When is it Good for a Team Not to be a Team?

The Problem

As a business coach and development consultant, I’ve often heard clients use the phrase, “the problem is my Team isn’t a team”. Hearing it prompts a bunch of opposing responses from me such as:

• Great – this manager wants help developing their Team.
• Oh dear – the boss is blaming the staff for something s/he is responsible for
• What? – how can something be simultaneously described as a Team and also not a team??

The first two responses come easiest to me because I am experienced with how teams work and the role the manager takes in leading the team. I can simply respond to the phrase by accepting it and exploring the issues that the manager has with her/his team.

But the 3rd response demands more thought as it indicates that the phrase can’t be accepted as it stands – perhaps I’m not as experienced in teams as I’d like to think! How can something described as a team then be described as not a team? I’ve thought about this question a lot and it has unearthed some surprisingly useful insights.

Definition

A team (when it is a team) is a group of people who all work together to achieve a common goal. There are more complicated definitions of this in various books, but for me, this is the essence. I see this definition played out a lot in sport and also in projects and operations in business. So when this isn’t happening, the people in the team are either not working together or not achieving a common goal. This also happens a lot in business, where people work in isolation or work towards separate goals. This is when a team is dysfunctional.

Yet it is also common parlance to describe a manager and their direct reports as a team irrespective of whether or not the team works together or if it has a common goal. This definition might accurately be described as a group of people with a common manager. Organisations put great value on line manager accountability as it is perceived to be easier to hold individuals accountable than goals, especially if they are common to many. For instance, which individuals should get rewarded for a common goal? It’s difficult. Organisations invest heavily into this accountability with budgets, objectives, staff surveys, performance management, reward and talent management processes reinforcing it. Yet managers of direct reports assume that they are also working together to achieve a common goal and are frustrated when this doesn’t happen. Hence the statement, “the problem is my team isn’t a team”.

But is it really a problem? Not necessarily.

A Different Way

Since 2006 I have increasingly been aware of a type of team which has a common manager but certainly doesn’t work together or, arguably, towards a common goal. Instead this particular team of direct-reports individually work with other people outside their own team. An example of such a team might include a team of consultants (of any variety) who each work on different projects but who all report to the same line manager. But other examples might also include doctors, sales reps, area managers or product managers. In these types of teams, individuals typically do much the same sort of work but rarely together, working instead with other disciplines. Given this situation, you might think that this type of team is dysfunctional. You’d be right. But surprisingly I have noticed that they are dysfunctional because managers have two different ways to manage them – both of which cause the dysfunction.

1. Absentee Management

The first way is to not manage them at all. Given the number of managers out there and the amount they are paid for being a manager, this is a surprisingly common choice. I often come across people who barely speak to their managers. In one example a person spoke to their manager once per year and that was to receive their performance appraisal! Such behaviour drives isolation, miss-trust and dysfunction.

2. Making them Inter-Dependent

By contrast, the more conscientious managers attempt to bring their teams together to behave more like a team working together to achieve a common goal. They invest time and resource in team meetings and even away-days or team development. All too often however such investment fails to deliver sustainable returns as individuals return to the routine of working in isolation with other people outside the team. Such an outcome leads to frustration and disengagement by team members and the manager themselves. It explains why the first strategy of not managing the team becomes so commonplace.

So let’s return to the problem statement. It would be more helpfully stated as, “the problem is my direct reports don’t act like a team and no-one can explain why this is without insisting that they ought to be a team. What could I possibly do instead?”

3.  Realising they are Extra-Dependent

Over the last 4 years I have researched other ways to develop this type of team. I call them Extra-Dependent teams because of their dependency on people outside of the team rather than inside the team as per Inter-Dependent Teams. I have used research on communities of practice because they have very similar attributes – people don’t depend on each other, do much the same sort of thing and can generate performance improvements through spending time together. The definition of Extra-Dependent Teams is therefore a group of people who learn together to develop a common practice.

Managers of Extra-Dependent Teams are invigorated by understanding this definition and by being shown this 3rd approach to managing their team. They appreciate the differentiation with Inter-dependent Teams - one manager in the justice system told me, “Understanding the different layers of the team and the different Inter and Extra-Dependent Teams we are part of was helpful in appreciating how we are operating and how we should operate”. Understanding the different dynamics at work in Extra-Dependent Teams also helps managers to see what is causing problems and friction within the team – “It is a simple concept, but sheds light on a whole range of previously knotty problems” another manager said about Extra-Dependent Teams. As a result Extra-Dependent Team managers are able to take really practical steps to improve their own teams. For instance one manager said, “I really believe it will make a step-change difference to my teams here” whilst another said, “I am already starting to apply what I have learnt."

Conclusion

So be careful not to force classic Inter-dependent team development upon all teams without first checking to see if they might be an Extra-Dependent Team. If they are, then you'll need to manage them very differently if you wish to get the same results.

Do you manage a team that isn’t a team? Are your direct reports all doing similar roles and typically operate beyond your team? If so you are likely to be managing an Extra-Dependent Team rather than a traditional Inter-Dependent Team. 

 

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