Denning (2011) provides extensive insight on teamwork and use of key elements for developing high-performance teams. These elements help to establish the ways for people to work together in many different types of team environments. Teams can be a workgroup, a single team, a community or even a network of people. They all have objectives, timeframes, authorities and memberships. However, there are some differences with the details of the sub-activities for each of those. In addition, they all have driving forces, need for getting the job done, commonalities, successes and failures, and even risks.
Workgroups are smaller groups within the organization’s subunits. Teams are considered a grouping of people within the organization and are meeting the organizational goals. The community has a different meaning in that it is a group of people with maybe a geographical tie to each other based on where they live, work, etc. Networks are a different group of people, not to be confused with the community of people since they are people who have a mutual benefit for the group of special purpose.
High-performance teams typically are very active groups with the goal of results. They use their outputs to develop solutions or expected results. They are dynamic and can shift needs to moving needs or requirements. Innovation is a characteristic of high-performance teams; taking every opportunity to make challenges as opportunities. Members of high-performance teams are normally strong in force and recognize the strengths and weakness of their peer members. These members typically have interchangeable skills and flexibility, and are committed to integrity and results driven; often passionately.
The environment for high-performance teams is essential in that it is what creates the essential true dynamics of their existence. It is important for management to understand the non-traditional aspects of high-performance teams so that they do not stifle their abilities, but yet create and foster an environment to enable them to be fully armed to execute to their mission.
Shared values and common vision are key attributes for high-performance teams. It is almost impossible to be successful on a team without common values and visions. It would be like a soccer team not knowing which way to run when they have the ball nor knowing how important it is to get the ball through and to the goal. Then the question would be, “what are you doing it for anyway?” Whenever in some type of team environment, it is utmost important to understand each other and the purpose and objective of the team; along with the vision. Otherwise, everyone is running in different directions with no common end state. The power of a unified team is endless.
As far as the four patterns of working together; work groups, teams, community, and networks; they are similar yet distinctly different. I have been on many different teams to include high-performance teams. Most of the failures have been associated with lack of direction or lack of common vision. The successes have been that when given all the right components and supporting elements needed for high-performance teams, we have provided superior end results. I have been assigned to teams that have re-designed policies, processes and procedures for the Department of the Navy in support of Command level initiatives. These teams were backed 100% by leadership, fostered by a “healthy” team environment and we were able to present numerous areas of improvements to the Command in which it reduced total ownership costs while providing a more efficient way of doing business.
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