Calmed by the analysis of Manager’s Fears and the wisdom of time, we can now continue the Team Tale, define and envision the Economy of Teams.
Unfortunately Bruce Tuckman did not come to an unambiguous conclusion on what happens with the team performance in the long run. He proposes the phases of adjourning and re-norming following the change of external circumstances. His grounds are as follows:
- The scientific researches are based on artificially formed groups with short term goals.
- The teams are acting within the borders of a business organization.
The difference with the Economy of Teams is right here:
The Teams are considered as naturally formed groups.
The Teams can operates inside, accross and outside the borders of bigger organization/s.
The companies are not the only organization in our world even if they are the most popular and the strongest ones. People form teams also in their personal lives. Therefore The Teams exist and definitely could go on, when surrounded by favorable conditions. Teams depends on companies as far as their goals and incomes come from the companies.
The Team Phenomenon is a predecessor of the Company Phenomenon.
The prerequisites of a team formation are very simple:
Co-located People (or people connected by a modern media) with a Common Goal.
Those prerequisites can be found everywhere is our world. We can foresee what would happen if a naturally formed Team acts independently of a higher level social or business organization following the intrinsic motivation of its team members. In other words The Team feels comfortable to pursue its goals and moreover the motivation is so strong that individual team members have the impulse toward action.
Needless to say, people will feel more secure, fulfilled, and simply said HAPPY in an environment secured by their own Team/s. The challenge is to keep Teams stable over time.
Mission
We all prefer choosing the people to walk with that impact our personal lifes. This way we would be much happier. But how often does this happen? And how can we influence it?
The Goal of the Economy of Teams is namely to increase the frequency of this personal choice.
On another line of thought, the productivity and the social benefits of naturally formed teams are also a nice topic for discussion and a very important part of reality. Every company would prefer to have naturally formed teams rather than face the challenges of regular staffing and people management processes.
A phenomenon closely related to the naturally formed teams is the so-called start-up culture. Start up companies often have strong teams with history longer than the company lifespan. The team is very cohesive and strives for keeping open communication, high dynamics and progressive thinking, as opposed to egocentric and rigid administration. And indeed productivity is a must, since everyone on the team… pardon, the company, is a key player.
With this in mind we can now see how the naturally formed teams with their added value to the companies pierce the daily fog in the obscure realm of people management and call us to foster their cohesion, in our capacity of individuals, managers and business owners.
Mission of The Economy of Teams™ : Increase the Teams value in the business world.
Good, but how to give priority to the high performance of those teams?
Vision
Since the teams are happy to achieve goals together (which is an established fact), they search for and grab the opportunity as soon as they perceive it. Acting within the borders of a larger organization is up to the Team itself.
Teams can operate inside or outside a given company, they exist also across companies.
In the meantime companies benefit from this process. Hence:
Teams ensure faster and higher ROI by minimizing organizational processes.
Thus the companies structure is redesigned:
Companies operate through stable naturally formed teams, and aim at keeping those Teams within their borders.
Summing it all up,
Vision of The Economy of Teams™ : Teams acting across companies ensure faster and higher ROI by minimizing organizational processes. Therefore, Teams strive for staying together, while companies aim at keeping them within their borders.
Excellent. How can we achieve it?
The questions above are simple, their answers, however, not so much. Deep investigation and a consistent strategy remaking are needed, taking into account all agents and their perspectives: employees and employers, welcoming venture capitalists and business mediators.
More to come.