We often get asked if teamwork is always the best approach. Our answer is that whenever you can achieve an aim better by working individually, then you don’t need a team. Often in truly creative tasks or in endeavours where patient detail and oriented focus is required (imagine a watchmaker) teamwork would take longer and risk compromising a high quality result. The challenge for the leader is to determine the right balance between independent individual action and a team approach.
There are steps before the action phase of a task or project and after completion that still require cooperative and leadership skills: the aims for the project have to be agreed upon, so that all stakeholders are aligned with the deliverables. After completion the end result has to be accepted by the clients of this project.
When teamwork is most appropriate, e.g. when a variety of skills are required for project completion, other challenges can prevent a team from being effective. According to research by J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teamwork, teams often struggle and don’t work based on the following issues:
To address team dysfunction, HR development programs often focus on individual behavioural change and skill development that have little direct effect on team performance. Hackman proposes that expert team coaching is critical to build successful and effective teams. In our experience he is right. Teams are made up of individuals and their behaviour is critical to the success of the team. Equally important, and often overlooked, are the team processes that make everything work. There are many tasks that are better performed individually, however at some point most tasks, projects, functions and business will involve a need for others to be involved and that is when collaborative skills come into play.
There are steps before the action phase of a task or project and after completion that still require cooperative and leadership skills: the aims for the project have to be agreed upon, so that all stakeholders are aligned with the deliverables. After completion the end result has to be accepted by the clients of this project.
When teamwork is most appropriate, e.g. when a variety of skills are required for project completion, other challenges can prevent a team from being effective. According to research by J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teamwork, teams often struggle and don’t work based on the following issues:
- team size, boundaries and membership are not clear
- there are no compelling direction and vision
- the team lacks organisational support
- team members have underdeveloped cooperative and operative teamwork skills
To address team dysfunction, HR development programs often focus on individual behavioural change and skill development that have little direct effect on team performance. Hackman proposes that expert team coaching is critical to build successful and effective teams. In our experience he is right. Teams are made up of individuals and their behaviour is critical to the success of the team. Equally important, and often overlooked, are the team processes that make everything work. There are many tasks that are better performed individually, however at some point most tasks, projects, functions and business will involve a need for others to be involved and that is when collaborative skills come into play.
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