The Wisdom Of Teams

The Wisdom Of Teams Definition: * “A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” * The Wisdom Of Teams, Katzenbach and Douglas, Harvard Business School Press, 1993.

Key Concepts: “Small number of people” - Five is ideal, nine is too many. “Complementary skills” – Expertise, diversity “Committed to a common purpose...” – Meaningful purpose all agree on. ...”performance goals, and approach“ Interdependent around a task Everyone clearly understands their role. “Hold themselves mutually accountable” – Not managers overseeing them (autonomy)

Teams naturally integrate performance and learning. Learn how to solve the problems involved in the task. Teams (and virtual teams) are the primary unit of performance for increasing numbers of organizations.

Problems With Teams Lack of conviction or clear purpose. Personal discomfort with groups and risk avoidance. Individual contributors vs. team players Free riding

Questions to Ask to Make Teams Effective Small enough in number: To convene, communicate easily and frequently? To have open and interactive discussions? To understand everyone’s roles, skills, personality and learning styles?

Questions to Ask to Make Teams Effective Adequate levels of complementary skills? Functional/technical, problem-solving/decision making, interpersonal New skills needed? Diverse enough?

Questions to Ask to Make Teams Effective Specific Goals? Unique to the team? Clear, simple, measurable? Realistic as well as ambitious (BHAGs), challenging? Priorities clear?

Questions to Ask yo Make Teams Effective Sense of mutual accountability: Individually and jointly accountable for team purpose, strategy, goals and outcome? Can progress be measured against specific goals? Is there a sense that “only the team can fail,” not individuals?

Approaches to Building Team Performance Collaboration improves when the roles of team members have been clearly defined and understood. Even better when people feel their role is bounded in ways that allow them to to do a significant part of the work independently. (AUTONOMY) More likely to collaborate if the path to achieving a goal is left somewhat ambiguous (AUTONOMY, problem-solving challenge)

Leader’s role is to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined for each specific Leader’s role is to ensure that each team member understands a project’s purpose, importance (urgency) strategy, and objectives… … but leaves the exact approach to the discretion of team members.

Instituting a Team-Based Approach (Scrum Management) Teams must be supported by effective systems: Management assigns mission and how it aligns with organizational goals. Team writes charter, decides on approach and strategy.

Team evaluates progress, and then reports on its progress. Meets regularly as a team (online or in person). Team evaluates its own performance. Satisfaction surveys (internal and external) Performance coaching

Conducts effective post-mortems on each project section completed. Team debriefs after project completion. Feedback to individual members. Kaizen Team disbands, regroups (depending on the project or task) or continues.