Team Up to Fail or Fail to Team Up?

Headnote

Knowing when to use the team approach - and when not to - can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your organization's improvement efforts.

Team approach is the buzzword today in organizations around the world. From deciding on a break room layout to establishing business goals to controlling process variation, work is done in teams or is expected to be done in teams. In some organizations, a solution that has not been arrived at in a team setting is frowned upon and declared a failure, even before it is implemented and assessed.

Some educational institutions advocate the team approach concept aggressively at all levels. Engineering schools require students to complete class projects by working in teams. Business schools profess that a team approach alone will solve certain business problems effectively. Several top-ranking business schools require an initial week or two of "team-building exercises" which are completed by the incoming students working in teams to help them understand the benefits of teamwork.

From my experience, a team approach is not always the best approach in the business world, nor does the lack of a team approach result in an unacceptable outcome all the time. It is necessary to pause and evaluate the relative merits and demerits of a team approach versus an individual contributor approach to problem solving and decision making.

When and Why the Team Approach Works

A team approach, implemented in its true letter and spirit, requires a diverse group of individuals to constitute the team (Fisher, 1999; Juran and Gryna, 1988; Davis and Newstrom, 1989). Everyone goes through different personal and professional experiences in life based on upbringing, education, experience on the job, and cultural background. When faced with a problem, we tend to solve the problem using an approach on which all of the aforementioned factors have an impact.

The rationale for using a team comprised of a diverse group of individuals is that the best contributions from each individual are brought to bear on the problem solution, thus making it the best solution or one of the best possible solutions. With a team approach, the chance of the solution gaining universal acceptance is greater since individual bias is minimized. Also, individuals on a team learn from each other. This makes...