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Groups v Teams

Groups v Teams? Are there essential differences? What are they? What are the implications for leaders? This page offers some ideas. It links to a page on team leadership vs group leadership ... and two articles on self-regulating teams.

As a leader, it's important to make this 'Groups v Teams' distinction. Your approach to leading each will be completely different.

For managers to make better decisions about whether, when, or how to encourage and use teams, it is important to be more precise about what a team is and what it isn't.

from: Katzenbach and Smith The Discipline of Teams
Harvard Business Review, 71(2): 111-120, 1993.

This page helps us to define the difference between groups v teams; group leadership and team leadership. We then stick to those definitions throughout the site.

Before discussing team leadership v group leadership, let's settle some basic ideas about working together.

Groups v Teams: Why bring people together to work?

Some organizational or business functions are too large for individuals to carry out.

Work groups are created when scalable tasks need to be carried out. Growing sales inquiries outstrip the time one person has available. Solution? Sign up another sales person to carry out essentially the same tasks.

Group leadership can frequently focus on individual members - who usually need to hear the same message at the same time.

Teams are created to create a 'super-being' whose collective experience and competence is broader, deeper, longer than any one individual can embody.

Team tasks are usually not scalable in any simple sense. Individuals and sub-teams are likely to perform tasks that are qualitatively different from/than each other.

Team leadership is more complex, needing to focus on facilitating the web of relationships between individuals and sub-teams. Leaders also focus on the relationship between the team/super-being and its output(s).

For these reasons, co-ordination and communication difficulties increase.

The following two sections,

contrasting group and team culture

and

summarizing different approaches to leading groups v teams

will help to focus on key issues for the leadership development of groups v teams.

Groups v Teams - contrasting cultures

As a team leader or group leader, your first key task is to assess operational or organizational needs. Next, work out what set of working norms provides the best solution to meet those needs. Finally, gather individuals together and establish working practice.

Very different working cultures, values and norms impact on the working life of groups v teams.

The following ideas will help you identify leadership issues arising from these differences.

Groups v teams: variations in alliances, diversity and levels of ownership

The ownership of products and processes looks quite different in groups v teams.

Working alliances. Groups believe that their main reason for existing is administrative: it's easier to tell ten members of the sales staff targets, changes in offers - and so on - at the same time.

Working alliances are not well developed within a group. Individuals meet responsibilities independently of each other.

Teams - on the other hand - are very interdependent. Working alliances are strong. Individual and collective goals are met through mutually supportive activities.

Diversity is more valuable to a team. Differing points of view of a problem lead to lateral thinking. A variety of criticisms of current practice may lead to new insights and innovations. Barriers to progress may be overcome by negotiating new understandings through discussion.

In this way teams tend to celebrate difference and respond positively to the uniqueness of individual contributions.

A group has little need for diversity of opinion or perspective. Roles are largely channeled and pre-determined by leaders or managers. Diversity of approaches may be counter-productive and lead to difficulties in evaluating changes in practice.

There is little scope for unique contributions.

Negotiating the whole approach to a project by team members creates a strong sense of ownership by team members. They are likely to have had a major influence in the approach the team will take, possibly modifying global goals and aims.

They will almost certainly have made important decisions about how to operationalize the global aim of the team. Thus, participative decision-making is a key-feature of team activity.

[See another article in the 'Groups v Teams' series to find out how one group leader was surprised by a rapid turn of events. He had to make a quick switch to becoming a team leader! See link at bottom of this page.]

In contrast, for groups ownership of global aims and targets is located outside the individual members. The clearest sense of the aims of the group is likely to be held by those in executive or managerial roles who instruct the group.

Groups v teams: differing emphasis on creativity, trust and shared values

This section explores how issues of creativity, trust and shared values impact on groups v teams.

Teams and groups score differently for creativity too. Diversity plus ownership together create a strong sense of shared responsibility for the product of the team's efforts and the process they use to develop that product.

This all rests on a shared creative effort.

Levels of trust vary between groups and teams.

In a group individual members need to trust that the roles and responsibilities that they have been delegated are appropriate to meet stated objectives.

They need to trust that any incentives - for example - will be applied fairly by managers and group leaders.

Groups can function perfectly well with little formal trust between group members themselves.

In a team, greater levels of trust are required between team members themselves. They need to trust that comments and criticisms will be respected by other team members, for example.

Trust between team mates grows as it is tested by open discussion, debate, argument and criticism.

Team members may come to realize that they share deeply held values with their team mates. If values are not shared between all, then team mates usually know - and respect - the different values that shape their colleagues' contributions.

Establishing shared and/or diverse values between team members is often an important team leadership task as the team forms and starts to work together.

It is easier to have a constructive argument with a team mate when you are clear about the values that motivate a contribution that you disagree with.

Of these two comments, which is likely to be more constructively received?

"I see (or sense or hear or know) where you're coming from, but I disagree because ..."

or, simply

"I disagree ..."

It's easier to respect a disagreement when you know the values that underpin it, particularly if you share some of them!

Explicit values create a basis for common understanding between team members. Shared and interlocking responsibilities, make this an important feature of good team working.

Work groups need to be clear about the roles and responsibilities of individuals. Common understandings are seldom a feature of group working.

Game-playing: groups v teams ... they differ

In a team or group situation - in any relationship, in fact - people can get 'stuck' in conflict that becomes self-serving. That is, it perpetuates itself and does not lead to constructive resolution. This is referred to as 'game-playing'.

Some writers take the view that groups - with less to lose between individuals - are more open to this kind of point scoring.

We take the view that most work groups are unlikely to have a strong enough vested-interest in other group members to make game-playing likely.

We agree with those who characterize group communication as "polite." It's tempting to call it "bland" ... there is insufficient commitment to arouse real passion.

However, malfunctioning teams (possibly stuck in an extended 'storming' stage) are very likely to engage in some serious game-playing!

A strong foundation of shared (or, if not shared ... then explicitly stated) values will often help team members respond constructively to negative feedback and criticism from team mates.

Groups v Teams: communication and professional development

Work group communication tends to be straightforward and unidirectional. Salesperson to customer; purchaser to supplier; group leader to group member; group member to group member.

Content of communications tends to be direct and unambiguous. Emails are relatively useful for passing simple messages to and fro.

Team communication tends to be much more complex and multi directional. Meanings are negotiated through active sharing and debate. The common understandings (referred to before) that teams create arise from exchanges between individuals and sub teams who are likely committed to their own points of view.

The best teams are cauldron-like at times! Yet the apparent conflict is not taken personally. It is acknowledged as an essential part of shared responsibility.

Constructive team members become skilled in many areas of communication, they ...

routinely demonstrate all the skills of active listening;
will actively seek feedback;
provide constructive feedback (positive and negative);
facilitate discussion;
listen for unspoken assumptions;
listen for and respond to underlying feelings;
help others to express themselves; and
clarify nuances in meaning.

We also believe that skilled team members are much more self-aware. Communication skills is really a misnomer.

We've seen and heard skills deployed insincerely. Formally 'correct' words and phrases may be uttered. In the absence of a mature self-awareness , these can simply sound hollow.

Participation in a team experience contributes to professional development and the growth of professional self-awareness in striking and diverse ways. The learning curve is longer, steeper and richer than in a group.

Contrast groups, where training tends to be clearly focused on relatively narrow goals, and opportunities to learn through consistent supportive challenge are restricted.

In groups the absence of a framework to understand and manage conflict means that - when it does arise - it is likely to be personal (rather than professional). It may test a leader who is likely to be unaware of its foundation, or who may have avoided confronting issues (perhaps hoping they would 'blow over').

Conflict in teams is more likely to focus on how the product is to be delivered and the processes the team engages in to deliver it. Team members may legitimately argue about the best routes to progressing the team's aims, for example.

Team leaders won't want to become complacent, however: even the most focused team can become side-tracked into game-playing and point-scoring.

Groups v teams - leadership and summary

Sometimes discussion about team leaders and group leaders focuses on issues of "strength."

It's our view that this is relative - the strong leader only appears so because the members of his group are weak, relative to the leader. It may appear that their will dominates: "What I say goes!"

Is that what you want for your organization?

One of the risks is disintegration of the function of the group in the leader's absence. A second is the "dumbing-down" of group members' potential.

Neither offer a positive way of holding - let alone developing - your organizations current pool of talent.

Team leadership is much more of an art. One of the most important aspects of this particular art form is to know when to let individual team members - or sub-sections of the team - step up to the plate.

This distributed leadership is a wonderful way of nurturing talented people, deepening their technical knowledge and developing the soft skills that will enable them to adapt to changing organizational needs.

Lastly, effective team leadership should focus on ensuring that its outputs are significantly superior to the individual outputs that members can achieve working independently.

Do you routinely take stock of the added value your teams produce?

The collective output of a strong team will always be greater than the sum of its parts. If this is true the team is likely to repay the extra investment of time that teams require.

If it is not - are you sure you need a team? Not sure about the groups v teams distinction after reading this? The last link will take you to our workplace groups hub - more articles availabe there.

We hope this article informs your "Groups v Teams" decision making
constructively.

Our next article in the "Groups v Teams" series (which currently runs to four) extends the discussion of team vs group leadership.

Two articles on designing self-regulating teams are also available.

The first focuses on designing self managed teams, the second discusses some of the issues in leading the transition to self managing teams.

Navigation tip: currently all our team leadership articles are accessible from the Workplace Teams page, which acts as hub for this area of focus.

Return from this Groups v Teams page to Workplace Teams page

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