IFSM 380 DISC 7&8

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Teamwork in the Workplace

1. What is a team, and what makes a team effective?

Teamwork has never been more important in organizations than it is today. Whether you work in

a manufacturing environment and utilize self-directed work teams, or if you work in the

“knowledge economy” and derive benefits from collaboration within a team structure, you are

harnessing the power of a team.

A team, according to Katzenbach and Smith in their Harvard Business Review (HBR) article

“The Discipline of Teams,” is defined as “people organized to function cooperatively as a

group”.1 The five elements that make teams function are:

 Common commitment and purpose

 Specific performance goals

 Complementary skills

 Commitment to how the work gets done

 Mutual accountability

A team has a specific purpose that it delivers on, has shared leadership roles, and has both

individual and mutual accountabilities. Teams discuss, make decisions, and perform real work

together, and they measure their performance by assessing their collective work products.

Wisdom of Teams reference. This is very different from the classic working group in an

organization (usually organized by functional area) in which there is a focused leader, individual

accountabilities and work products, and a group purpose that is the same as the broader

organizational mission. Think of the finance organization or a particular business unit in your

company—these are, in effect, larger working groups that take on a piece of the broader

organizational mission. They are organized under a leader, and their effectiveness is measured by

its influence on others within the business (e.g., financial performance of the business.)

So, what makes a team truly effective? According to Katzenbach and Smith’s “Discipline of

Teams,” there are several practices that the authors have observed in successful teams. These

practices include:

Establish urgency, demanding performance standards, and direction. Teams work best when they

have a compelling reason for being, and it is thus more likely that the teams will be successful

and live up to performance expectations. We’ve all seen the teams that are brought together to

address an “important initiative” for the company, but without clear direction and a truly

compelling reason to exist, the team will lose momentum and wither.

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Select members for their skill and skill potential, not

for their personality. This is not always as easy as it

sounds for several reasons. First, most people would

prefer to have those with good personalities and

positive attitudes on their team in order to promote a

pleasant work environment. This is fine, but make

sure that those individuals have the skill sets needed

(or the potential to acquire/learn) for their piece of

the project. The second caveat here is that you don’t

always know what skills you need on a project until

you really dig in and see what’s going on. Spend

some time up front thinking about the purpose of the

project and the anticipated deliverables you will be

producing, and think through the specific types of

skills you’ll need on the team.

Pay particular attention to first meetings and actions.

This is one way of saying that first impressions mean

a lot—and it is just as important for teams as for

individuals. Teams will interact with everyone from

functional subject-matter experts all the way to

senior leadership, and the team must look competent

and be perceived as competent. Keeping an eye on

your team’s level of emotional intelligence is very

important and will enhance your team’s reputation

and ability to navigate stakeholders within the

organization.

Set some clear rules of behavior. I have been through many meetings and team situations in

which we have rushed through “ground rules” because it felt like they were obvious—and

everyone always came up with the same list. It is so critical that the team takes the time up front

to capture their own rules of the road in order to keep the team in check. Rules that address areas

such as attendance, discussion, confidentiality, project approach, and conflict are key to keeping

team members aligned and engaged appropriately.

Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented tasks and goals. What does this mean?

Have some quick wins that make the team feel that they’re really accomplishing something and

working together well. This is very important to the team’s confidence, as well as just getting

into the practices of working as a team. Success in the larger tasks will come soon enough, as the

larger tasks are really just a group of smaller tasks that fit together to produce a larger

deliverable.

Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and information. That is, continue to research and

gather information to confirm or challenge what you know about your project. Don’t assume that

all the facts are static and that you received them at the beginning of the project. Often, you don’t

know what you don’t know until you dig in. I think that the pace of change is so great in the

Exhibit 15.2 Finance Working Group

Smart managers understand that not all

of a company’s influential relationships

appear as part of the organization chart.

Consider a publishing company that

might have a lead finance head for each

group, such as adult fiction, nonfiction,

young adult, and children’s book

divisions. A finance team working group

would help spread best practices and

lead to more cohesive operations for the

entire organization. (Credit: thetaxhaven

/flickr / Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY

2.0))

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world today that new information is always presenting itself and must be considered in the

overall context of the project.

Spend lots of time together. Here’s an obvious one that is often overlooked. People are so busy

that they forget that an important part of the team process is to spend time together, think

together, and bond. Time in person, time on the phone, time in meetings—all of it counts and

helps to build camaraderie and trust.

Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition, and reward. Positive reinforcement is a

motivator that will help the members of the team feel more comfortable contributing. It will also

reinforce the behaviors and expectations that you’re driving within the team. Although there are

many extrinsic rewards that can serve as motivators, a successful team begins to feel that its own

success and performance is the most rewarding.

Collaboration is another key concept and method by which teams can work together very

successfully. Bringing together a team of experts from across the business would seem to be a

best practice in any situation. However, Gratton and Erickson, in their article Eight Ways to

Build Collaborative Teams, found that collaboration seems to decrease sharply when a team is

working on complex project initiatives. In their study, they examined 55 larger teams and

identified those with strong collaboration skills, despite the level of complexity. There were eight

success factors for having strong collaboration skills:

 “Signature” relationship practices

 Role models of collaboration among executives

 Establishment of “gift” culture, in which managers mentor employees

 Training in relationship skills

 A sense of community

 Ambidextrous leaders—good at task and people leadership

 Good use of heritage relationships

 Role clarity and talk ambiguity2

As teams grow in size and complexity, the standard practices that worked well with small teams

don’t work anymore. Organizations need to think about how to make collaboration work, and

they should leverage the above best practices to build relationships and trust.

Concept Check

1. What is the definition of a team? 2. Name some practices that can make a team more successful.

This work "Teamwork in the Workplace" is a derivative of Teamwork in the Workplace by OpenStax used under

a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. "Teamwork in the Workplace" by UMGC is licensed under Creative

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