Teams Blog

"First, Get Your Feet Wet." That's what a team of researchers recommend for those who want their teams to be more innovative. It's also the name of the journal article in which they report on three studies about how different kinds of training affected team creativity. It turns out teams that dive in and try something new, rather than learning about the activity or unrelated group work from other teams, consistently produce more creative work.

Most of my work and pretty much all of Teams Blog is based on a trio of assumptions:

There are many ways managers can reduce conflicts in their teams without squelching new ideas. Too bad more don't use them, because a new study gives voice to the critical role of managers in managing disagreements.

"There is no 'I' in team," people often say to me.

"There is no 'we,' either," I reply with a mischievous grin.

This wordplay points up a critical tension in working on a team, part of what one researcher called the "paradoxes of team membership." He defined a paradox as "a constant struggle between apparently opposing values."[1] In The SuddenTeams Program, I list the first of these as "Being an individual versus being a team member":

Do you think business news stories based on surveys are useful? Please answer "Yes" or "No."

"But," you may object, "what if I think, 'It depends?'" Ah-HA! When then, indeed?

I received this week a survey from one of my service providers. It asked how I felt about social media and different relevant services. My answer choices were, "Like it" and "Hate it." That's all.

Servant leadership requires a deeper level of humility than many of us possess. Servant leaders "persevere to be 'servant first' rather than 'leader first' and put their subordinates' 'highest priority needs' before their own," according to scientists Jia Hu and Robert Liden.

I call it the “Baby with Bathwater Syndrome” (BWBS). Many of the objections I have heard to empowering teams, especially against self-directed teams, come from some example the objector raises of a team or company where it didn’t work. Then I start asking questions. Did the teams create charters, and the most vital components thereof? Were they given measurable goals to accomplish, into which they had input? Were they given enough authority and resources to accomplish the tasks assigned, including people, training, equipment and supplies? Did they…? Did they…?

One way to confirm whether one idea reflects reality better than another is to see if scientists in different fields, working independently, come up with results supporting that idea. If researchers with no reason to agree look at very different aspects of life and come up with the same conclusions, you are closer to a fundamental truth. Long before Columbus "discovered" the New World, educated people knew Earth was round because of evidence from what today we call the fields of astronomy, physics, transportation, and others.

This week I finished reading a monumental book on people and their relationships to work. The stories are poignant, maddening, funny reminders of the good and bad in the American workplace.

"Proud of my work?" spot-welder Phil Stallings asked. "How can I feel pride in a job where I call a foreman's attention to a mistake, a bad piece of equipment, and he'll ignore it. Pretty soon you get the idea they don't care." This from a man who also says of his work, "To a great degree, I enjoy it." A poor manager can create a poor employee.