About Teams

This project about team building would do well with a definition of teams, so here is a working definition, taken from a very popular work called "The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High Performance Organization", by Jon Katzebach and Douglas Smith.

"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." (p.45)

Katzenbach and Smith go on to explain facets of this definition. One point they made (that may be applicable to teams in education) is that, while the right mix of skills is important when a team is forming, it is not absolutely necessary that all the needed skills are there at the outset; essentially, good teams allow people in them to develop and learn, and there should be that room for growth within the team. Seems to resonate with the mission of schools, lifelong learning.

They also stress that both a well-realized vision/purpose, and specific goals to measure success with, are important to functioning teams. Basically, if the purpose of the team is murky or unclear, that's not a good thing; also, goals need to be set. People have to believe in what they are doing, and have an idea of what they are trying to attain. Sometimes, the authors point out, the direction comes from a "higher authority", such as management or administration, and sometimes is comes from within the team. The point is that both elements, an overall purpose to guide the team, and concrete goals, are important for a functioning team.