• How-to

Team is a duck that lays golden eggs. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of teamwork and the essentials of, well, duck-keeping:

I vs Us
In the pursuit of teamwork and innovation, individual traits are often undermined. A team does offer obvious advantages—more inputs, diversity, better quality, and wider acceptability. But if the individuals who make up the team lose their identity, the outcome suffers. Further, team members often don’t express their real opinions in fear of being criticized.

Efficiency
Activities like decision making in a team are time-consuming. That’s why during an emergency, most organizations revert to the authoritarian style. Reserve teamwork for complex matters that demand many perspectives.

Bell the cat
Since a team as a whole is held accountable for a project, individuals tend to make bold decisions, having a sort of protection against failure. But it can also foster irresponsibility, and ambiguity in accountability makes corrective action difficult.

Mediocrity
Team work tends to encourage mediocrity as it’s the team and not the individual that’s usually recognized. Talented employees feel frustrated, average ones feel secure.

Going about duck-keeping
Use sparingly
Analyze a project thoroughly and form a team only if it could attain considerably better results than individuals. If not, it could hurt productivity and worsen relationships.

Size matters…
Too many team members can cause chaos, and too few may be ineffective.

… And so does the head
A team’s success doesn’t always depend on its leader. If the members are disciplined and committed, it can sail smoothly to success with little guidance. But when a project involves dealing with highly uncertain and changing circumstances, a leader’s role becomes vital.

Flock together
Group affinity is important. The more comfortable the members are with each other, the higher the productivity. Being comfortable is different from being like-minded. Heterogeneity can actually be professionally valuable.

Give and take
Different techniques of discussions can be used to achieve healthy interaction. For instance, the problem could be intimated to the team in advance and then each one’s ideas can be circulated before the discussion under anonymity. This saves time during the discussion and enables members to come up with well-thought through ideas, free of bias.

Use the carrots, reserve the stick
Individual team members should be recognized and rewarded. Let them learn from mistakes instead of punishing them. This promotes commitment and creativity. To do this, clearly define each individual’s responsibilities.

©Entrepreneur March 2011

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teamwork