The word team is frequently used to describe any group of people loosely working together. The term is often evoked even when there are divergent agendas and little reliance on each other. There are leadership teams, management teams, work teams, cross-functional teams, and more. Depending on the kind of team you are, you can make decisions to determine how to run it for maximum success and to meet the complex business demands in the modern workplace.
A team is not a bunch – a group of people who coexist. If we find ourselves on the subway with a bunch of people, we are merely occupying the same space; each person is independent of everybody else, some traveling in the same direction and some not, but there is no kind of coordination. We may not have much in common and are just in the same place at the same time using the same resource. Of course, if the subway broke down in between platforms for an extensive period, there could be the potential for a team to form as more coordination would have to occur for all people to reach the same goal of getting out safely.
A team is not a group – a collection of people who can have some common interests but are not aligned toward the same goal. For example, maybe a leadership coach is working with a group of lawyers in different industries or companies, which can have many overlaps in their practice such as in their experiences, skills, and challenges. Still, they are not working together to achieve an outcome so there is no need to align.
A team is not a pseudo team, described by Michael West and Joanne Lyubovnikova as “A group of people working in an organization who call themselves or are called by others a team; who have differing accounts of team objectives; whose typical tasks require team members to work alone or in separate dyads towards disparate goals.” There is usually an inability to collaborate effectively and the sum of the team is less than the parts; they could be performing even better independently.
A team, defined by Jon Katzenback, a recognized expert on teams is “A small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals and shared approach for which they hold each other mutually accountable.” Peter Hawkins, author and expert on teams adds “and which has ways of effectively meeting and communicating that raise morale and alignment, effectively engaging with all the team’s key stakeholder groups and ways that individuals and the team can continually learn and develop.” In other words, real teams consist of a group of people working toward a common purpose and have a degree of interdependence in a shared context. There is defined membership where they combine resources, competencies, and bandwidth as they carry out their collective mission and achieve outcomes. They accomplish tasks that are too large or complex to be done by anyone. A team only forms in response to a purpose and to stakeholder needs and usually operates within a system.
The best teams synergize; they know that the output of a team will be greater than the sum of individual contributions. They complement each other, collaborate, coordinate, communicate effectively, have team spirit, and subordinate their personal goals to the larger objectives if they are at odds. There are clear roles, well-defined outcomes, and norms or working agreements for peak performance. They know why the team exists and have aligned that purpose with the organization, and to a degree, their own. Ideally, they can connect that mission with having a meaningful and positive impact on others. Author David Burkus argues that the definition of a great team has three qualities – intellectual diversity (diverse thinkers), psychological safety (the comfort in expressing your ideas), and a purpose or noble cause. While each team includes different ingredients that make up their success, there are underlining commonalities. To read more about successful team ingredients, feel free to read my blog on the topic.
Leaders play a tremendous part in the success of a team. While they have their vision, they know how to collect meaningful input from the members to shape it collectively. Great teams do not just happen; there has to be a degree of intentionality and thought in the design, purpose, values, and contribution of individual strengths. Doc Rivers, NBA championship-winning coach and recipient of the NBA Coach of the Year award uses the South African concept Ubuntu to drive and define his team, which means “I am because we are.” It is the idea that there are no solitary humans because a person is who they are as a result of their interactions with others. He says, “the better you are, the better I am.” The best leaders strike a balance in coaching teams for who they are today and who they will be someday and extracting the best from each to advance the team unit as a whole.
When you are building a team, there are many considerations to design the best kinds of teams, which look very different than groups and bunches. What type of team do you intend to build? What will be the philosophy that governs your team? How will you learn the stakeholders’ needs for you to be successful? How will you incentivize your team to collaborate? These are the kinds of questions that pop up in the formative stages of a team.
Quote of the day: "None of us is as smart as all of us." -Ken Blanchard
Q: What does a team mean to you? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!
[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on the types of teams]
As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.
What’s distinct about your team?