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The following is based on a presentation about teamwork from a

Opinions: Designs group problem solving session, as well as additional notes and
on Glass thoughts on the topic.
What is "CHI?"
On the Development of Recommendation
Humane Software
The Human Touch
The overall recommendation of the "teamwork team" is to adopt a
Color Vision, Color
Deficiency formal, integrated approach to teamwork that is part of the complete
Rules of Thumb work environment. The information in the presentation, as well as the
A Web Site is a Harsh
notes that follow, expand upon this concept.
Mistress
Prototyping in the
Software Development Presentation
Cycle
Low-Technology
Prototyping The concept of teamwork has made good progress up to this point,
Generating Metaphors with recognition of at least some benefits of teamwork, and
for Graphical User
Interfaces recognition that active support is required to make teamwork
Teamwork possible.
Overnight Success
The next step is recognition that teamwork is an activity in itself, that
it requires time and resources. The paradigm shift required to reach
this state is to recognize that teams run on human energy, and that
human energy is a resource which requires attention,
encouragement, and renewal.

Teamwork is that aspect of a project which focuses on enhancing the

human element. This enhancement can take many forms, including
training, recognition, and teambuilding activities. Active support of
teamwork assumes recognition that teamwork is a skill that requires
practice and self-evaluation. Active support of teamwork is
acceptance that high performance is voluntary, and that teamwork
provides a structure and an environment in which individuals will feel
motivated to offer their best to a project. And which kind of motivation
will be most likely to elicit voluntary contribution--a carrot, or a stick?

Paradigm Shifts

Active teamwork involves several paradigm shifts. Understanding

these paradigm shifts is necessary to understand the
recommendations that follow this section.

Ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results

This goes along with the understanding that high performance is

voluntary. Certainly, an extraordinary person can create extraordinary
results. But can you ever count on having that extraordinary person
when you need one? Teamwork offers alternatives. One is the
synergy that occurs when people become motivated to work together.
Another is high performance level that accompanies a highly
functioning team. And it does happen that effective teamwork can
create those extraordinary individuals.

Allow people to fail

People who are afraid to fail are also afraid to take chances. Optimal
solutions to difficult problems almost always require taking chances.

Failure is scary for most people. The basic paradigm shift that has to
occur is to minimize the cost of failure.

One way of minimizing this cost is to eliminate artificial penalties for

failure. Yes, real failures have real costs. It is not necessary to add
artificial costs for failure; another name for this is "punishment." It is
even more demotivating when the definition of failure itself is also
artificial.

Another way to minimize the cost of failure is to recognize that

organizations can absorb the cost of failure more easily than
individuals can. It is a rule of thumb in research that only one-in-five
to one-in-ten projects will succeed. While it is necessary to remember
that real failures do have real costs, an organization that wants
people to innovate will provide an environment which encourages
people to innovate.

Criticism equals loyalty

People who care want the best. This applies to work environments
and results, as much as it applies to anything else in life. When
people believe that things can be improved, they want to see those
improvements. An organization that wants improved results or
improved work environments will understand that people criticize
things-as-they-are because they care. People who do not care will
not criticize.

A corollary is that people who care the most, and who have other
options for fulfilling their needs, will go elsewhere if their criticisms are
not heard. An organization which does not listen will lose its best
people first.

The same logic applies to customers, by the way!

Teamwork equals cheating

This attitude is instilled in us throughout our education, most of which

is built on a competitive framework. A student wins by being better
than everyone else. A student who builds on the work of others has
not proven that he is better; instead, he has cheated by not doing
everything himself. And cheating is punished.

The result is destructive in many ways. The best solutions are rarely
achieved. People are suspicious of each other. (The most suspicious
people are those who are assigned to work in teams; they always
suspect that someone else isn't contributing.)

These attitudes carry over into the workplace. New problems require
new solutions, but old problems require new solutions too. People
who do too well are suspect. All too often, the "best" solution to a
problem is "my" solution, rather than the one that solves the problem
most effectively.

Effective teamwork requires a new approach. Using an existing

solution frees up resources to solve other problems. People's
achievements, in addition to team achievements, need to be
recognized and celebrated. Overall achievement increases when
people have the freedom to re-use.

Negotiating for Win-Win

In his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey

identifies this as one of the seven habits. Win-Win means that
nobody loses. At its best, Win-Win means that everybody gets what
they want. Compromise is a weaker form of Win-Win, because
everyone gets at least part of what they want--but at least they get
something. People who get what they want will be willing to negotiate
with you again.

But there is a more fundamental paradigm shift here as well. Other

negotiating strategies, such as Win and Win-Lose, are based on a
premise of scarcity: there are only so many resources to be had, and
I want my share (at least!). Win-Win, on the other hand, is based on a
premise of expansion: resources are not finite, and having what we
want or need does not by definition take away from anyone else.

Ideally, Win-Win works best when the only alternative is "no deal."
This way, no one ever loses.

Win-Win is a fundamental aspect of effective teamwork. Each

achievement by each person or group contributes to the
effectiveness and success of the team. This, too, is based on the
philosophy of expansion.

Ego suppression

This is another shift from the educational paradigm. Teams are more
effective when each person places the team's achievements ahead
of personal achievements. Teams improve their effectiveness when
they recognize and study their failings with an attitude of, "How can
we do better?" rather than, "Whom do we punish?" But to achieve
this paradigm shift, team members must truly trust the team and the
teamwork process.

This kind of commitment is not freely given. Teamwork exists not only
between individuals, but also between the team and the larger
organization, and between the team as a whole and each individual.
Each team member still has individual wants and needs; a team that
wants the full participation of each team member will recognize,
honor, and meet the wants and needs of each individual, within the
team's ability to do so.

"We bring people together because we know they will

disagree."

Disagreement and problems are major sources of innovation.

Creating artificial problems is not likely to be productive in these
terms; there are usually enough problems to be solved without this.
But it is possible, and often effective, to seed disagreement.

Teams which use disagreement to encourage innovation must also

be ready to deal with conflict management and conflict reduction.
Conflict is not useful. One highly effective way to encourage
disagreement without creating conflict is to tie disagreements back to
the team's reason for existence, and to the individual's reasons for
committing to the team. This reframing can focus disagreement in
terms of team needs, rather than individual needs.

"A highly functioning team does not need either carrots or

sticks."

As much of the above hints, teamwork itself can be rewarding to each

individual. A highly functioning team does not need carrots or sticks;
the team environment itself provides the rewards for teamwork.

This is not to say that simply calling a group of people a "team" will
provide that environment. The team must be functioning effectively as
a team before individuals within the team recognize this benefit.

There are two threads that run through this discussion of paradigm
shifts.

 The first is that each of these shifts requires a continuing

emphasis on the human element of teamwork. This
emphasis includes not only focus but also time and energy.
This emphasis must occur not only at a management level,
but also on the part of each and every member of the team.
 Second, many of the same elements appear as components
of multiple paradigm shifts. Each shift that occurs enhances
the effectiveness of the other shifts.

General Recommendations

 Effective teamwork requires a culture change.

 Time and resources must be devoted to teamwork.
 Teamwork roles and responsibilities must be recognized as
real and continuing job responsibilities, and are equally
important with technical- and business-related job
responsibilities.
 Teamwork is a skill that requires training, practice, and
evaluation.
 Recognition and awards to teams are essential in achieving
the culture change.

Specific Recommendations

 Formal training in effective teamwork.

 Provide formal teamwork role descriptions, including
communications requirements. When people assume these
roles, match teamwork skills with assignments.
Note that roles within a team may often be extremely fluid. Role
definitions need to acknowledge and support this flexibility. One way
is to consider them as "roles" rather than as job assignments.
 Maintain a skills inventory for all team members. Include
teamwork and people-oriented skills as well as technical and
business skills. Even hobbies may be useful if there can be a
transfer of skills or knowledge to work on a team assignment
 or problem.
 When building teams, consider roles, skills, career goals,
motivation, and personalities.
 For evaluating teamwork, one possibility is a team evaluation
which is a component of each member's evaluation. Peer
feedback is also necessary, although including such
feedback in formal evaluations can often create problems.
 Allow for teambuilding activities. This includes more than
having an afternoon at the lake; it also includes work
activities that focus on specific issues facing the team. This
"stumbling block" session is one of many possible examples
here.

Over the longer term, teambuilding activities can include creation of

guidelines for teambuilding and teamwork, and perhaps even
processes that focus on teamwork issues.

Final Recommendation

Adopt a formal, integrated approach to teamwork that is part of the

complete work environment.

While there are costs associated with this, both in training and in the
time devoted to teamwork issues, we believe that these costs will be
more than repaid with increased productivity.

Notes

Assignments Based on Personality

During the presentation, the question was asked whether a team

should pick people for assignments based on personality. I didn't give
a full answer at the time, but I have been thinking about this one.

My answer is that a team should use whatever resources are

available, in the best way possible.
That is deliberately vague, but it does leave open the possibility of
considering personality in assignments. I'd like to talk about that.

For some specific assignments, such as those in which the goals are
well-understood and the work is well-defined, disagreements are not
usually helpful. In this case, picking people who work well together is
a good idea.

Also, some people will be particularly suited to particular kinds of

work. Matching people-skills with assignments, where possible, does
make sense.

But I also made the statement that "we bring people together
because we know they will disagree." This, too, can involve selecting
people based on personality, but this time by selecting to seed
conflict.

Different personality types can contribute to particular jobs in

important ways. For instance, in a small group which must work well
together, but must also interact with a large number of other people, it
may make sense to share leadership between an introvert and an
extrovert. In a task such as requirements analysis, it may make
sense to balance an "intuitive" (using terminology from the Myers-
Briggs personality assessment techniques) and a "sensor." The
intuitive will be able to store and organize large amounts of
apparently unrelated data in his or her head, and can find correlations
and connections that are not visible to others. The sensor, on the
other hand, is a person who wants to see information in front of him
or her, out in the physical world. By working together, they can do a
better job of understanding and communicating requirements than
either could do alone.

Again going back to Myers-Briggs, it is important to understand that

any personality trait can be either a strength or a weakness, or
sometimes both, in any given situation. Here, I'll use myself as an
example. I am a "perceiver," a type that wants to gather complete
information before making decisions. In my work on the complex call
joint design team, this is an asset, because it is a complex issue and I
will not be tempted to rush into a decision before I know what needs
to be done. But the complement of a perceiver is a "judger," a person
who is more comfortable with closure than with open-ended decision
making. At some point I will need to push for closure, and this is a
mode of behavior that is less comfortable for me.

An important point with the Myers-Briggs personality profiling is that

although it separates characteristics into pairs of types which are
complementary, all of us have the capability to act in either mode.
Myers-Briggs measures which mode is more comfortable and natural
for each of us--the mode in which we behave when there are no other
constraints placed on us.

Another useful attribute of Myers-Briggs is that it can help us

understand why we find it easier to work with some people than with
others. Myers-Briggs types are not difficult to understand, and with
practice it is easy to spot behavior that is characteristic of particular
types. Myers-Briggs also helps us understand how conflict occurs
between types, and how this knowledge can help reduce such
conflict.

Assuming that "we bring people together because we know they will
disagree," conflict management becomes a necessary teamwork and
team-leader skill, and knowledge of Myers-Briggs personality types
can be an extremely useful tool in conflict management.

Yet another personality issue in teamwork is the problem of "difficult

personalities." Such types can include hypercritical, tangential
arguments, joking, and many more. Many of these behaviors are
useful at particular points in team activities, but are damaging at other
times. One conflict management technique for dealing with these
personalities is to actually assign these people to those very roles. By
doing so, the team leader can assert control over when these
behaviors are expressed, and can reduce their expression at other
times.

All of this ties back (I hope!) to the point that a team should use
whatever resources are available. Because teams run on human
energy, personalities and behaviors can be valuable resources, just
as much as technical skills. Failure to use these resources can
 diminish what a team can accomplish.

Copyright © 1997-2003 by Diane Wilson. All rights reserved.