Transforming Learning into Action

There’s No ‘We’ In Team May 11, 2010

There’s No ‘We’ in Team but there’s a ‘Me’ stuck with me after hearing it. The fact that;teamwork is difficult for many is shown by all the writing and publishing on team development, team building, team dynamics, team conflict management, and team strategy. There are classic writings by Bruce Tuckman on stages of team development and a novel definition of teams from Beatrice Schultz in her book Communicating in the Small Group: Theory and Practice. We all have our favorite authors, and if I created the top ten list of “best” books on the subject, there would be little to no agreement.

So what does this mean for creating effective training programs for teams? I’ve learned to look at groups in different ways and the best way I have found is through the lens of “me”. The “me” lens suggests that teams are made up of individuals, a bunch of “me’s” all bringing their issues, egos, and personalities along. A model I tend to use both for coaching or working with groups is:

Safety <—————–> Acceptance/Belonging <—————–> Recognition

Of course, Maslow’s Hierarchy is a basis for this model since every one of us deals with safety, acceptance/belonging, and recognition issues. Sometimes the issues are transparent, but most often they are subconscious and can influence our daily behaviors. In a team of 10 there are 10 people, each with issues in these areas, showing how complicated teams and groups really are. Using this model with many groups and individuals has provided insight on ways to create effective and lasting team building programs.

Read more of the article at http://www.thelearningkey.com/PDF/8-TEAMTheresNoWe.pdf.