We love success. It inspires us, it’s what draws us to films and drama series. It’s what gets us rewards in different parts of our lives. However, something that is often missed out of the success narrative is that it is, in fact, individual success that we love. Part of this is due to a contemporary Western attitude that valorises the individual and is materially geared towards celebrating and rewarding on an individual basis. This article discusses the paradox of teamwork.

We live in a time where life and identity have never been more individualised. Social media has made us shallow and attracts people with narcissistic personality disorder. (Andreassen et al., 2017) Around the world, we have seen the rise of political figures who trade on their individual personalities and hero narratives.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”

Harry S Truman

Why are teams important?

But this era is a paradoxical one. Overcoming the challenges we face as a planet and the ambitions we hold as a human race (things such as climate change, overpopulation, settling on Mars even) are all built on the activity of high-performance teams by necessity. Why? Because they are so complex, multi-faceted and large in scale. This means they can only be tackled through collaboration and interdependence.

In short, we live in a time where the recognition of the ever-increasing importance of authentic, effective, transformative teamwork is becoming a salient feature of any organisational context you care to think of, yet such teamwork will be practised by individuals who are arguably less inclined and equipped than any of their predecessors to productively engage in it.

Why is this and where do we begin to make sense of this strange paradox? Spoiler alert, I’m not going to solve this problem here, but I will attempt to break it down.

The fetishization of teams

Let’s begin with the contemporary – and slightly unhelpful – fetishization of teams and teamwork in the business zeitgeist. One of the largest ever global studies on organizational trends by Deloitte in 2016 cited a “shift from top-down hierarchy to a network of teams” as one of the principal trends among modern large organisations.

Josh Bershin of Forbes Magazine described the trend in modern organisations as being: “like ‘Hollywood Movies’ – people come together and bring their skills and abilities to projects and programs, they build and deliver the solution, and then many of them move on to the next ‘movie’ later.”

Teamwork structures how business is done both in terms of strategic control and material practice. So, teamwork is on the rise, both literally and figuratively as a taken-for-granted feature of business.

But, one of the things that are evident from the references you will find to teamwork in reports like Deloitte’s is the assumption that once people have been assigned to a group you can call them a team, and because they are a team, and teams are the secret weapon of 21st-century capitalism, we just need to leave them to it and let the magic happen.

Team talk

One of the first misconceptions that Anne Donnellon (1996) looks to put to bed at the beginning of her book, Team Talk, is that there is a clear disparity between the idealist visions of the power of teamwork and the very slow and very painful experience of anyone involved in organising, leading or participating in teams in reality. Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith (1993) are the authors of the widely cited work, The Wisdom of Teams, and they stress the lack of clarity in what a team is and note that it is often used to describe a group rather than a team.

Introducing TINOS

All teams are groups but not all groups are teams. This is what I call a TINO….a team in name only and, as with any trend, many organisations are rushing to put the team label on anything that involves groups of people. Even Microsoft has called its videoconferencing and communication platform Microsoft Teams.

Caroline Criado Perez’s book, Invisible Women talks about the gender data gap where men are the universal norm for measuring everything from education to medicine, and employment and women are either left out of the data completely or not considered as a discrete population with their distinct characteristics. You could say the same thing about teams.

Teams are everywhere these days, but lots of these teams are TINOs…teams in name only, so the data on those teams doesn’t show us the full picture. True teams are either missed completely, hidden or misrepresented. This is the team data gap, the gap between teams in name only and true teams.

The data gap

This data gap casts a shadow because it means that we are drawing meaning from something that does not represent the thing we want to understand, and therefore we fail to take advantage of its benefits. So, ironically, when politicians speak of global collaboration and uniting to combat our challenges, they do so paying lip service to teamwork.

I would argue that the coronavirus pandemic has revealed this data gap rather sharply. What most governments have done is close off, protect and apportion blame elsewhere, characteristics of tribalism. Instead, collaboration, interdependence and willingness to take ownership of errors (characteristics of true teamwork) have been conspicuous in their absence. Yet you will hear a chorus of celebration of collaboration when there is some self-congratulation to be done.

The problem

This is where the problem lies. When successes are attributed to teamwork because that’s the trendy thing to do. However, it hasn’t actually been effectively deployed, its importance and value are not captured and truly recognised. This means that the lessons that flow from them are diminished in scope and value.

Worse than that, when failures are attributed to teamwork, it may be precisely because teamwork didn’t exist that the failure occurred in the first place. Thus we condemn teamwork – rather than the lack of it – as the cause of failure.

Greater than the sum of its parts

There are more gaps in our understanding of teams than first meet the eye. We know that organisations are much more likely to perform well when their people work effectively as a team. Good teamwork creates synergy – where the combined effect of the team is greater than the sum of individual efforts.

Working together, a team can apply individual perspectives, experience, and skills to solve complex problems. Thus creating new solutions and ideas that may be beyond the scope of any one individual. But recognising a true team is harder than it might seem at first.

On one hand, we are blocked by our preference to pick out the star players and reward them individually, and on the other hand, in our frenzy to celebrate good teamwork we can fail to take a moment to understand what it is and what it looks like.

Collaborating on Wicked Problems

To address wicked problems effectively through collaborative working, organizations and governments can implement the following ten steps:

1. Foster a Collaborative Culture

Encourage openness, trust, and mutual respect: Establish an organizational culture where collaboration is valued and rewarded. Promote open communication, transparency, and the sharing of ideas without fear of judgment.

2. Define Clear Objectives and Goals

Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals: Ensure all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the common objectives. This alignment helps keep everyone focused and motivated.

3. Establish Diverse Teams

Create teams with diverse expertise and backgrounds: Diversity in skills, perspectives, and experiences enhances problem-solving capabilities and innovation. Ensure inclusivity to tap into a broad range of insights.

4. Develop a Shared Vision

Create a unified vision and mission statement: This shared vision acts as a guiding star, helping all team members understand the larger purpose and their role in achieving it.

5. Implement Effective Communication Channels

Utilize appropriate tools and platforms for communication: Facilitate regular and efficient communication through meetings, collaboration software, and other tools. Ensure that information flows freely and transparently.

6. Promote Leadership and Facilitation

Appoint skilled leaders and facilitators: Effective leaders can guide collaborative efforts, mediate conflicts, and ensure that the team stays on track. Facilitation skills are crucial for managing group dynamics and fostering productive discussions.

7. Encourage Shared Responsibility and Accountability

Define roles and responsibilities clearly: Assign tasks based on individual strengths and expertise while ensuring that accountability is maintained. Shared responsibility fosters commitment and ownership among team members.

8. Invest in Collaborative Technologies

Adopt and utilize advanced collaborative tools: Leverage technology to facilitate virtual meetings, document sharing, project management, and real-time collaboration. Tools like video conferencing, cloud storage, and collaborative software are essential.

9. Provide Training and Development

Offer training programs to enhance collaborative skills: Invest in the continuous development of team members’ skills in communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and technology use. Training helps bridge skill gaps and enhances team performance.

10. Monitor, Evaluate, and Adapt

Continuously assess the progress and effectiveness of collaboration: Implement mechanisms for regular feedback and evaluation. Use this data to make necessary adjustments and improvements. Flexibility and adaptability are key to navigating the complexities of wicked problems.

Implementation Strategy

To effectively implement these steps, organizations and governments should consider the following:

  • Pilot Projects: Start with smaller, manageable projects to test collaborative strategies and refine them before scaling up.
  • Incentives and Recognition: Recognize and reward collaborative efforts and successes to motivate continued cooperation.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Involve all relevant stakeholders from the outset to ensure buy-in and sustained engagement.
  • Continuous Improvement: Treat collaboration as an evolving process, continually seeking ways to improve and innovate.

By systematically adopting these steps, organizations and governments can enhance their collaborative efforts and address wicked problems more effectively, harnessing the collective intelligence and creativity of diverse teams.

By Dr Andrew MacLaren, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University

References

Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive behaviours, 64, 287-293.

Donnellon, A. (1996). Team talk: The power of language in team dynamics. Boston, MA: HBS Press.

Katzenbach, J. R. & Smith, D. K, (1993). The Wisdom of Teams. Boston, MA: HBS Press.

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Edinburgh Business School

Edinburgh Business School was founded in 1995 as the graduate business school of Heriot Watt University. In 2019 it merged with Heriot Watt’s School of Social Science to become Scotland’s largest business school.

The business school launched and continues to offer one of the most popular MBA programs in the world, with 9,171 current students and 20,281 alumni across the globe.

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