
Working "groups rely on the sum of" individual efforts, undertaking "no collective work products requiring joint effort" whereas people in potential teams take on "the risks of conflict, joint work-products, and collective action necessary to build a common purpose, set of goals, approach, and mutual accountability. People who call themselves teams but take no such risks are at best pseudo-teams. Potential teams that take the risks.. inevitably confront obstacles. Some teams overcome them; others get stuck.. Performance, not team-building, can save potential teams or pseudo-teams, no matter how stuck."
"Each team must find its own path to its own unique performance challenge. This is why we emphasize that the team basics of number, skills, purpose, performance goals, approach, and accountability are more of a discipline than a definition. "
"The work products of a team reflect an incremental performance value that exceeds the sum of each member’s individual effort. They also require the joint, real work of people on the team themselves and they build a sense of mutual accountability for results." Teams "have always induced behavioural change as both an ingredient and by-product of team performance." "Accordingly, as long as the skill potential exists, the dynamics of a team cause that skill to develop."
In "jointly developing clear goals and approaches, teams establish communications that support real-time problem solving and initiative. Teams are flexible and responsive to changing events and demands. As a result, teams can adjust their approach to new information and challenges with greater speed, accuracy, and effectiveness than can individuals caught in the web of larger organisational connections."
"Real teams do not develop until the people in them work hard to overcome barriers that stand in the way of collective performance. By surmounting such obstacles together, people on teams build trust and confidence in each other’s capabilities. They also reinforce each other’s intentions to pursue their team purpose above and beyond individual or functional agendas. Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams."
"Groups do not become teams simply because someone labels them as teams." "Entire organisations can believe in and practise teamwork, but teamwork and teams differ." "Teamwork represents a set of values that encourages behaviours such as listening and constructively responding to points of view expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support to those who need it, and recognising the interests and achievements of others." "Teams are discrete unit of performance, not a positive set of values."
"Performance results - that’s what teams are all about." "A team is a small group of people (typically fewer than twenty) with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and set of specific performance goals. Its members are committed to working with each other to achieve the team’s purpose and hold each other fully and jointly accountable for the team’s results."
"The team work ethic certainly demanded a lot from all members.. in service of.. their performance challenge.. members of all effective teams.. had to earn their membership every day. Thus, while initial selection is important to team performance, it is more important to foster the conditions after selection that will allow members to continually develop and earn their membership in the team."
"[R]eal teams ultimately only include members with the complementary skills, common commitment, and mutual accountability to get the team’s job done. When ‘official’ team members fail to meet those standards, the rest of the team operates without them, whether formally or informally."
Advice to potential teams: "do not tell them to ‘become a team’. Rather, demand performance from them".
Encourage or insist that they work on a purpose that has real meaning to them, and on a set of performance goals to which they will hold themselves accountable. Make sure that their working approach builds on collective work-products that contribute to performance goals, and set up small wins all along the way." These lesser achievements build a foundation for the greater achievements to come, as well as serving as emblems of group pride in accomplishment, that consolidate group confidence. "Above all, be sure that something is done to fill critical skill gaps; no team can make it without the right skills."
"Finally, teams have more fun. This is not a trivial point because the kind of fun they have is integral to their performance. The people on the teams we met consistently and without prompting emphasized the fun aspects of their work together." "Unbridled enthusiasm is the raw motivating power far teams."
This means incorporating certain design features. In The Wisdom of Teams (1993), JR Katzenbach & DK Smith outline their research of more than 30 successful organisational teams, plus a range of working groups and pseudo-teams for negative comparison. The quotes compiled below are a distillation of the key points of the authors' thesis (original italics preserved). Note where the authors distinguish a quality difference between the common notion of teamwork and the dynamic of an effective team, with the relatively greater success of the latter deriving from performance challenges.
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."
"Virtually all the teams we have met, read or heard about, or been members of have ranged between two and twenty five people. The majority of them.. have numbered less than ten."
"Teams must develop the right mix of skills, that is, each of the complementary skills necessary to do the team’s job."
"No team arises without a performance challenge that is meaningful to those involved."
"Real teams always find ways for each individual to contribute and thereby gain distinction. Indeed, when harnessed to a common team purpose and goals, our need to distinguish ourselves as individuals becomes a powerful engine for team performance."
"Teams develop direction, momentum, and commitment by working to shape a meaningful purpose."
"Teams also need to develop a common approach — that is, how they will work together to accomplish their purpose."
"Only through the mutual discovery and understanding of how to apply all its human resources to a common purpose can a group really develop and agree on the best team approach to achieve its goal. At the heart of such long and, at times, difficult interactions lies a commitment-building process in which the whole team candidly explores who is best suited to each task as well as how all the individual roles will come together. In effect, it establishes a social contract among its members that relates to their purpose, and guides and obligates how they must work together."
"To meet the economic and administrative challenge, every member of a team must do ‘equivalent’ amounts of real work that goes beyond commenting, reviewing, and deciding. Team members must agree on who will do particular jobs, how schedules will be set and adhered to, what skills need to be developed, how continuing membership is to be earned, and how the group will make and modify decisions, including when and how to modify its approach to getting the job done."
"When people do real work together toward a common objective, trust and commitment follow. Consequently, teams enjoying a strong common purpose and approach inevitably hold themselves, both as individual and as a team, responsible for the team’s performance."
"No group ever becomes a team until it can hold itself accountable as a team."
"At its core, team accountability is about the sincere promises we make to ourselves and others, promises that underpin two critical aspects of teams: commitment and trust. By promising to hold ourselves accountable to the team’s goals, we each earn the right to express our own views about all aspects of the team’s effort and have our views receive a fair and constructive hearing."
"Groups become teams through disciplined action. They shape a common purpose, agree on performance goals, define a common working approach, develop high levels of complementary skills, and hold themselves mutually accountable for results. "
"Groups that lack mutual accountability for performance have not shaped a common purpose and approach that can sustain them as a team."
"Teams are more productive than groups that have no clear performance objectives because their members are committed to deliver tangible performance results. "
Working "groups rely on the sum of" individual efforts, undertaking "no collective work products requiring joint effort" whereas people in potential teams take on "the risks of conflict, joint work-products, and collective action necessary to build a common purpose, set of goals, approach, and mutual accountability. People who call themselves teams but take no such risks are at best pseudo-teams. Potential teams that take the risks.. inevitably confront obstacles. Some teams overcome them; others get stuck.. Performance, not team-building, can save potential teams or pseudo-teams, no matter how stuck."
"Each team must find its own path to its own unique performance challenge. This is why we emphasize that the team basics of number, skills, purpose, performance goals, approach, and accountability are more of a discipline than a definition. "
"The work products of a team reflect an incremental performance value that exceeds the sum of each member’s individual effort. They also require the joint, real work of people on the team themselves and they build a sense of mutual accountability for results." Teams "have always induced behavioural change as both an ingredient and by-product of team performance." "Accordingly, as long as the skill potential exists, the dynamics of a team cause that skill to develop."
In "jointly developing clear goals and approaches, teams establish communications that support real-time problem solving and initiative. Teams are flexible and responsive to changing events and demands. As a result, teams can adjust their approach to new information and challenges with greater speed, accuracy, and effectiveness than can individuals caught in the web of larger organisational connections."
"Real teams do not develop until the people in them work hard to overcome barriers that stand in the way of collective performance. By surmounting such obstacles together, people on teams build trust and confidence in each other’s capabilities. They also reinforce each other’s intentions to pursue their team purpose above and beyond individual or functional agendas. Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams."
"Groups do not become teams simply because someone labels them as teams." "Entire organisations can believe in and practise teamwork, but teamwork and teams differ." "Teamwork represents a set of values that encourages behaviours such as listening and constructively responding to points of view expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support to those who need it, and recognising the interests and achievements of others." "Teams are discrete unit of performance, not a positive set of values."
"Performance results - that’s what teams are all about." "A team is a small group of people (typically fewer than twenty) with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and set of specific performance goals. Its members are committed to working with each other to achieve the team’s purpose and hold each other fully and jointly accountable for the team’s results."
"The team work ethic certainly demanded a lot from all members.. in service of.. their performance challenge.. members of all effective teams.. had to earn their membership every day. Thus, while initial selection is important to team performance, it is more important to foster the conditions after selection that will allow members to continually develop and earn their membership in the team."
"[R]eal teams ultimately only include members with the complementary skills, common commitment, and mutual accountability to get the team’s job done. When ‘official’ team members fail to meet those standards, the rest of the team operates without them, whether formally or informally."
Advice to potential teams: "do not tell them to ‘become a team’. Rather, demand performance from them".
Encourage or insist that they work on a purpose that has real meaning to them, and on a set of performance goals to which they will hold themselves accountable. Make sure that their working approach builds on collective work-products that contribute to performance goals, and set up small wins all along the way." These lesser achievements build a foundation for the greater achievements to come, as well as serving as emblems of group pride in accomplishment, that consolidate group confidence. "Above all, be sure that something is done to fill critical skill gaps; no team can make it without the right skills."
"Finally, teams have more fun. This is not a trivial point because the kind of fun they have is integral to their performance. The people on the teams we met consistently and without prompting emphasized the fun aspects of their work together." "Unbridled enthusiasm is the raw motivating power far teams."
