By Ira Smolowitz PhD

You may have seen the motivational poster exhorting people to pull together to accomplish a common task on behalf of their organization. Highlighting the poster is the acronym, "TEAM." This acronym stands for Together Everyone Achieves More.

Despite the logic inherent in organizational team effort, requisite conditions must be in place if TEAM is not to stand for Tangentially Effective Alignment with Management. Management must be certain that the organizational culture/reward system truly conveys the TEAM concept.

  Inconsistencies

Often, unintentional management activities produce teams that don't reach their productive potential if, in case, they are productive at all. I'll give several examples.

Given that the symbolism of management speaks louder than the substance, isn't it inconsistent for an organization to stress team effort and concurrently recognize, or reward, the "employee of the month?"

The workplace, especially in the U.S., is still characterized by the "cowboy mentality" --each for his own. Therefore, what conditions are present to stop an employee from sharing specialized knowledge with colleagues? In a climate of downsizing and outsourcing, doesn't being the sole repository of knowledge and skill enhance that employee's value? Doesn't this value then protect against downsizing? Certainly it offers more protection than not clearly identifying his or her specific value to the organization. In other words, teams cannot be ordered into existence; but rather, must be promoted in a climate of mutual benefit. Potential members of a team must clearly be shown the benefits of shared knowledge and shared work effort.

My hero in management continues to be Peter Drucker. Consider his (Fortune September, 28, 1998, p. 168) observation:

"It takes years to build a successful team, but companies are rushing into it and expecting instant results. In most cases, teams don't even work. Teams are difficult to manage. Who is boss? The team leader or the engineering supervisor who assigns the project to the team? It's never a good idea to create a conflict of interest and loyalties. Teams are the right strategy only for a very small number of situations."

Perhaps the most pernicious problem with organizational teams is the potential emergence of group think. Robert Chote (The Financial Times, September 7, 1998, p. 12) appropriately describes this problem:

"In the early 1970s the academic Irving Janis carried out a pioneering analysis of group decision-making by looking at a series of US foreign policy decisions from 1940 onwards. He concluded that when the outcome was poor, the decision-making process had been marked by undesirable features...:

· The decision-makers formed a highly cohesive group that put pressure on internal dissenters to conform to the consensus view.
· The group developed an illusion of unanimity and correctness which in turn fostered a reluctance to evaluate alternative policies.
· The group negatively stereotyped outsiders who disagreed with its views.
· The group was almost always dominated by a highly directive leader.

(One way to address this concern is to allow participants to display anonymous disagreements through E-mail, for example.) Managers need to be sensitive to the above problems. Otherwise, team-playing will be "just great," but the organization will suffer.

(Dr. Smolowitz is Professor of Finance and Dean, Bureau of Business Research at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts.)

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