Is teamwork the problem or the solution?

Other forms of co-operation may be more effective – and save preciousmanagement time

Kevan Hall

Many organizations are moving away from the hierarchical, command-and-control

style of working, in favor of greater collaboration across departments, territories

and even organizational boundaries, to include customers and suppliers. In some

cases organizations have introduced a formal matrix structure to cut across the traditional

vertical silos of function and geography.

As products, markets and organizational structures become more complex, collaboration

across business units, countries, functional cultures and between other companies

becomes critical. Many businesses introduce a ‘‘one team’’ program to encourage everyone

to collaborate and communicate more fully.

But what if all this cooperation and communication are part of the problem? A survey by

training and consultancy firm Global Integration of more than 4,000 people who work in

virtual and matrix teams shows that they spend an average of two days a week in meetings

and conference calls and that, for around 50 percent of the time, the content is not relevant to

them. The survey also shows that people receive an average of nearly 60 e-mails a day and

almost 75 percent are irrelevant. If a factory produced such high levels of scrap, it would be

closed down tomorrow.

Simplify team structure

Teamwork has become a cult. It is often a corporate value. It is a selection, appraisal and

promotion criterion, and managers are exhorted to have regular team meetings. To be told

that one is not a team player is a kiss of death in many organizations. But can it be true that

every job has to be done in teams? Can a whole company of thousands of people be ‘‘one

team’’, or even the division of hundreds, or a department of dozens of people? Part of the

problem is that we use the word team when what we really mean is cooperation.

Teamwork is a particularly complex and expensive way to cooperate. A typical ‘‘spaghetti

team’’ is a collection of, probably, four, five or six people with interdependent skills who work

together synchronously on a common collaborative objective. This form of cooperation can

be really important, for example in multi-disciplinary problem-solving. But often it is not

essential, as most of our work is not done in this way (see Figure 1).

For many complex global organizations, spaghetti teamwork is difficult to organize across

time zones. Travel and communication costs and diverse groups of colleagues can make

DOI 10.1108/HRMID-08-2013-0067 VOL. 21 NO. 6 2013, pp. 33-36, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0967-0734 j HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL DIGEST j PAGE 33

teamwork expensive and complex. We should therefore spend more time focusing on

simpler ways to cooperate.

Here are three modes of cooperation that are much simpler to operate than spaghetti teams

(see Figures 2-4)

1. Networks – individuals have the visibility and connection to other individuals that they

need to collaborate effectively.

2. Communities – on and offline communities with a common identity such as functional or

learning communities where people create common identity, share learning and advance

the practices of the community.

3. Star groups – a simple hub-and-spoke structure with individuals reporting to a central

point that co-ordinates their activity.

Figure 1 Spaghetti team

Figure 2 Network

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The solution is to use the simplest form of co-operation for the task. If co-ordinating people

with similar skills, who do not need to communicate so intensively together, a star group may

be a simpler alternative to the traditional team. An example is a group of salespeople who

each have their own territory or customers.

Managers have been brainwashed into believing that everything should be done as a team.

They confuse the need for team spirit with the need for a team structure. Groups can still

have a good sense of identity, good relationships and trust. They just do not need to do all of

their work together.

Because managers believe that their groups must be managed as a team, they tend to have

team meetings and conference calls with status updates, activity reviews and

information-sharing that is largely irrelevant to other group members.

As organizations become more complex and more connected there is an inevitable pressure

to increase both cooperation and communication. Yet in complex matrix and virtual

organizations, being more connected does not necessarily mean being more effective. As

we become more connected, we also need to be more selective and more discerning about

the kind of cooperation that genuinely adds value.

Figure 3 Community

Figure 4 Star group

VOL. 21 NO. 6 2013 jHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL DIGESTj PAGE 35

It often seems that every training course or problem-solving meeting concludes that the

answer is ‘‘more communication’’. But according to Global Integration’s ongoing research,

managers are already spending 85 percent or more of their day communicating. If you add

together meetings, conference calls, webinars, one-to-one discussions, e-mails, instant

messages and so on, it is a wonder there remains any time to do work.

In economics, when the cost of something goes up, the demand falls. In today’s complex

organizations the cost of cooperation has increased, yet our belief in teamwork contributes

to an inexorable rise in the amount of cooperation, meetings and e-mails, even though the

costs are increasing.

Today’s management needs to divest itself from the cult of teamwork and take a long hard

look at simpler ways to get things done. Managers do not need everyone to be involved in

everything. Consensus is not always necessary for every decision. They could easily reclaim

a day a week by pushing back against unnecessary cooperation.

Keywords:

Leadership,

Teamwork,

Organizational culture,

Organizational structure

Note

Kevan Hall is author of Making the Matrix Work and chief executive of training and

consultancy firm Global Integration (www.global-integration.com)

‘‘ To be told that one is not a team player is a kiss of death inmany organizations. ’’

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