I’ve been thinking about the nature of teams. I was in a conversation with a friend when the topic of a work team came up and she rolled her eyes. Maybe you can relate to that feeling? I know, yes, yes, in the bigger picture of things, you are a “together we’re stronger”, “together we can do more” believer and as a leader you want an engaged, high performing team. And yet there’s still a “but” after that thought!
This feeling can bubble up because the “people” part is hard or you’re busy focused on getting results, and all those team dynamics feel like it slows things down. It’s easy to get caught up in the thought “I can do it faster myself”.
What I can say with certainty is in any organization, no one works alone. We work together in different ways and have different types of teams for different reasons.
We have a lot of labels for teams. Working teams, management teams, virtual teams, commissions, project teams, special purpose teams, multi-functional teams, cross-functional teams, self-directed or self-managed teams, temporary teams, boards, cabinets, tiger teams, task forces, committees, departments... I’m sure you can come up with more on your own. Teams play an important role in getting work done.
Managing teams is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. I often share about managing and engaging your teams with their unique strengths. In addition, you need to pay attention to the type of team you have and ensure you are putting the right structure and incentives in place. Typically, when you examine different types of teams and how they interact and get work done, there are three basic types of teams:
3 types of team structure
INDEPENDENT TEAMS
Independent teams consist of members working independently to accomplish shared goals – in sports, this is like a swimming team.
HYBRID TEAMS
Hybrid teams consist of individuals working both collaboratively and independently, each at least 30% of the time. An example of this is a baseball team. When you are at bat it’s just you alone ready to hit. When you play infield, you are working collaboratively to field a ground ball and make a double play.
COLLABORATIVE TEAMS
Collaborative teams consist of individuals working interactively with each other to accomplish shared goals. In sports, this is like a basketball team. It’s highly interactive and dependent on working collaboratively throughout the whole game. Anyone who’s watched basketball will tell you, you can have a “superstar” but they still can’t win it all on their own.
You want to put the right incentives in place (goals, compensation, etc), create the right team communications structure and team culture for your unique team. If you don’t, you can end up with people working against each other, finger pointing and lack of accountability. In addition to making it harder to get work done, it can cause big process breakdowns, impacting customers, at the worst possible times.
Do you know what type of team you lead? Knowing whether you’re leading a more collaborative or more independent team is important information to have in order to choose the right actionable strategies to boost performance & morale and best manage your team.
Are you getting the most from your team?
Need to up-level your communications practices?
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