Don’t Let Teamwork Get in the Way of Agility

Effective teamwork has become extremely important in today's extremely volatile economy with significant business threats. Teams, especially with different skillsets and background sparks innovation, enables agility and lead to better outcomes. 

In reality productivity and collaboration are hard to achieve. It is especially difficult to bring together people with different skill sets, diverse backgrounds which stalls innovation rather than sparking it. 

Moreover, the size of the team often makes it difficult to manage and the team members often jockey for positions, holding back key information.

We require a change in mindset on how to implement to promote agility and resilience. What is required in the first place is to rightsize the team - what form and how much teamwork is needed at which stage of the project to get it done effectively. It also means choosing the right people and add them to the team at the right time.  

Involving others when required is more considerate to many people who are juggling their time between multiple projects. Organizations will have a better chance of success if they can get the rightsizing right.

The most agile companies follow these practices.

Define what kind of teamwork needs to take place

Different stages of work require different types of teamwork. There is no 'one size fits all' definition of good teamwork. Think of teamwork in four broad categories

• Sometimes teamwork is more of a handoff. Each person's work is independent but at the right time, he has to hand over the resources to another to complete the task. This requires clear communication and coordination to help people understand what is needed and when.
• Some projects require synchronized work. Two or more teams perform the same work but remain coordinated in their work to reach a successful outcome. 
• In some cases, the project requires coordinated work. People perform independent roles that impact each other. Each member performs his role in coordination with others to achieve the team outcome.
• There may be cases where the team does independent wor. This is the most complex form of teamwork. The team structure is often flexible and tends to take more concrete shape as the problem is solved. Members are expected to adjust their roles and responsibilities on the fly to address these unpredictable situations.

Sometimes teamwork fits into one of these categories. Most often it will be a mix of any of the above. The above categories help develop an understanding of what type of teamwork is needed and when. It contextualizes what good teamwork means in a given situation.

Simplify and then simplify some more. 

A simplification strategy that works is to ask one person to go as far as he can collecting information, make plans, and discuss with others to review and create a draft together. This may not work when different types of expertise are required right from the start. The key involves taking a few structured steps

• Analyze the work in terms of the categories of teamwork required.
• Decide on what needs to be done before convening the meeting. Who should be involved, why, when?
• Review the progress regularly. If something doesn't add value, eliminate it

Permit to say 'no'

Today leaders cannot personally ensure that the team is rightsized. provoking a behavioral shift among team members may require simple, direct communication to draw attention. Try these methods

• Start the process by permitting team members to say no when they feel it is adding inefficiency, confusion.
• Continuously challenge teams to consider how much and what type of teamwork is required. Every member of the team should be doing a valuable, needed role. 
• Reinforce the importance of rightsizing by calling out real examples of how saying no helped team to achieve more agile and effective performance. This will help team members to be more mindful and how it can be applied.

Achieving agility and resilience your company needs to bounce back relies on avoiding dysfunction and inefficiency teamwork brings. Rightsizing teamwork is imperative to success and the ability to prepare for what comes next.

Don’t Let Teamwork Get in the Way of Agility

by Elaine Pulakos and Robert B. (Rob) Kaiser HBR May 12, 2020