Team Structure

While I have been part of many teams with varying levels of success, most of them were successful in terms of how efficient they were, although I would not define those teams as ‘successful’ in a professional manner or a ‘high-quality team’.

Most of the groups or teams I have worked in have been assigned to me for group projects for classes. As a result, group members do not have any sort of commitment to working relationships with other team members, which is one of the distinguishing characteristics for a high-quality team. Since most of these groups tend to have the structure of a circle network and have a lack of motivation and equal participation, they are usually inefficient and lack collective accountability.

However, I have been part of a team I would say is successful, which was during my internship after my freshman year, when I worked for a company that provides business solutions. The team I was working with were in charge of mobile app development, meaning they would work on building mobile applications for clients. The team had around 20 members, who were all permanent employees and most of the team members had been part of the team for around 2 to 5 years. While I was only part of that team for 2 months, I recall observing many characteristics of that team that relate to Katzenbach and Smith’s 6 distinguishing characteristics of high-quality teams.

The structure of this team was a one-boss arrangement, although since there were several sub-groups under the boss that had a team leader, the structure that this team had was closer to a simple hierarchy, since there were 3 middle manager (team leaders) who would report daily proceedings to the boss as well as ensure that daily goals are being met within their own groups. However, the structure was also similar to a one-boss arrangement in that every morning all 20 team members would have a discussion (including the boss) for half an hour when all members are communicating with all other members and the boss.

In terms of teamwork, I noticed that all the teams were communicating within their groups as well as with other groups when necessary, such as when they are stuck on a technical issue which they are unable to resolve. In such situations, there seemed to be a seamless flow in communication and teamwork amongst most of the team members. While it is hard for me to comment on whether the style and structure of the team was suited for what the team was trying to do, I would say that this team was reasonably successful.

According to Katzenbach and Smith’s research, we as a team had the capability to perform better since there were some characteristics that we were missing in order to be a high-quality team. I think the team I was a part of matches the first characteristic perfectly, since while the manager would talk about the targets that need to be met, he would leave it up to the groups to decide on their plan, while only intervening when he felt a group was not performing to its potential. Also, the goals the groups would make were achievable and optimistic, although those were not always met, which indicated a lack of meeting their performance goals. The team size was optimal since it included 20 members, which avoided the complexities which come with adding more team members whilst maintaining a decent enough team size to ensure tasks are completed when planned. However, I noticed that nearly all team members only had a background in the technical requirements, and most members had little to no experience in presentation and communication skills, which are two key components for at least some members to have in order to perform at a higher level as a team. Finally, I think that we as a team were committed to relationships with fellow team members since everyone was in a good relationship, and they were nearly always were able to divide up the work without any quarrels based on what each member would be most effective working on any given task.

However, that being said, there were other ways the team could improve on motivating individual members if they are not meeting requirements and not standing up to the expectations of the rest of the team. That is part of what being a good teammate means, since you should be helpful, motivate them and stand up for each other. Doing so helps create a personal bond that increases collective accountability and ensures that each member has a better morale and feels motivated and encouraged to work with the rest of the team in order to help them become a high-performing team.

x