Beyond the Team Hype

Although teams are increasingly necessary for organizational success, it is a mistake to view them as the solution to all problems. As Fortune magazine journalist Kenneth Labich laments, “Weird fact of life: For every problem we face, someone has come up with a solution way too slick to be true....In the corporate world, there's that supposed miracle cure for ailing organizations—team-based management.”^[2]

Like Labich, critical theorist Amanda Sinclair warns us against being seduced by the “tyranny of a team ideology.”^[3] She agrees that teams are not the solution to all organizational problems. However, she goes one step farther and argues that an overzealous and naive use of teams can reinforce some of the problems that teams are intended to solve. She explains:

Teams can contribute to getting work of all kinds done, but not when their application is informed by a narrow framework that nurtures inappropriate expectations. Further, and more critically, the team ideology...tyrannizes because, under the banner of benefits to all, teams are frequently used to camouflage coercion under the pretense of maintaining cohesion; conceal conflict under the guise of consensus; convert conformity into a semblance of creativity; give unilateral decisions a co-determinist seal of approval; delay action in the supposed interests of consultation; legitimize lack of leadership; and disguise expedient arguments and personal agendas.^[4]

In short, both Sinclair and Labich agree that teamwork can raise the level of individual, group, and organizational performance. But they also remind us that teamwork can lead to dysfunctional dynamics such as collective tunnel vision, inefficiencies, employee discontent, and moral lapses.^[5]

Our team is well balanced. We have problems everywhere.

—Tommy Prothro, American football coach

The current team hype carries another risk. It may lead us to believe that teams are a basic building block of all organizations and that most employees participate in teams. Research suggests otherwise. A recent study of Fortune 1000 companies conducted by the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California concluded that 68 percent of the organizations in the study “use self-managed or high-performing teams...but the study also shows that only 10 percent of workers are in such teams, hardly a number betokening a managerial revolution.”^[6]

The point I want you to take away from these warnings is not that our optimism about teams is unwarranted. On the contrary, the effective use of teams can be a competitive advantage and can enrich our lives. However, our optimism is more likely to lead to successful results if we use teams for the appropriate tasks, take the time to learn about human behavior in teams, and develop a set of techniques that can help guide our teams toward success. In this chapter, we'll look at the characteristics of high-performing teams and what you can do to help teams develop these characteristics. Let us begin by answering the question: What is a team?