High-performance team-building in the future of work
The changing nature of teams within the organizational construct T EAMS HAVE LONG been part of a firm’s organizational chart, with team leaders holding a formal role in a firm’s governance
the same time, the technology providing this global reach is enabling firms to unbundle themselves, 7 transforming the vertically integrated enterprises that characterized much of the Industrial Revolution into an ecosystem of suppliers and partners, 8 with the firm at the center. This unbundling unlocks cost efficiencies and agility but is in tension with customer behavior, as customers are increasingly coming to expect a coherent, joined-up experience during their buying journey as they skip between locations, media, geographies, and channels, regardless of which member of the firm’s ecosystem they’re interacting with. The digital business environment also has lowered barriers to entry and enables innovation to travel faster, driving firms to become more agile so that they can react to the problems and opportunities they encounter in a timely manner— no easy feat when dealing with the many partners and suppliers inherent with a modern business, and the contractual inertia that this creates. While teams defined relative to an organizational structure have served firms well in the past, they are not suited to the rapidly evolving and inherently digital business environment we’re in
hierarchy with the team there to support them. Teams have traditionally consisted of individuals from the same business unit, while those working in other units play for other teams. This has been true whether the organization design is process-, function-, segment-, or product-based. These teams rely on strict lines of authority and accountability to govern their operation, and are built on highly optimized (but static and difficult- to-change) processes designed for scalable efficiency . 6 This is business conceived as mass production—problems are decomposed into well- defined tasks, each assigned to a specialist who has authority and autonomy within their specialization, while interactions between specialists are tightly defined. However, the challenges confronting firms today are more complex than those in the past. They cut across operational and organizational groups rather than being focused within a single one. Globalization and the development of online markets have enabled firms to address a global wealth of niches rather than a single geography. At
WHAT IS A TEAM? Teams consist of interdependent members working on a shared goal. A team is distinct from a workgroup or coalition, which typically consists of more members whose work is not interdependent.
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