What's makes a team a team?

Groups vs Teams: The 5 Points of Difference.

“Does it matter what they are called?”.

Yes, big time.

 Levi's switched from piece work manufacturing to team-based work and team based incentives years ago in one of their US plants.  Piece work is where a machinist does a receptive task, like inserting a zip.  They get paid for the number of zips they sew.  When team based work was introduced, people were paid based on what the team achieved - which meant that the slowest person determined the pay-rate for the whole team.

Uh-oh. Cue mucho unhappiness.  

Imposing a team structure where it doesn't suit the task or workflow imposes transaction costs and just pisses people off.  Some tasks (like repetitive tasks carried out by one person) don't need teams.  But too many of organisations start from the premise that a team is the solution - so what's the problem?

A group is something like . . . say, a book club.  People with common interests who meet regularly to share thoughts and feelings about books and to commune with each other. Friendly, rewarding but definitely not a team.  

Here are the 5 things that make teams teams.

1. Teams have an explicit shared goal, with all members working towards that common objective. In contrast, groups tend to be more loosely structured, with individual members focused on their own goals and agendas.  
   
   
2. Moreover, teams have a specific form and workflow designed to optimize the skills and attributes of its members and alignment with the shared goal. Groups tend not to have an internal structure, don’t need a clear direction and tend to have a stronger social function.
   
   
3. Another key difference lies in interdependence. Teams rely heavily on everyone doing their bit to achieve their goals, with a high degree of task collaboration . In other words, I can’t get my bit done unless you do your bit.  That’s interdependence. Conversely, groups are mostly individuals working independently but together.
   
   
4. Teams tend to emerge as tasks become more complex and information less clear. Collaboration is a defining characteristic of teams, with team mates actively working together to solve problems and complete tasks. A group has members working independently; but it can evolve into a team the task is more complex or too big for one person alone.
   
   
5. Lastly, internal norms are always a key characteristic of teams. They define the way the team goes about its work and relationships. They guide things like  task achievement, accountability, internal climate (like psychological safety and social cohesion), and effectiveness. In contrast, groups don;t need formal mechanisms evaluation because they don’t have the strong sense of collective accountability that is a hallmark of teams.

Think twice before organising people into teams.  Let the task determine what is required.  

Winsborough are team specialists. Contact us for tools like the Rocket Model of teams and team coaching programmes to  build high performance teams.