By: Jeff Cowart, MAH
Team is a concept that has firmly established itself in the language of our corporate lives. We convene people frequently to collaborate, innovate, set vision and address issues. But, over the years, as I have done leadership counseling for organizations over a wide range of disciplines, I’ve seen that these gatherings of talent do not necessarily come together as a team.
By definition, authors Barr & Barr describe a team as “mutually trusting people working together responsibly to achieve unifying goals while supporting each other in an open, candid, communicative environment.” Teams have common goals that everyone clearly accepts. Team members understand they must work together to accomplish those goals. And, most importantly, a team is committed to investing substantial time in learning how to work together.
By contrast, convening of talent without the discipline of team understandings is a workgroup. A workgroup tends to have a strong, authoritarian leader who presides over task-driven meetings with little creative exchange. Workgroup members are individually accountable for assigned work deliverables that fit together with other deliverables to complete the project at hand.
Workgroups are usually on the path of least resistance moving toward an answer that is designed to “fix” something. Typically, what gets sacrificed in the workgroup setting is creativity, true innovation, and new ways of looking at and doing things that can take something to the next level.
Teams, on the other hand, have shared leadership roles and mutual accountability for team outcomes. There is a shared and understood mission and purpose for the team (other than task completion). Open-ended discussion is encouraged and the team itself challenges the tyranny of the loud voice. Active and creative problem solving and idea generation during the team meetings lead the team away from safe and conventional pathways and along pathways where new solutions are often found.
The foundational success of a team is the commitment at the start that everyone has something meaningful to contribute and by working together they can make a real difference. Individuals, as part of a team want to be included in decisions that affect their lives and want evidence that their thoughts are heard, understood and considered.
The characteristics of a quality team include:
- An informal, comfortable and relaxed atmosphere of work
- The team objective is clearly understood by everyone
- Members have made a commitment to listen to each other
- There is disagreement and comfort with disagreement
- Everyone participates in frequent and focused discussions
- Desired outcomes overcome politics and personalities
- The team frequently analyzes its performance against its goals
Back to the point that team members are committed to investing substantial time in learning how to work together: It takes good training for a team to achieve its best results. Imagine your favorite athletic team as a collection of talented athletes convened on the field. Without a strong training program, a shared vision and game plan, as well as a clear understanding of the individual talents to be developed and aligned with team performance, the chances of exceeding expectations are greatly limited. Put those pieces in place, and you set the team up for exceptional success.