Why Team Dont Work

Teams have become the centerpiece of our corporate and government structure. Whether you are Toyota, the White House, or a local public works department, teams are used to take on every major task, and solve challenging problems. Business schools have taught the wisdom of teams for decades. So when the Harvard Business Review published an article titled "Why Teams Don't Work - An Interview with J. Richard Hackman"" in May 2009, many heads were turned.

Hackman, who is a professor at Harvard University, and an expert on social and organizational psychology and teams, says:

Research consistently shows that teams underperform, despite all the extra resources they have. That's because problems with coordination and motivation typically chip away at the benefits of collaboration.

This is not what we learned in school. We learned about the synergy of the team, how teams help overcome the weaknesses of the individuals that make up the team, how many hands make light work, and that if you want something done better, give it to a team.

However, as you probably suspected, this is not the end of the story. Hackman goes on to help us understand what gets in the way of creating high performing teams.

One of the primary road blocks to having a high performing team is lack of clarity regarding who is on the team. Hackman points out that the CEO is often responsible for these fuzzy boundaries related to team membership. There is a hesitancy to exclude people from teams, and a tendency to include people on teams for purely political reasons. The solution: "putting together a team involves some ruthless decisions about membership; not everyone who wants to be on the team should be included, and some individuals should be forced off."

It comes as no surprise to anyone who has worked on a team that teams need a compelling