There is no well-known company that does not have some kind of organizational development program to promote team building. Millions are spent on “team building” measures. Every job advertisement is looking for team-oriented employees who want to work in a committed and well-coordinated team. The team spirit is a dogma of organizational development, a doctrine of salvation.

But teamwork is often misjudged!

The problem lies in the exaggerated expectations that, for example, 1+1=3.

Working group vs. team

However, high-performance teams are actually possible if certain conditions are met.

In such an environment, teams can emerge that can achieve truly extraordinary things. Managers can encourage their development. However, there is no guarantee that this spirit will actually develop. And if the success wanes, a team can quickly become an ordinary work group again. Hopefully not with resentment or conflicts that have arisen…

If the tasks are clear and distributed among the individual group members, we are more likely to speak of a working group. If the work processes are clearly assigned, the necessary skills are present, “no troublemakers” can be identified and success is achieved, then a “we feeling” will develop and this will lead to high levels of efficiency. Performance will then be 1+1=2 – but in the long term this is a safer situation, especially as there are more tasks in the company that follow known processes and do not tolerate many errors.

Leading teams

Under these premises and to comply with the usual terms, we can certainly call such groups of employees “teams” and such teams can also be managed.

Once again, the selection of employees is important here  . When it comes to carrying out recurring process tasks, a uniform attitude among team members with regard to ethical and moral principles for collaboration is an advantage. The different technical requirements should of course be covered as best as possible. Special team-building measures and – with the exception of positive feedback – special teamwork techniques are seldom necessary. A clear allocation of goals and responsibilities is sufficient. There has so far been no scientific evidence that staffing teams according to certain roles (e.g. the Margerisen-McCann team management wheel) brings advantages in team performance or cohesion. Rather, in a team that has good cohesion and pursues common goals, the members take on changing roles as required to ensure that the goals are achieved.

High performance teams

Things are a little different when teams are put together to creatively explore new paths or solve problems that were previously unknown. Here it may be worthwhile to bring together different characters. However, this requires that sufficient skills are available in terms of consensus-building, conflict management and creative problem-solving and decision-making methods.  Training, coaching  and possibly support from an experienced moderator is definitely an advantage. This creates optimal conditions for outstanding results.