What Is a Team?

Teams come in many forms. They may be permanent, temporary, planned, or ad hoc. They may create products, provide services, or process people (as do human service agencies).^[7] They may be formally chartered by organizational leaders or may emerge informally through employees' mutual interests and goals. They may be leader-led or self-managed. Team members may routinely meet face-to-face at the same time and in the same place (currently called “co-located” teams), or they may rarely see each other in person and instead use computer-mediated communication technologies to interact with each other (currently called “distributed” or “virtual” teams). Regardless of their purpose and form, all teams are made up of “individuals interacting interdependently” to achieve common organizational goals.^[8] Furthermore, all teams share the following characteristics:^[9]

• Clear boundaries. Team members can identify who is and who isn't a member of the team. In addition, outsiders recognize the team as a legitimate organizational unit.

• Common tasks. Team members have common tasks to perform and share collective responsibility for team outcomes.

• Differentiated member roles. That is, each team member is expected to offer something distinctive and valuable to the team.

• Autonomy. Team members have some discretion over how they do their work.

• Dependence on external people and resources. Team members must depend on other individuals and groups in the organization for information, resources, and support in order to accomplish their goals.

• Collective responsibility. Feedback and rewards are given, at least in part, to the team as a whole.

How do teams differ from work groups? Some researchers and practitioners see the difference as merely semantic and use the terms “group” and “team” interchangeably. Others, like myself, argue that although both work groups and teams are made up of individuals working interdependently toward common organizational goals, teams have several characteristics that go beyond those of work groups, particularly if they are high-performing teams.

Members of high-performing teams tend to develop a collective purpose that goes beyond that which the organization has established for them.^[10] Often, team members develop a purpose that gives them an opportunity to showcase and leverage their particular talents. For example, the organization may ask the team to develop a new product, yet team members may decide to go beyond the organization's request and create a product that is the most technologically sophisticated product on the market. Because they have personalized the team's goal, team members feel greater ownership of their work and believe that they are working for each other as well as for the team leader and the organization. In addition, people working in teams tend to have more say over how they do their work and expect a greater degree of personal learning and fulfillment from the team than do people working in groups. And, members of teams are not likely to see themselves as interchangeable or easily replaceable.^[11] When someone leaves a team, the remaining team members feel a greater sense of loss (unless, of course, the person who leaves has been unproductive or disruptive, in which case the remaining team members find ways to celebrate).

Successful collaborations are dreams with deadlines.

—Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman, Organizing Genius

Finally, leaders of high-performing teams spend less time in direct contact with the team and more time managing the context in which the team works. Rather than doing the team's work, they champion the team, provide direction and structure, supply resources and remove obstacles, and help the team manage the boundaries between the team and external people and groups.

No two teams follow the exact same path to success. Every successful team develops its own team culture and leadership norms. However, research suggests that high-performing teams tend to share several characteristics. These are summarized in Figure 7-1 and discussed in detail in the following sections.