What is the value of using teams in the workplace? Although the different personalities of people have the potential to create conflict within a team, they can also produce unique ideas. Successful teams ultimately agree on the objectives they need to accomplish, and the members depend on one another’s ideas and efforts to develop successful plans and implement them. There is a sense of accountability, and the members are committed to one another’s success.

One product that benefited from team development is the Microsoft Kinect. A breakthrough product for the video gaming industry, the Kinect allows video game players to play games without handheld devices. Players use voice commands and gestures instead. The Kinect was not designed by a single team but was made up of seven teams from seven different disciplines. A small team began exploring ways to track player’s body movements. Another small team of computer vision experts from Microsoft Research worked on the key algorithms. Once demos of the team’s work began spreading through the company, engineers began to volunteer to come in and work nights on the project. In its first 60 days on the market, the product sold 8 million units and set a Guinness world record as the fastest-selling consumer electronics device.23

Do teams always improve the development process? Although teams have been shown to be effective in many situations, some people suggest that teamwork does not always result in more creativity. Research conducted by Barry Staw at the University of California–Berkeley, found that when college students were asked to think of business ideas—either individually or in teams—the individuals came up with more ideas than the teams did. In addition, the individuals’ ideas were voted as more creative than were the teams’ concepts. Staw concluded that collective thinking does not lead to increased creativity and can, in fact, hamper it. One possible reason, Staw proposes, is that team members often want to “fit in,” but creativity demands a person take risks and “stand out.”24

If the members of a team are not carefully selected, “wanting to fit in” can lead to narrow-mindedness within the group, a phenomenon referred to as groupthink. People who are from similar backgrounds and sectors of a company tend to have the same ideas and work with the same set of unspoken assumptions, which can lead a group to reject different ideas without fair examination.

Groupthink can hamper the creativity of teams, ­although this challenge can be minimized by carefully designing them, a topic we will discuss shortly.

Another challenge is the fact that there is now a wide mix of generations in the workforce (see Table 8.3). By 2020 there will be five generations in the workplace at the same time. Imaging the challenges for a single team in which each member has grown up with such different social and educational experiences. Each generation exhibits distinct styles in the workplace. Combining those in ways that benefit the team efforts will be an important challenge.

Table 8.3

Five Generations in the 2020 Workplace

Are generational differences really that significant in the workplace? In their book Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation,25 researchers Neil Howe and William Strauss discuss the three dominant generations in the workplace today:

• Baby boomers. Those born between 1943 and 1960. Baby boomers are the veterans in the workforce. Many have been with their same companies for decades.

• Gen-Xers. Born between 1961 and 1981. Gen-Xers, who are independent thinkers and hanker for change, are the first generation of workers to value family life over work life.

• Millennials. Born between 1982 and 2002. Like Gen-Xers, Millennials want their jobs to accommodate their personal lives, but they also have high expectations for achievement in their careers.

Millennials, who are now entering college campuses and the workforce, believe in their own self-worth and value.26 They feel they have the capability to change the companies they work for and the world. According to Howe and Strauss, members of this generation expect to make their mark on society by using technology to empower the community. Teamwork, good behavior, and citizenship are much more important to Millennials than to previous generations, and they see equality between different races and genders.

How will this affect business? How will businesses react to the needs of younger workers, who are juggling work demands along with the demands of their new families? How will older employees respond to their sense of confidence and their tendency to work toward team-based solutions?

What kinds of practices set the stage for the best team performance? Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has applied his idea of flow, discussed previously, to teams. Group flow occurs when a group knows how to work together so that each individual member can achieve flow. The characteristics of such a setting are as follows:

• Creative spatial arrangements. Pinning ideas on the walls and using large charts to combine ideas from the entire group tend to lead to the open consideration of ideas. Tables are used less because working while standing and moving promotes more discussion and interaction.

• Playground design. This begins with creating a space where it’s safe to divulge ideas that normally people might just keep to themselves. Often, a large number of charts display information inputs, graphs, and the project summary. Wall space can be used to collect results and lists of open topics.

• Constant focus on the target group for the product. At Amazon.com, CEO Jeff Bezos has the nickname “the empty chair” because he often keeps a seat open at team meetings. The empty seat is the most important one in the room because it represents the customer.27

• Visualization. Visualization and prototyping are used to construct initial models for product and service models, which are later refined.

How do managers create the best teams? Some important aspects a manager should consider in forming a team include the following:

• Size. A team that is too large may struggle with cohesiveness. At the same time, a large group can offer the benefit of diverse perspectives.

• Psychological safety. Members of the team perform best when they feel safe to take a risk. If they are confident they will be supported by the team even if the approach fails, the team benefits.

• Time frame. Some teams are put together to work on a specific problem or project within a short time frame, whereas others may work together for longer time periods on everyday tasks.

• Status. A team formally created by a company may be required to provide progress reports and updates, and it often has access to company resources. Less formal teams may need to take the initiative when it comes to communicating their progress to other people and groups.

According to business writer and theorist R. M. Belbin, effective teams are comprised of people with diverse skills, talents, and points of view. Team members’ respective skills and talents should complement one another so the team can perform at an optimum level. For example, what if all of the members of a team are extremely creative yet inexperienced in effective time management? What if five of six team members are all aggressive leaders? Clearly, a balance of people who embody different team roles is the key to the success of a team.

Belbin’s model of nine team roles is outlined in Table 8.4. Considering both the personality traits of potential members and the roles they can play can be helpful when designing teams.

Table 8.4

Belbin’s Nine Team Roles

What are cross-functional teams? In the past, the members were often from the same department and reported to the same supervisor. But today, cross-functional teams have become more common. In a cross-functional team, members are selected across a range of critical functional divisions of a business. For example, in 2004, the LEGO Group was near bankruptcy. The company’s investment in LEGO theme parks weren’t yielding a good return, and some products like Clikits had struggled in the marketplace. To turn things around, LEGO created a cross-functional team of employees to help the company push through new product innovations, pricing models, business processes, marketing plans, and community building efforts. The group ushered through modifications to existing product lines as well as new products, such as the series of LEGO board games. Now, for several years in a row, LEGO has been growing its revenues by more than 20 percent per year.

What effect does technology have on team design? In a virtual team, members are located in different physical locations but work together via telecommunications technology to achieve a goal. The need for virtual teams has grown out of the increased globalization of business. Familiar tools like conference calls and e-mail have evolved to include videoconferencing and live broadcasting of key meetings and events over the Web. Webcasts can now support interactive participation of the viewing audience. In real time, audience members can ask questions, exchange electronic files with the group, and record the presentation for repeated viewing. Web conferencing software like Cisco WebEx and Microsoft Lync allow participants in any geographic location to brainstorm together in real time on a common “virtual whiteboard,” watch demos and presentations live, and record and annotate these discussions for later playback.

How can social media tools like wikis help modern teams? Modern tools for collaboration are now often replacing endless streams of e-mails with file attachments. Wikis are one example. Wikis are websites that support editing by multiple authors. Team members can work on one common document all at the same time, watching each other make editing changes and having a live chat window open at the same time. Changes are archived and can be recalled; if a member of the team later reads the document and wants to revert back to a previous version, he or she can do so with just one click. The problem of having multiple versions of a document is eliminated, so there are no concerns about synchronizing the different versions between all team members; the most current version is always available on the wiki.

One of the best-known public wikis is the encyclopedia project Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not the only use of wikis, however. Wikis can be run and maintained by individuals or within a specific corporation. Sites like www.wikimatrix.org can help identify the type of wiki software best suited to a specific virtual team. Products like Blackboard and Microsoft Windows SharePoint contain wiki tools.

Is designing a strong virtual team the same as creating a strong face-to-face team? Most successful virtual teams include some periodic face-to-face meetings. Few virtual teams are 100 percent virtual. Although technology allows teams to communicate without ever meeting face-to-face, it is still important to have the group occasionally meet with each other in the same space to build social connections. Keeping the team connected is a key priority for a virtual team, and it can be difficult to keep contacts strong from a distance. There can be communication delays from working across time zones or using e-mail as a primary mode of communication. Establishing team rules, such as agreeing to respond to e-mail messages within a certain window of time or initiating global office hours, can minimize these problems. (For more on communicating with teams, see Mini Chapter 3.)

How can I be a valued team player? It is important to begin now to build the skills that will make you successful in a team. Preparing yourself to contribute in a team setting may be the most important thing you can do to increase your value to an organization, no matter what position you hold.

What habits will give me the best chance to contribute to a team? There are many skills that you can build to enhance your success as a member of a team. One model that organizes these skills is the Seven Habits model developed by famed management author Stephen Covey.28 Covey has found that there are seven habits of behavior exhibited by successful people:

• Be proactive. This is the ability to control your environment rather than have it control you. Proactive team members are constantly looking “down the road” in terms of their time management, work, and obstacles that could impede the success of a project.

• Begin with the end in mind. This means you are able to see the desired outcome and the activities that need to be done to achieve it. Staying focused on the ultimate goal allows you to avoid taking a team in the wrong direction or a direction that will cause divisiveness and waste resources and energy.

• Put first things first. Manage your time and energy so that the required tasks are prioritized. This skill works together with the second habit to push you toward success in your team role.

• Think win–win. This is the most important aspect of interpersonal leadership because most achievements are based on cooperative effort; therefore, the aim needs to be win–win solutions for all.

• Seek first to understand and then to be understood. Good communication is critical to developing and maintaining positive relationships. Listening to your teammates and giving them the chance to be heard will be the key to your own success when it comes to being understood and contributing.

• Synergize. This is the habit of creative cooperation—the principle that ­collaboration often achieves more than could be achieved by individuals working independently toward attaining a purpose.

• Sharpen the saw. This catchphrase comes from the metaphor for chopping down a tree. If you are constantly sawing and never take time to stop and sharpen the saw, you’ll feel as if you’re investing tremendous energy, but the results will not be what they could be if you just stopped to sharpen the saw first. Strong team contributors take time to develop their skills, step back from “the grind,” and reanalyze the task at hand so that they can work more efficiently.

If you work to develop and use these habits, you will find that both you and the teams you are a member of will become more successful—and that you will be in demand for increasingly more important team assignments.

The key to promoting better team function for Dr. Gawande was to develop a checklist. His book, The Checklist Manifesto, describes how he worked with his staff to create a checklist used during surgeries. Issues were identified, like the need for a mandatory introduction of each person on the team before the procedure was performed, and giving a clear authorization to nurses to stop the surgery if an item on the checklist was missed. By having every member of the team involved in developing the checklist, critical items were included that could easily be overlooked. The result? At a multihospital study, the number of surgical deaths dropped by 47 percent.