The Problem of Teamwork
Teams are complicated by their nature. Most of us have partici- pated in some kind of team, formal or informal. In doing that
you very likely noticed that people have to work hard to work to- gether effectively. This is because there are natural differences between team members. These differences include:
1 Levels of motivation, energy and ability
2 Expectations about how activities will be done
3 Ways of thinking about work
4 Understandings of goals and roles
5 Aspirations and interests
Teamwork Is Not a Science
Teamwork is fuzzy, not black and white like mathematics. In some ways organizing a team is like building a machine without instructions or navigating a maze.
You can read books like this one to get started, but fundamen- tally you learn teamwork by trial and error. Moreover, there will always be new ideas about teams, competing approaches and situations that refuse to fit with best practices.
This book does not attempt to cover every aspect of teams. No book about teamwork can realistically do that.
Why Are Teams Important?
In many situations, teams of people have more potential for problem solving and doing work than individuals. When a per- son or group of people want to do something that requires com- bining their efforts they need to work at a larger scale. Working at a larger scale requires organization. Organization allows mul- tiple people to achieve more than a single person, without the group becoming an ineffective mob.
For organizations, using teams is one solution to scaling collec- tive efforts. There are other approaches with similar goals. Some of these are:
• Hierarchical organization
• Group processes, like formal project management
• Affinity networks
• Franchising, subsidiaries and affiliates
This book only addresses teamwork. More specifically it ad- dresses the structures and self-organization of teams.
What Is Team Structure?
Teams are organized by information and processes. The structure of a team is the way it is defined for its management and members in terms of:
• Membership
• Goals
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Processes, starting with decision-making, communications and information management
What Is a Self-organizing Team?
A self-organizing team is simply a team that organizes its members’ efforts. All teams do this.
Examples of self-organization include:
• Delegating roles and tasks
• Having expected ways to do common activities
• Using the same words for the same things
• Coordinating working hours.
Self-organization is a practical requirement for every team to some degree. Without self-organization a team would be little different than a group of industrial robots. It would require all the painstaking and expensive programming of robots. But it would have none of benefits of tireless work and super-human strength and precision.
Self-organizing teams are found in every type of organization. This includes even the most hierarchical or command and con- trol organizations. Self-organization is as much a part of human nature as it is a part of how groups reach the scale required to meet complex goals. There is nothing revolutionary, subversive or even adventurous about self-organization.
Is Self-organization Sufficient?
In most cases multiple approaches to group organization need to be mixed together to create an effective approach for a spe- cific situation.
For example, it would be very uncommon for a team within a business to not have a well defined position within the overall hierarchical structure of the company.
Likewise, a less formal team might exist outside a hierarchical organization, but it would typically still have a context. Such a team might form within a wider affinity network of some kind, such as a common interest, activity or communications plat- form.
Section 2
About This Book
In This Section
1. What This Book Is About
2. What This Book Is
3. What This Book Is Not
4. Who This Book Is For
5. What To Expect
6. An Overview Of the Contents