81 Posts Found

Gentlemen, I take it that we are all in complete agreement on the decision here. Then, I propose that we postpone further discussion […] to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.

Content: Quotation | Author: Alfred P. Sloan | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

When I’m assessing a team, I use my “three ‘P’ ” test. The “P”s stand for people, process, and product. If everyone on the team isn’t clear about the product (whatever it is that you’re trying to create) and the process (how you’re going to get where you need to be, who drives what, who is the ultimate decision maker), then there are going to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

If you look at it as an individual, we are all so flawed, and we are all so bad at reasoning when our interests or our moral values are at stake. We are not going to get better at reasoning and change just by helping individuals to reason better. When you put us together into networks, systems, companies, juries and legislative bodies, we can correct … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jonathan Haidt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork, Thought

A committee is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.

Content: Quotation | Author: Richard Harkness | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

A real team, in my view, is something very specific. It differs from the more common “single-leader unit” in three important ways. First, all members of a real team have an equal level of emotional commitment to the team’s purpose and goals. Second, the leadership role shifts easily among the members based on the skills and experience they have and the challenges of the moment, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jon R. Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Teamwork

In the early 1900s, a thoughtful organizational thinker named Mary Parker Follett called out the critical difference between compromise and integration. A team that compromises has settled for the lowest common denominator: a solution, no matter how incomplete, to which all can easily agree, just to move things forward. Compromised solutions made in this way are more likely to break down.

A team that integrates, by … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jon R. Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

A simple rule of thumb is that a team of specialists or generalists doesn’t really work, especially with messy, creative problems. You really need a mixture of specialists who see one part of the problem with a whole lot of depth and a generalist who can help integrate the views of the individual specialists.

Content: Quotation | Author: Brian Uzzi | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Teams with too many overlaps in their social networks are less creative — the team members all know the same stuff. Teams that aren’t networked at all, however, aren’t good at sharing what they do know. The most successful teams are those in which everyone knows one or two others but not everyone — and not no one.

For that reason, organizations should subvert the “proximity … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Brian Uzzi, Jennifer Robison | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Michael Doyle, [who] invented the practice of “meeting facilitation” in the 1970s…saw that human beings did their best work in groups of seven to fifteen. Most corporate boards fit in that sweet spot. Unfortunately, he believed that most group problems arise from misapplying power, content, and process. Executive groups, he found, focus overwhelmingly on content (such as PowerPoint presentations and board books) and rarely on … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael Doyle | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Teamwork

I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary, a collective creation of previously unimagined quality or beauty. But don’t count on it. 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. And even … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: J. Richard Hackman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Teamwork

People generally think that teams that work together harmoniously are better and more productive than teams that don’t. But in a study we conducted on symphonies, we actually found that grumpy orchestras played together slightly better than orchestras in which all the musicians were really quite happy.

That’s because the cause-and-effect is the reverse of what most people believe: When we’re productive and we’ve done something … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: J. Richard Hackman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Teamwork

…the things that happen the first time a group meets strongly affect how the group operates throughout its entire life. Indeed, the first few minutes of the start of any social system are the most important because they establish not only where the group is going but also what the relationship will be between the team leader and the group, and what basic norms of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: J. Richard Hackman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Teamwork

Many people act as if being a team player is the ultimate measure of one’s worth, which it clearly is not. There are many things individuals can do better on their own, and they should not be penalized for it. The challenge for a leader, then, is to find a balance between individual autonomy and collective action. Either extreme is bad, though we are generally … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: J. Richard Hackman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Teamwork

Teams are a way of making groups more comfortable for men by adapting the language of sports. Groups were about collaboration and learning, but teams can be focused just on winning. This appeals to organizations focused on the bottom line, but the ability of people to make breakthroughs is compromised.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

In many of the management teams I’ve studied, an unwillingness to disagree has proved a problem. This seems to be the general pattern. It’s more difficult to draw people out than to control. Within a team there is a sort of natural policing that goes on which means excessive combativeness usually isn’t tolerated. On the other hand there are no sanctions … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subject: Teamwork

Teams rarely manage to improve their performance wholly outside their active working environment, so short-term workshops, no matter how attractive the setting or how heart-felt and candid the members’ exchanges may be, aren’t likely to change their mode of working. Structured self-discovery and reflection must be combined with decision making and action in the real world; the constant interplay among these elements over time is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Teamwork

Vastly superior team member intelligence, perhaps surprisingly, does not actually make a significant difference in how successful a team can be.

Since bioteaming is based on a distributed intelligence model, what really counts is the ability for the team to use its intellectual capabilities in a collective, collaborative and cooperative fashion. So while bioteams CAN easily accommodate highly intelligent team members, they do not generally require … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subject: Teamwork

Individuals become members of the executive team through a multiyear process of selection. While it is dangerous to generalize, those selected for executive teams in the companies we have observed tend to be high achievers and aggressive seekers of power. They also have histories of distinguishing themselves through individual achievement, rather than for their work with or through teams. Thus, in many United States-based companies, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Facilitators are improvisers. They are instruments of the other people in the room. However…often facilitation is too conversation-driven, and occurs without shared space, without the capture and feedback mechanisms to amplify the effectiveness of the facilitation. But, facilitation is not enough for collaboration; you need to have shared spaces. You need to have media where the ideas can be captured and represented and those representations … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: LiNE Zine | Subject: Teamwork