Teams have been all the “rage” for over a decade and it still remains a buzz word. But companies are realizing fewer gains in performance than anticipated from their attempts to acts as a team. Thus, a team often turns out to be a collection of professionals instead of people excelling at collaboration, symbiotic dependence, and synergy.
Per definition: "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."
Most teams score poorly against this definition. In particular, the following points are cause for concern:
1. The skills of team members should complement each other. The recruitment division seldom compiles information on Executives’ profiles that could help in the formation of effective and productive teams. Yes, cross-functional teams distinguish themselves because of various skills and functional expertises; but even so, too often complementary soft skills are overlooked.
2. The essence of a team relies on a common commitment to a common goal. This point is difficult to ascertain given the different priorities of professionals in an organization. Specifically, a CEO’s priority is shareholder value and the price of the company’s shares. Finance professionals seek to get the most out of money allocated; comply with government regulations, and certify accuracy of financial results. On the contrary, marketing and sales professionals seek more sales resources and higher sales commissions to maintain strong morale for the sales force while seeking out low and easily achievable quotas. Regarding HR professionals, they tend to look at the individual who makes up the workforce; most frequently from the support function angle. However, HR staff is increasingly committed to improving workforce productivity. Thus, team members may frequently differ in terms of goals and agendas.
3. Transforming the common purpose into specific and measurable performance goals is the surest first step of a team. As shown above, an individual’s role in a venture/an organization dictates how they perceive various aspects of strategic execution. A lack of agreement on common goals corresponds to business leaders’ inability to communicate the business strategy and create an environment where all employees are united with certain shared performance goals. Watson Wyatt conducted research involving nearly 14,000 employees across Europe and discovered that clarity over a company’s strategic direction is the most important driver of employee engagement. However, only 13 percent of surveyed employees were classified as value creators, i.e. those who scored high for both commitment and line of sight. A lot of room exists for improvement in this area.
4. High-performing teams must also agree on a common approach with respect to the way they work together to accomplish their mission. At the departmental level, each team member has specific trigger points and their own worldview while they all may lack the big picture view. But, even within the department, professionals may work in isolation and thereby create conflicts within the system. One of the problems is that companies encourage team work while jobs remain designed around individual contributions (OD division), raises are based on individual achievements (C&B division), and training is conducted to strengthen more so individual skills (L&D division). So, team-based rhetoric fails when embedded in a HR management system designed around individual behaviors.
5. Productive teams must develop a sense of mutual accountability. However, if there is disagreement, “it’s usually expressed in a manner that lays blame, polarizes opinion, and fails to reveal the underlying differences in assumptions and experiences”.* Moreover, “teams break down under pressure. The team may function quite well with routine issues. But when they confront complex issues that may be embarrassing or threatening, the ‘teamness’ seems to go to pot”.**
The struggle with teamwork prevails among companies as in Universities. Indeed, students do not develop an appreciation for collaboration and acquire solid teamwork skills for the workplace. The reasons being include:
1. Student teams are constructed randomly and even when teams are formed among friends (although this is not a prerequisite for creating a team); students’ most likely lack an understanding and knowledge of each others’ skills.
2. Usually formed “to complete the assignment”, the “common purpose” is the only characteristic of the team that seems to be fulfilled by the student teams.
3. Members of student teams differ in terms of performance goals. In fact, only a small fraction of students would approach an assignment with the aim of earning an A. The majority leave the question of the grade to chance.
4. Student teams are rather quick in setting a schedule and assigning particular tasks among each other. However, team members rarely discuss authority, decision making processes, and rather hope that things will be taken care of indirectly. Most importantly, students also clash in terms of commitment and willingness to invest time and effort.
5. Students habitually avoid accountability and do not care that other team members work more and take on added responsibility for completing an assignment (since all group members receive one grade). Notably, students lack the means to evaluate themselves and other team members toward performance and to exclude underperformers.
When criteria for a successful team cannot be met, Executives should rely on individual leadership skills. As another alternative, companies could attempt to break the structural bias within teams’ through effective team building and HR programs.
* Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization. London: Random House.
** Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming Organizational Defenses. Facilitating organizational learning. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
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