We or I?
Wie lässt es sich effektiver arbeiten, allein und ungestört oder gemeinsam mit anderen im Team? Aber was bedeutet es überhaupt, in einem Team zu arbeiten? BOB DIGNEN geht diesen Fragen nach und führt aus, an welche Regeln sich ein Team halten sollte.
Many people today struggle with communication overload at work. Frequent complaints are that people have to take part in too many team meetings and respond to the resulting increase in emails and other messages from colleagues and business partners. The demands on people’s time have become so great that some have started to question whether current ideas of the benefits of teamwork are valid.
There is a growing feeling that people could be much more effective if only they were left alone to do their job without the constant interruptions to contribute to their teams. They could then focus better on their core activities and deliver better on their objectives.
In this article, we take a close look at the realities and myths surrounding the word “team” — both the positive values it can represent and the negative experiences working in teams can frequently lead to. We try to identify when individuals might have to say no to the “we” and focus on the “I”, to take their own decisions and solve their own problems without the interference of others.
1. What do you mean by “team”?
Part of the challenge of discussing the value of teams is that the term “team” means very different things to different people. Few people believe in a totally individual approach to work in organizations. Roles and responsibilities need to be defined and executed with regard to others, using the concept of a “team” as an organizing principle.
So the key question is not really “team or no team?”. It is more a question of which type of team is likely to be more effective in your particular work context. To what extent should individual roles in teams interact? Should roles and responsibilities be segmented, so that the team is defined as a collection of separated individuals working in isolation but coordinated by a leader — what we could call an “I-team”? Or should team members be collaborating closely all the time, so that the team is defined as a group of regularly interacting individuals who take joint decisions and create joint results — what we could call a “we-team”?
2. The arguments for “we-teams”
The “we-team” approach is promoted aggressively today — often under the “agile” concept (see Business Spotlight 2/2018) — by leaders who want to promote diversity, internationalism and cross-departmental working. The following claims are made about the benefits of the “we-team” approach:
Pooled expertise during problemsolving leads to better decisions.
The sharing of insights in diverse teams can deliver more innovative solutions.
Cross-departmental working overcomes “siloism”, which involves each
department working alone, pursuing its own objectives without regard for the bigger organizational picture. Interaction is more interesting and more motivating than working alone. These benefits are promoted so powerfully in the leadership literature that the “we-team” concept has become more or less synonymous with the idea of what a team is. The mantra is both simple and simplistic: “There is no ‘I’ in team.” But should we simply accept this as the final truth? Are there not potential advantages to returning the “I” to “team” in some way?
3. When is “I” better than “we”?
In this section, we will look at some reasons why “I-team” styles of working might be a more efficient and effective choice than the currently fashionable “we-team” approach.
a) Psychological preferences
Think about your preferences in the following areas: open-plan office or working alone behind a closed door; taking decisions independently or via a committee of ten team members with very different views; having to socialize at lunch with talkative co-workers with loud voices or having a sandwich quietly while scrolling through Facebook? Preferences will differ, and working in teams can be highly stressful, demanding and demotivating for certain types of people, particularly those who are more introverted. It can also undermine their ability to perform to the maximum.
b) Cultural norms
Some cultures favour working individually, as they see the value in promoting entrepreneurial, risk-taking and creative people. These can easily be stifled in
teams if the majority is wedded to traditional ways of working, and not willing to change. Also, organizational cultures with strong hierarchies may struggle if they introduce highly collaborative working styles. Peer-to-peer decision-making may work against strongly held beliefs, for example that seniority automatically brings with it the power to decide.
c) Expertise
Specialization of competence may also be a good reason for working individually. Indeed, many teams already work in a relatively segmented way, separated by specialized areas of competence or work scope, with little incentive to cooperate or share. And then there is also the question of language competence. Insisting that individuals with lower levels of English participate proactively in international team processes may not just be unrealistic. It can also be unethical because of the high levels of stress this generates in people who don’t wish to perform below their usual standards.
d) Time effectiveness
Collective decision-making often takes longer. For example, organizations often create unwanted delays by insisting on forms of distributed decision-making and collaborative working when it would be faster to isolate authority in the hands of individuals. One key lesson from the work of the emergency services such as the police and the military is that rigid forms of segmented responsibility are the key to managing highly critical tasks in an efficient manner.
e) Workloads
Highly collaborative people quickly find themselves swamped with work as a result of their goodwill. Learning how to refuse to collaborate —saying no to additional tasks — is sometimes more important and efficient than saying yes and being seen as cooperative.
f) Career development
Organizations promote individuals; they do not promote entire teams. If you want to get on in your career, you need to be visible, and noticed as being “better than the rest”. So it may not always be in your best career interests to be part of a highly collaborative team, reducing your personal work speed to match the norm, sacrificing rapid personal insights to shared thought exchanges, and reducing personal achievement in the interests of coaching and supporting others.
g) Distance working
There is some evidence that distributed or remote teams work better if tasks are more individualized, with the requirement of collaborating and exchanging ideas minimized. International teams with people located around the globe often have few opportunities to interact and practise high-quality joint thinking. So creating a non-interactive team and work structure can be advisable. Also, home working not only reduces workspace costs for organizations, but can enable individuals to get on with their jobs, too, without the constant interruptions of colleagues.
h) Resources
The realities of today’s business world mean that individuals often need to be able to do the work that was formerly done by teams of two or three people. In addition to saving on salaries, such approaches may also be more efficient.
i) Compliance
Legal aspects relating to, for example, personal liability and/or health and safety requirements may mean that individual decision-making necessary, with signatory or supervisory authority placed very clearly in the hands of the relevant qualified people.
j) The need for individuals as leaders
Even those who promote the idea of “weteams” do not normally believe that there should be no leaders to manage or organize such teams. Even the agile approach includes key coordinating roles because it is recognized that coordination by an expert with excellent technical, process and/ or communication skills is essential. If organizations focus too much on teamwork, they may corrupt their ability to develop the next generation of powerful individuals and future team leaders.
4. Co-create your team
Research into types of teamwork provides very little information about the most effective way of building,
organizing and maintaining teams. The optimal team organization depends on many factors, including the type of tasks, the skills and preferences of the team members, and the time and total resources available to complete the tasks.
This situational nature of team organization is currently being lost in the enthusiasm for the highly interactive “we-team” approach. The potential benefits of this approach are very real, as it encourages people to see relationships and networks as being just as important as their technical abilities. But it is also essential to learn to isolate oneself at times, to say no to collaboration and the additional work it represents, to maintain a realistic workload and to focus on one’s own priorities, particularly because of the chaotic under-resourcing of so many organizations.
When people refuse to collaborate, they may have very good reasons for doing so, related to their own needs and objectives. The solution to the potential conflict that can arise from such refusal lies in open and honest conversation about what is needed, what is possible, and the specific and tangible benefits of adopting one team approach over another. Otherwise, discussions become ideological and divisive.
A positive “co-creation” within your teams of an agreed understanding of the term “team” and an agreed approach to teamwork is the way forward. Take the time to discuss this with your teams, and you can become more efficient and more effective.