Give me a T…E…A…M! Teams are today’s solution everywhere. Industrial distribution says team selling is the future.
Harvard Business Review says it is all about sharing a strong sense of group identity. Fleet magazines tout top maintenance organizations ‘Driven by Integrity, Accountability and Pride. Each member of the team is proud of what we do!’
If only things were that simple.
Nobody sets out to lead an ineffective team. The biggest problem is creating teams that can create. Leigh Thompson, a professor of management and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg Business school and an expert on teamwork, cleared up five popular misconceptions in a recent seminar. She also offered a roadmap for building and maintaining teams that are creative, efficient, and high-impact.
Her misconceptions were as follows:
1. Even in the heavy-duty parts and service business, teams are not cocktail parties.
When building a team, leaders often fall into two traps: they make the team too big and/or too homogeneous. Trying to be overly inclusive leads inevitably to a team that is too large. Inclusiveness does not assure success!
