There’s a big difference between a team and a working group

This resource first appeared in issue #40 on 04 Sep 2020 and has tags Managing A Team: Other

There’s a big difference between a team and a working group - Tim Leslie

The distinguishing feature of a real team is mutual accountability.

This 10-word quote nicely summarizes the article. A team isn’t just a collection of individuals with related tasks; it’s a group fo people who feel they can rely on each other’s contributions and hold each other accountable to that. When that is set up and working well, the team is an entity in and of itself.

My own managerial style tends to be a bit more reductionist, and I tend to interject myself into peer interactions more often then is often helpful. When I remember to let go a little bit and encourage team members to rely on each other (and give them the space to work up to relying on each other for increasingly big tasks) the team-formation process can begin. (This article by Warren Lynch is a good introduction to the Tuckman “forming, storming, norming, and performing” model of team formation).