In Seattle, a seventeen-year-old girl is mortally injured in an automobile accident. She is pronounced brain-dead, and her parents give permission to harvest her organs. Her kidney tissue type is entered into a national database. In Nashville, a potential recipient is identified: a forty-two-year-old mother of three who will die without a new kidney.
Dr. Peter Minnich, the Nashville surgeon who will perform the transplant, contacts his counterpart in Seattle to check the condition of the kidney. Weighing several factors, he decides to accept the organ. A Seattle surgical team procures the kidney, checks for a tissue match, and transports the iced kidney to the airport for its flight to Nashville. Simultaneously, the Nashville transplant team hospitalizes the recipient. They also notify the hospital and give an estimate of how long the operation will take. The lab is alerted to perform the final cross-match once the kidney arrives, a procedure that takes three hours.
On arrival, the kidney is taken to the lab. Ninety minutes before the results of the cross-match are complete, nurses begin to prepare the operating room. The lab calls in a positive result, so the transplant can go forward. Members of the transplant team scrub in and go about their respective duties. The surgeon cleans up the kidney. The first assistant trims the fat and helps the surgeon pack the organ in fresh ice slush. A scrub nurse and a circulating nurse prepare the instrument table. The anesthesiologist and nurse assistant prepare the patient for surgery. During the transplant procedure, the circulating nurse brings instruments and sutures. The scrub nurse watches the surgery and anticipates which instruments the surgeon will need. The surgeon focuses on the procedure. The first assistant retracts tissue. The anesthesiologist monitors the patient's vital signs and supervises the nurse assistant.
Success in this life-saving procedure depends as much on the performance of the team as on the technical skills of the surgeon. Multiple roles are clearly defined, but team members also have the flexibility to cross role boundaries to do what needs to be done. The surgeon is in charge, but there is substantial lateral coordination. A good scrub nurse, for example, anticipates which instruments to hand off, with the discretion, as Dr. Minnich puts it, to "give me what I want, not what I'm asking for." He adds, "The more often team members work together the greater the chance for a successful outcome. Building a cohesive team is critical. The surgeon has to be a team leader as well as a good technician." The resulting teamwork has allowed Minnich to compile a perfect success record.
The impact of structure on a team's performance is not restricted to the operating suite. During World War II, a U.S. Army commando team compiled a distinctive record. It accomplished every mission it was assigned, including extremely high-risk operations behind the lines. Deaths and injuries were among the lowest of any U.S. military unit. A research team was charged with finding out what made the unit so successful. Were the enlisted men and officers especially talented? Was their training longer or more intensive than normal? Or was the group just plain lucky?
Researchers pinpointed the reason for the group's success: the ability to reconfigure its structure to fit the situation. Planning for missions, the group functioned democratically. Anyone could volunteer ideas and make suggestions. Decisions were reached by consensus, and the engagement strategy was approved by the group as a whole. The unit's planning structure resembled that of a research and development team or a creative design group. Amorphous roles, lateral coordination, and a flat hierarchy encouraged participation, creativity, and productive conflict. Battle plans reflected the group's best ideas.
Executing the plan was another story. The group's structure transformed from a loose, creative confederation to a well-defined, tightly controlled chain of command. Each individual had a specific assignment. Tasks had to be done with split-second precision. The commanding officer had sole responsibility for making operational decisions or revising the plan. Everyone else obeyed orders without question, though they were allowed to offer suggestions if time permitted. In battle, the group relied on the traditional military structure: clear-cut responsibilities and decisions made at the top and executed by the rank and file.
The group's ability to tailor its structure captured the best of two worlds. Participation encouraged creativity, ownership, and understanding of the battle plan. Authority, accountability, and clarity enabled the group to function with speed and efficiency during the operation.
Today, we see increasing reliance on self-organizing units or teams. A deadly example is Al Quaeda. Committed to uniting all Muslims under a new caliphate, Al Quaeda believes that only force can achieve this mission. Al Quaeda began in Afghanistan in the 1980s as a more centralized, top-down organization under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Expelled from its safe haven and seriously damaged by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, it adapted to circumstances and became more decentralized and loosely structured. Communication between top leadership and local units moves through a clandestine labyrinth of secret couriers and codes. The logistics of a selected strike are worked out in concert with intermediaries who link strategy with operations. The strike is then carried out by the mujahideen, or brigade members. Until activated for a specified mission, members of these sleeper cells blend with the general populace. Cells within the same region operate autonomously. They can be, without knowing it, on parallel tracks for the same mission. This hydra-like team structure looms as a deadly threat that is difficult to combat with traditional command-and-control strategies. Teamwork cuts across organizational and national boundaries and can work either for or against us.
Much of the work in large organizations of every sort is now done in groups or teams. When these units work well, they elevate the performance of ordinary individuals to extraordinary heights. When teams malfunction, as too often happens, they erode the potential contributions of even the most talented members. What determines how well groups perform? As illustrated by the surgical team, the commando team, and Al Quaeda, the performance of a small group depends heavily on structure. A key ingredient of a top-notch team is an appropriate blueprint of roles and relationships set in motion to attain common goals.
In this chapter, we explore the structural features of small groups or teams and show how restructuring can improve group performance. We begin by describing various design options for teams, accenting the relationship between design and tasks. Next, using sports as an example, we discuss different patterns of team differentiation, coordination, and interdependence. Then we describe the characteristics of high-performing teams. Finally, we discuss the pros and cons of self-managing teams—a hot item in the early twenty-first century.
From a range of options, groups must develop a structure that maximizes individuals' contributions while minimizing the problems that often plague small groups. A key to group structure is the work to be done. Tasks vary in clarity, predictability, and stability. The task-structure relationship in small groups is parallel to that in larger organizations.
Contextual Variables
As suggested in Chapter Four, complex tasks present challenges different from simpler ones. Planning a commando mission or transplanting a kidney is not the same as painting a house or setting up a family outing. Simple tasks align with basic structures—clearly defined roles, elementary forms of interdependence, and coordination by plan or command. More complicated projects generally require more complex forms: flexible roles, reciprocal give-and-take, and synchronization through lateral dealings and communal feedback. If a situation becomes exceptionally ambiguous and fast-paced, particularly when time is a factor, more centralized authority often works best. Otherwise, a group may be unable to make decisions quickly enough. Without a workable structure, performance and morale suffer, and troubles multiply.
Ferreting out the appropriate group structure requires careful consideration of pertinent contextual variables, some vague or tough to assess:
What is our goal?
What needs to be done?
Who should do what?
How should we make decisions?
Who is in charge?
How do we coordinate efforts?
What do individual members care about most: time, quality, participation?
What are the special skills and talents of each group member?
What is the relationship between this group and others?
How will we determine success?
Some Fundamental Team Configurations
A high percentage of employees' and managers' time is spent in meetings and working groups of three to twelve people. To illustrate design options, we examine several fundamental structural configurations from studies of five-member teams. These basic patterns are too simple to apply to larger, more complex systems, but they help to illustrate the principle of how different structural forms respond to a variety of challenges.
The first is a one-boss arrangement; one person has authority over others (see Exhibit 5.1). Information and decisions flow from the top. Group members offer information to and communicate primarily with the official leader rather than with one another. Although this array is efficient and fast, it works best in a relatively simple and straightforward situation. More complicated circumstances overload the boss, producing delays or bad decisions, unless the person in charge has an unusual level of skill, expertise, and energy. Subordinates quickly become frustrated when directives they receive are poorly timed or ill-suited to the situation.
A second alternative creates a management level below the boss (see Exhibit 5.2). Two individuals are given authority over specific areas of the group's work. Information and decisions flow through them. This arrangement works when a task is divisible; it reduces the boss's span of control, freeing up time to concentrate on mission, strategy, or relationships with higher-ups. But adding a new layer limits access from the lower levels to the boss. Communication becomes slower and more cumbersome, and may eventually erode morale and performance.
Another choice is to create, in effect, a simple hierarchy, with a middle manager who reports to the boss and in turn supervises and communicates with others (see Exhibit 5.3). This arrangement is used extensively at the White House. It frees the president to focus on mission and external relations while leaving operational details to the chief of staff. Though this further limits access to the top, it can be more efficient than a dual-manager arrangement. At the same time, friction between operational and top-level managers is commonplace and can lead to attempts by the number two to usurp the number one's position.
A fourth option is a circle network, where information and decisions flow sequentially from one group member to another (see Exhibit 5.4). Each can add to or modify whatever comes around. This design relies solely on lateral coordination and simplifies communication. Each person has to deal directly with only two others; transactions are therefore easier to manage. But one weak link in the chain can undermine the entire enterprise. The circle can bog down with complex tasks that require more reciprocity.
A final possibility sets up what small group researchers call the all-channel, or star, network (see Exhibit 5.5). This design is similar to Helgesen's web of inclusion. It creates multiple connections so that each person can talk to anyone else. Information flows freely; decisions require touching multiple bases. Morale in an all-channel network is usually very high. The arrangement works well if a task is amorphous or complicated, but it is slow and inefficient for a simpler undertaking. It works best when team members bring well-developed communication skills, enjoy participation, tolerate ambiguity, embrace diversity, and are able to manage conflict.
Even in the relatively simple case of five-person groups, the formal network is critical to team functioning. In the give-and-take of larger organizations, things get more complicated. We can get a fresh perspective and sharpen our thinking about structure in groups by looking beyond work organizations. Making the familiar strange often helps the strange become familiar. Team sports, among the most popular pastimes around the world, offer a helpful analogy to clarify how teamwork varies depending on the tasks at hand. Every competition calls for its own unique patterns of interaction. Because of this, unique team structures are required for different sports. Social architecture is thus remarkably different for baseball, football, and basketball.
Baseball
As baseball player Pete Rose once noted, "Baseball is a team game, but nine men who meet their individual goals make a nice team" (Keidel, 1984, p. 8). In baseball, as in cricket and other bat-and-ball games, a team is a loosely integrated confederacy. Individual efforts are mostly independent, seldom involving more than two or three players at a time. Particularly on defense, players are separated from one another by significant distance. The loose connections minimize the need for synchronization among the various positions. The pitcher and catcher must each know what the other is going to do, and at times, infielders must anticipate how a teammate will act. Managers' decisions are mostly tactical, normally involving individual substitutions or actions. Managers come and go without seriously disrupting the team's play. Players can transfer from one team to another with relative ease. A newcomer can do the job without major retuning. John Updike summed it up well: "Of all the team sports, baseball, with its graceful intermittence of action, its immense and tranquil field sparsely salted with poised men in white, its dispassionate mathematics, seemed to be best suited to accommodate, and be ornamented by, a loner. It is an essentially lonely game" (Keidel, 1984, pp. 14–15).
Football
Baseball is poles apart from American football. Unlike baseball players, football players perform in close proximity. Linemen and offensive backs hear, see, and often touch one another. Each play involves every player on the field. Efforts are sequentially linked in a prearranged plan. The actions of linemen pave the way for the movement of backs; a defensive team's field position becomes the starting point for the offense, and vice versa. In the transition from offense to defense, specialty platoons play a pivotal role. The efforts of individual players are not independent but instead are tightly coordinated. George Allen, former coach of the Washington Redskins, put it this way: "A football team is a lot like a machine. It's made up of parts. If one part doesn't work, one player pulling against you and not doing his job, the whole machine fails" (Keidel, 1984, p. 9).
Because of the tight connections among parts, a football team must be well integrated, mainly through planning and top-down control. The primary units are the offensive, defensive, and specialty platoons, each with its own coordinator. Under the direction of the head coach, the team uses scouting reports and other surveillance to develop a strategy or game plan in advance. During the game, strategic decisions are typically made by the head coach. Tactical decisions are made by assistants or by designated players on either offense or defense (Keidel, 1984).
A football team's tight-knit character makes it tougher to swap players from one team to another. Irv Cross, of the Philadelphia Eagles, once remarked, "An Eagles player could never make an easy transition to the Dallas Cowboys; the system and philosophies are just too different" (Keidel, 1984, p. 15). Unlike baseball, football requires intricate strategy and tightly meshed execution.
Basketball
Basketball players perform in even closer proximity to one another than football players. In quick, rapidly moving transitions, offense becomes defense—with the same players. The efforts of individuals are highly reciprocal; each player depends on the performance of others. Each may be involved with any of the other four. Anyone can handle the ball or attempt to score.
Basketball is much like improvisational jazz. Teams require a high level of spontaneous, mutual adjustment. Everyone is on the move, often in an emerging pattern rather than a predetermined course. A successful basketball season depends heavily on a flowing relationship among team members who read and anticipate one another's moves. Players who play together a long time develop a sense of what their teammates will do. A team of newcomers experiences difficulty in adjusting to individual predispositions or quirks. Keidel (1984) notes that coaches, who sit or roam the sidelines, serve as integrators. Their periodic interventions reinforce team cohesion, helping players coordinate laterally on the move. Unlike baseball teams, basketball teams cannot function as a collection of individual stars. Unlike football, basketball has no platoons. It is wholly a harmonized group effort.
A study of Duke University's successful women's basketball team in 2000 documented the importance of group interdependence and cohesion. The team won because players could anticipate the actions of others. The individual "I" deferred to the collective "we." Passing to a teammate was valued as highly as making the shot. Basketball is "fast, physically close, and crowded, 20 arms and legs in motion, up, down, across, in the air. The better the team, the more precise the passing into lanes that appear blocked with bodies" (Lubans, 2001, p. 1).
In sports and elsewhere, structural profiles of successful teams at work depend on the game—on what a team is trying to do. Keidel (1984) suggests several important questions in designing an appropriate structure:
What is the nature and degree of dealings among individuals?
What is the spatial distribution of unit members?
Given a group's objectives and constraints, where does authority reside?
How is coordination achieved?
Which word best describes the required structure: conglomerate, mechanistic, or organic?
What sports expression metaphorically captures the task of management: filling out the line-up card, preparing the game plan, or influencing the game's flow?
Appropriate team structures can vary, even within the same organization. For example, a senior research manager in a pharmaceutical firm observed a structural progression in discovering and developing a new drug: "The process moves through three distinct stages. It's like going from baseball to football to basketball" (Keidel, 1984, p. 11). In basic research, individual scientists work independently to develop a body of knowledge. As in baseball, individual labors are the norm. Once identified, a promising drug passes from developmental chemists to pharmacy researchers to toxicologists. If the drug receives preliminary federal approval, it moves to clinical researchers for experimental tests. These sequential relationships are reminiscent of play sequences in football. In the final stage ("new drug application") physicians, statisticians, pharmacists, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and chemists work closely and reciprocally to win final approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Their efforts resemble the closely linked and flowing patterns of a basketball team (Keidel, 1984).
Jan Haynes, executive vice president of FzioMed, a California developer of new biomedical approaches to preventing scar tissue in surgical procedures, echoes the pharmaceutical executive's observations. But she adds, "In sports a game lasts only a short period of time. In our business, each game goes on for months, even years. It more closely resembles cricket. A single game can go on for days and still end in a draw. Our product has been in the trial stage for several years and now we have to shift the team to a new phase; working with the FDA to get final approval, which could take a long time." Ron Haynes, the firm's chairman, points out how difficult it is to change his leadership style as the rules of the game change: "I moved from manager to owner of an expansion team where we have several games being played simultaneously in the same stadium. If our leadership can't shift quickly from one to another, our operation won't get the job done right." Doing the right job requires a structure or structures well suited to what an organization is trying to accomplish.
The importance of a clear and appropriate structure to team performance is well documented. Katzenbach and Smith (1993), for example, interviewed hundreds of people on more than fifty teams in developing their book The Wisdom of Teams. Their sample encompassed thirty enterprises in settings as diverse as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Operation Desert Storm, and the Girl Scouts. They drew a clear distinction between undifferentiated "groups" and sharply focused "teams": "A team is 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" (p. 112).
Katzenbach and Smith's research highlights six distinguishing characteristics of high-quality teams:
High-performing teams shape purpose in response to a demand or an opportunity placed in their path, usually by higher management. Top managers clarify the team's charter, rationale, and challenge while giving the team flexibility to work out goals and plans of operation. By giving a team clear authority and then staying out of the way, management releases collective energy and creativity.
High-performing teams translate common purpose into specific, measurable performance goals. Purpose yields an overall mission, but successful teams take the additional step of recasting purpose into specific and measurable performance goals: "If a team fails to establish specific performance goals or if those goals do not relate directly to the team's overall purpose, team members become confused, pull apart, and revert to mediocre performance. By contrast, when purpose and goals are built on one another and are combined with team commitment, they become a powerful engine of performance" (p. 113).
High-performing teams are of manageable size. Katzenbach and Smith fix the optimal size for an effective team somewhere between two and twenty-five people: "Ten people are far more likely than fifty to work through their individual, functional, and hierarchical differences toward a common plan and to hold themselves jointly accountable for the results" (p. 114). More members mean more structural complexity, so teams should aim for the smallest size that can get the job done.
High-performing teams develop the right mix of expertise. The structural frame stresses the critical link between specialization and expertise. Effective teams seek out the full range of necessary technical fluency; "product development teams that include only marketers or engineers are less likely to succeed than those with the complementary skills of both" (p. 115). In addition, exemplary teams find and reward expertise in problem solving, decision making, and interpersonal skills to keep the group focused, on task, and free of debilitating personal squabbles.
High-performing teams develop a common commitment to working relationships. "Team members must agree on who will do particular jobs, how schedules will be set and adhered to, what skills need to be developed, how continuing membership in the team is to be earned, and how the group will make and modify decisions" (p. 115). Effective teams take time to explore who is best suited for a particular task as well as how individual roles come together. Achieving structural clarity varies from team to team, but it takes more than an organization chart to identify roles and pinpoint one's place in the official pecking order and layout of responsibilities. Most teams require a more detailed understanding of who is going to do what and how people relate to each other in carrying out diverse tasks.
One possibility is to use responsibility charting (Galbraith, 1977). Responsibility charting presents a framework and a language for hammering out how people work together. For a given task, responsibility is assigned to the individual or group with overall accountability. The next step is to outline how that role relates to others on the team. Does someone need to approve the actions of the responsible person? Are there people who need to be consulted? Are there others who must be kept informed? The acronym CAIRO summarizes the framework: C for consults; A for approval; I for informed; R for responsibility; and O for out of the loop, or not informed. Whatever form it takes, an effective team "establishes a social contract among members that relates to their purpose and guides and obligates how they will work together" (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993, p. 116).
Members of high-performing teams hold themselves collectively accountable. Pinpointing individual responsibility is crucial to a well-coordinated effort, but effective teams find ways to hold the collective accountable: "Teams enjoying a common purpose and approach inevitably hold themselves responsible, both as individuals and as a team, for the team's performance" (p. 116).
Teams have become the rage but are often thrown together with little attention to what ensures success. In an influential article, Brian Dumaine (1994) highlights a common error: "Teams often get launched in a vacuum, with little or no training or support, no changes in the design of their work, and no new systems like e-mail to help communication between teams. Frustrations mount, and people wind up in endless meetings trying to figure out why they are a team and what they are expected to do." A focused, cohesive structure is a fundamental underpinning for high-performing teams. Even highly skilled people zealously pursuing a shared mission will falter and fail if group structure constantly generates inequity, confusion, and frustration.
The sports team analogy discussed earlier assumed some role for a top-down team manager. But what about teams that manage themselves organically from the bottom up? Self-managing work teams have been defined as groups of employees with the following characteristics (Wellins and others, 1990):
They manage themselves (plan, organize, control, staff, and monitor).
They assign jobs to members (decide who works on what, where, and when).
They plan and schedule work (control start-up and ending times, the pace of work, and goal setting).
They make production- or service-related decisions (take responsibility for inventory, quality control decisions, and work stoppage).
They take action to remedy problems (address quality issues, customer service needs, and member discipline and rewards).
Evidence suggests that self-directed teams often produce better results and higher morale than groups operating under more traditional top-down control (Cohen and Ledford, 1994; Emery and Fredendall, 2002). But getting such teams started and giving them the resources they need to be effective is a complex undertaking. Many well-known firms—such as Microsoft, Boeing, Google, W. L. Gore, Southwest Airlines, Harley-Davidson, Whole Foods, and Goldman Sachs—have stumbled successfully toward the benefits of self-directed teams without being overwhelmed by logistical snafus or reverting to the traditional command-and-control structure. A classic multi decade example is the Saturn division of General Motors.
In 1983, General Motors announced the launch of a revolutionary experiment: the Saturn project, which would produce automobiles in a new way. The Saturn experiment showed what can happen when you place people in a suitable structure of roles and relationships. After it was launched by its parent, Saturn quickly achieved levels of quality, consumer satisfaction, and customer loyalty that surpassed those of much of the U.S. automotive industry. What was the secret of the company's success?
Credit has been assigned to its sophisticated technology and its enlightened approach to managing people and its unique culture. On the technology side, Saturn made extensive use of computers and deployed robots for many repetitive or dangerous jobs. Its human resource practices emphasized training, conflict management, and extensive employee participation. Its unique way of doing things and cohesion are legendary. Yet it is easy to overlook Saturn's distinctive team structure as an important element of its achievements.
Company-wide, Saturn employees were granted authority to make team decisions, within a few flexible guidelines. Restrictive rules and ironclad, top-down work procedures were left behind as the company moved away from what employees call the "old world" of General Motors. Early in the company's history, a new manager imported from General Motors was walking the line and noticed an assembly worker standing beside a pile of parts. He asked the employee why the parts were not being used. The worker replied that they did not meet quality standards. The manager told him to use the parts anyway. The worker refused. "Very quickly the UAW [United Automobile Workers] president and a top manager came to the scene. They flat out told [the new manager] that things aren't done that way here at Saturn and that he'd better learn his job. To which the manager replied, 'What is my job?' The union president retorted, 'That's for you to discover'" (Deal and Jenkins, 1994, p. 244).
Saturn's engineers and assembly-line workers worked together to solve problems and design manufacturing processes. Quality was everyone's business, and any employee had the authority to stop the assembly line if something ran amiss. Relationships between UAW and Saturn management were cordial and cooperative, governed by an official agreement just one page in length.
Most of the actual assembly of the Saturn automobile was done by teams. More than 150 production teams of eight to fifteen cross-trained, highly interdependent workers assembled the cars on a half-mile-long assembly line. The traditional system of sequential, repetitive efforts by isolated individuals became a thing of the past. Saturn created "a work environment where people provide leadership for themselves and others. It is cooperation and self and team management that make Saturn tick. Problems are solved by people working together—they are not kicked upstairs for others to solve" (p. 230).
Saturn teams exemplified Katzenbach and Smith's (1993) profile of successful teams. The design of the car, corporate values, and quality standards came down from the executive suite, but each team translated broad objectives into measurable performance goals. Teams were empowered to deal with budget, safety procedures, ergonomics, vacations, time off, and other matters. In effect, each team managed its own business within general guidelines. An employee in body systems described how it worked on her team: "The working conditions are like running your own business. We decide when the shifts are, who starts where, break and eating times, and vacation schedules" (Deal and Jenkins, 1994, p. 242).
Saturn teams designated their own working relationships. Prior to the beginning of a shift, team members conferred in a team center for five or ten minutes. They determined the day's rotation. A team of ten would have ten jobs to do and typically rotated through them, except that rotation was more frequent for jobs involving heavy lifting or stress. Every week the plant shut down to let teams review quality standards, budget, safety, and the ergonomics of assembly. The level of responsibility teams assumed was illustrated by an interior design team that chose to eliminate sixteen team jobs. In looking for ways to trim costs, the team identified an inefficient practice: walking too far to pick up parts for the assembly. Moving the parts closer to the line eliminated the extra distance, but it also made the extra positions unnecessary. The team—including those who eventually moved to other positions at Saturn—made decisions about which positions to eliminate.
Group accountability became an accepted way of life for Saturn teams. Workers watched the numbers every day. At least $10,000 in salary was put at risk each year. If the company met its performance objectives, everyone gained. If it did not, the loss was also shared. Everyone at Saturn admitted that things were not perfect. But there was general agreement that teams were learning from mistakes and constantly refining the structure of teamwork.
Since its beginnings in the 1980s, Saturn has been through ups and downs. Today, the company is a division of GM and more closely aligned with the parent company. New presidents chosen in 1998 and 2000 both came from GM. Since 2004, Saturn vehicles have been designed to use parts from other GM divisions. Saturn's original independence as a company has been reduced by GM's rising control, and Saturn has struggled to achieve the market success and profitability its founders envisioned. But in spite of all the changes, the original team-based concept continues to produce a high-quality automobile assembled by self-directed employees. At last word, GM was still convinced that "Saturn definitely has a future."
Every group evolves a structure as its members work together, but the design may help or hinder effectiveness. Conscious attention to structure and roles can make all the difference in group performance. A team structure emphasizing hierarchy and top-down control tends to work well for simple, stable tasks. As work becomes more complex or the environment gets more turbulent, structure must also develop more multifaceted and lateral forms of communication and coordination.
Sports analogies can help clarify teamwork options. It helps to understand whether the game you are playing is more like baseball, football, or basketball. Many teams never learn the lesson of the commando team: vary the structure in response to changes in task and circumstance. Leaders must know when the rules of the game change and redesign the structure accordingly.