When Good Teams Go Bad

January 31, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “What could better symbolize high-level business performance than an eight-oared crew team rowing in perfect unison, their boat powered by a selfless collaboration of strength, skill, and shared purpose? It's no wonder that advertisers love to use this image to depict successful teamwork

The rowing metaphor also caught the eye of HBS professor Jeff Polzer and HBS associate professor Scott Snook. The pair has produced a case about the behind-the-scenes dynamics surrounding a college crew team. But unlike the beautiful images favored by advertisers, "The Army Crew Team" case reveals a not-so-pretty picture of a frustrating and baffling decline in performance by the varsity boat at the United States Military Academy..."

180 View – Lawrence Young has worked with hundreds of companies implementing IT and HR projects whose success depends on team work. Lawrence has concluded that the maximum benefits derived from highly functional teams accrue when:

1. The strategic and operational goals and objectives of the project are clearly identified and communicated to all team members.
2. The culture of the team ensures a high degree of respect between members of the team.
3. All team members clearly understand the basic dynamic of any team, which is that the whole exceeds the sum of the parts i.e. the overall success of the team exceeds the individual success of any given member of the team.
4. Each team member is given appropriate responsibility to complete their assigned tasks, and is measured and held accountable by the team leader in a timely fashion.

But according to Lawrence, the most critical success factor in effective team work is ensuring that each team member is committed to the success of the overall project, and not merely involved in completing their assigned tasks. As Lawrence says, successful teams are all about bacon and eggs - ‘the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed’.