The discipline of teams

-Jon r. katzenbach and Douglas k. smith

Synopsis:
In this hand out The discipline of teams taken out from the Harvard Business Review written by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas k. Smith bring out the conceptual knowledge of what are teams and groups . They define teams as A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. It this hand out we cover different aspects of teams such as what is a team and what is a group along with differences between group and team, types of teams, and many more Later on he moves on to explain what makes the difference of teams that perform and teams that dont. He says that the problem lies with our lack of knowledge of what a team is all about. However he moves on to jolt us with the knowledge of why not all groups are teams and how to increase team performance and enhance their efficiency. Then he moves on by saying people use the word so loosely that it gets in the way of learning and applying the discipline that leads to good performance. He also talks about the factor involved in a teams that performs he says that there should be common commitment, complementary skills, a common purpose and mutual accountability. He also so enlightens us further that how the best teams also convert their common purposes into specific performance goals. He tells us what are specific performance goals and I quote specific team performances goals help define a set of work products that are different both from the organisation- wide mission and from individual job objectives.

Moreover he explains to us the different types of goals that may arise in a team and how to attain them namely specific goals and performance goals. He tells us why there is a disadvantage in large groups and the need to limit a team to 2 to 25 members. Later on he tells us why a team should possess certain skill like problem-solving and decision making skill and interpersonal skills he moves on to emphasize on the factor that make a team, some of those factors are mutual accountability, complementary skills, team accountability, strong commitment, agreement of aspect, and so on. He also explains to us the three types of teams in an organisation namely the team that recommend things, the team that make or do things and the team that runs thing. He moves on to explain the significant role each team plays in an organisation and how the differ from each other he also tells us about the various functions that the various teams carry out. He even explains to us how each team faces different problem from each other. In conclusion he briefs us on how the organisation can bring about the discipline in teams and create a kind of environment that enable teams as well as individual and organisational performance.