 Is
Teamwork Just Another Fad?
by Francine Gair
From the playground to the boardroom, teamwork is being touted
as the key to productivity and success. Second graders team up for
activities on Maidu culture. Junior high teams present group Civil
War reports. University management students do team exercises on
the value of competition versus collaboration.
Some people wonder if this is just a trend that will be replaced.
One justification for this teamwork focus in education is that students
will need teamwork skills in the workplace. Many organizations today
have a team-based structure.
Management Professor Tracy McDonald does not see teamwork as a
fad. "The teamwork push probably started in business in the late
1970s or early '80s with the advent of quality circles [employee
problem-solving teams]," she says. "There has been a resurgence
in the last 10 years because of the focus on innovation, creativity,
and change."
Her colleague, Professor Kathryn Lewis, sees a shift from the old
"functional focus" in business, with each department working toward
separate goals, to a new "matrix focus," with people from different
departments -- marketing, production, engineering, human resources,
finance -- working together on a project toward the same goal.
Far from being a fad, says McDonald, the teamwork focus is based
on solid research, including the important finding that people prefer
to work in teams because it meets their social needs. Many organizations
believe that teams provide more creative solutions, bringing a variety
of expertise to the task.
Known for teamwork
McDonald and Lewis agree that California State University, Chico
has a reputation for teamwork. "Recruiters like that our students
have a lot of teamwork experience," says McDonald. "One of the advantages
of CSU, Chico is that our smaller class size permits teamwork that
is not possible in a UC [University of California] class of two
or three hundred."
Lewis recalls a former student who wrote to thank her for the teamwork
experience he gained at Chico, which he felt prepared him well for
the team-based environment of his new job at Oracle. Later, after
serving on an interview committee at Oracle, he realized that many
students had never had the opportunity to work in teams.
So what makes a good team? "You can't just call any group of people
a team," notes McDonald. "They have to have a commitment to the
same goal." Buying into the goal is the main thing, she says; if
the goal isn't meaningful, the team members won't work hard. The
manager or team leader must have the ability to encourage the others
to buy into the goal.
Lewis agrees: "If teams don't share the same goal, there is a discrepancy
in what they want to accomplish, their effectiveness is less than
it would be with a common goal, and their personal experience is
less than it could be."
There is a skill to being a good team member, observes McDonald.
Good team members must be comfortable with speaking up, must let
others speak up, and must learn to compromise. They must learn to
accommodate a variety of schedules and work styles, and be willing
to resolve performance and personality issues. She has observed
that students generally want problems to be handled in secret by
the professor, but she encourages them to develop skills in conflict
resolution by handling problems as a team.
Social loafing
But what happens when some team members do all the work and others
get a free ride? The tendency for individual effort to decline as
group size increases is a recognized phenomenon called "social loafing."
"Social loafing is natural," explains Lewis. "Everyone would be
a social loafer if given the opportunity."
How, then, do teams cope with this problem? McDonald thinks team
size is important: "If a team gets too big, it's no longer a team."
She likes four or five students per team in her classes; beyond
that, it's difficult to coordinate and easier for some not to participate.
Team makeup is important as well, adds Lewis. In putting together
teams, she doesn't sprinkle the best students across all teams,
because the high achievers will dominate the team and inadvertently
promote social loafing. Instead, she chooses teams of similar ability,
based on a teamwork pattern developed collaboratively within the
management department.
In various competitive class projects, Lewis has observed that
the team with middle-level achievers has often been the winner,
not the team of high achievers. "A team of all chiefs doesn't work,"
she explains. "They have to learn a different set of skills -- to
listen and compromise, to come to team consensus." However, she
says, when there are no chiefs -- "if there is nowhere to hide"
-- other team members must come forward to get the work done.
To further combat social loafing, teams are often encouraged to
award points to individual members on the basis of contribution
to the team. McDonald urges students to be upfront about each team
member's performance and not rely on the professor to reward or
punish individual performance. She sees this as helping students
learn to live up to their obligations.
The work world is recognizing the need to reward teamwork rather
than individual performance, and compensation systems are changing,
says Lewis. When the reward system is tied to success of the team,
it's in the best interest of the individual to see the team succeed.
There is peer pressure on everyone within the team.
Collaborative leadership
What place does leadership have in teamwork?
Professor Ruth Guzley, coordinator of the minor in leadership studies,
says we are turning a corner in our view of leadership: "There is
an important trend toward teamwork and collaboration."
The tradition of "rugged individualism," Guzley maintains, has
led the United States to perpetuate an authoritarian leadership
style, where collaboration is seen as weak, but she believes that
is changing. "We are beginning to recognize that interactive leadership
is possible and that seeking outside opinions doesn't mean you are
weak," she says.
Guzley says that the leadership minor encourages students to discover
how much more effective they can be if they share the leadership
role, as opposed to designating one person or letting one person
emerge as a leader.
Students are encouraged to explore the leadership minor, even if
they don't see themselves as a leader. "Leaders and followers are
two sides of the same coin," notes Guzley. "We look at effective
followership as well, because leaders must also be good followers."
CSU, Chico has offered the minor in leadership studies for two
years. It is one of very few such programs in the country. In addition
to a special leadership colloquium and capstone seminar, electives
are offered in management, health services, communications studies,
and political science.
Dean of Agriculture Charles Crabb says his department encourages
agriculture students to enroll in the leadership minor. The department
also offers other opportunities for leadership training, including
studying agricultural issues and consensus building with other groups.
"People don't normally associate agriculture and leadership, but
our students bubble up over time as leaders in their particular
segment of industry," says Crabb. The 20022003 Associated Students
president, Jimmy Reed, is an agriculture student.
Here to stay
Guzley thinks teamwork and collaboration are here to stay, but
that they still have a long way to go. She mentions leadership scholar
Jean Lipman-Blumen's "participative schizophrenia," whereby organizations
preach participation but don't live it. "We can't just pay lip service,"
comments Guzley. "It's like having a suggestion box and never opening
it."
McDonald agrees: "Teamwork in business will evolve. America is
late in learning that teamwork is a better model, but I don't see
teamwork fading as long as we have a global, interconnected economy."
About the author
Francine Gair is a freelance writer and editor with a background
in advertising writing. She lives in Chico. |
