Coutu, D., & Beschloss, M. (2009, May). Why teams don’t work. Harvard Business Review,
87(5), 98-105.
In “Why Teams Don’t Work”, Diane Coutu interviews an organizational psychologist to discuss why we think teams are effective, the ways in which they are not, and what constitutes the conditions for successful teams. J. Richard Hackman is a Harvard organizational psychologist studying teams; throughout the article he addresses myths about what teams need. Team organizers often think teams need free reign, but not knowing guideposts about who to include in what can lead to confusion about who is on the team in the first place. A commonly held belief is that teams get “comfortable and familiar” with each other and need an infusion of new talent. In fact, this can be detrimental if teams don’t have the opportunity to establish patterns and norms; teams only benefit from newness once every three to four years and used airline industry errors as they correlate to team turnover as a reference. Leaders have the best chance at establishing good teams when the teams have clarity about who is on it, they agree about their purpose/goal, enabling structures for efficient/proper workflow and tasks exists, the hosting organization must adequately support them, and that they receive coaching collectively.
This article resonated with me because of the own ambiguous responsibilities and team boundaries I have encountered during several rounds of reorganization. If these best practices had been considered or used by leaders in my units, less time would have been wasted determining who should do what.
LO1: articulate connections between the interdisciplinary field of communication and the central curriculum themes of the MSC program.
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