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What People Don’t Tell You about Teams

It doesn’t matter your industry, working in a team is part of the way work is structured in our society. An individual’s experience and opinion of team work can depend largely on how great his experience as a team member has been. As many experts have written on the subject, it is still a hot topic of conversation. From my observations, there are a couple of things all the experts are missing.
 
 
Team building is a myth. It is a big fat lie to make people feel good. A team is not a house. You do not build it. People do not fit together like bricks. Teams are more like puzzles. Each unique piece fits together to make the picture whole. If you are missing a piece, you do not have a picture. Also, you can’t make pieces fit where they don’t belong. This means that in order to have a great team, you need the right pieces and not just any piece will do. The mix of people with their personality and skill set is what makes the team whole.
 
Teams are like families, functional and dysfunctional families. When assembled together, a team is like a supportive family, committed to the success of the family and supportive of the members. When teams are dysfunctional, not only is support absent, but a sense of mission and vision is absent. Production crawls or stops all together.  In a great family, not only does everyone have a clear role, but the members respect the roles of the members.  Committed teams, like families, are more successful. The members are more successful. The commitment is not only to the team, but to the individual members.
 
In my experience, the concept of team is the most misunderstood idea about work. Even in workforce development, where we are the experts about work, we need to focus on creating an environment supportive of teams. It sounds great. Take a bunch of people, put them in a room and tell them they are a team. Unfortunately, it is never that simple. It is time to really understand the pieces that make up the team to really achieve our purpose.
 
 ~Karen Cirincione
Twitter: @kcirincione

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