There has been much academic discussion as to what constitutes a team and what constitutes a group. In much of the literature the two terms are used indistinguishably. Yet there are crucial differences, and anyone working in an organization instinctively knows when he or she is in a team and when he or she is in a group. We will attempt to clarify the essential similarities and differences. This is important when looking at change because teams and groups experience change in different ways.
Schein and Bennis (1965) suggest that a group is ‘any number of people who interact with each other, are psychologically aware of each other, and who perceive themselves to be a group’. Morgan et al (1986) suggest that ‘a team is a distinguishable set of two or more individuals who interact interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified, shared, and valued objectives’. Sundstrom, de Meuse and Futrell (1990) define the work team as ‘A small group of individuals who share responsibility for outcomes for their organizations’.
Cohen and Bailey (1997) define a team as ‘a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more larger social systems (for example, business unit or the corporation), and who manage their relationships across organizational boundaries’.
Our own list of differentiators appears.
A group is a collection of individuals who draw a boundary around themselves. Or perhaps we from the outside might draw a boundary around them and thus define them as a group. A team on the other hand, with its common purpose, is generally tighter and clearer about what it is and what its raison d’être is. Its members know exactly who is involved and what their goal is. Of course it turns out that we are speaking hypothetically here, as any one of us has seen teams within organizations that appear to have no sense at all of what they are really about!
Let us illustrate the difference between a team and a group by using an example. We might look into an organization and see the Finance Department. The Finance Controller heads up a Finance Management Team that leads, manages and coordinates the activities within this area. The team members work together on common goals, meet regularly and have clearly defined roles and responsibilities (usually).
Perhaps the senior management team has decreed that all the high potential managers in the organization shall be members of the Strategic Management Group. So the Finance Controller, who is on the high potential list, gets together with others at his or her level to form a collection of individuals who contribute to the overall strategic direction of the organization. Apart from gatherings every six months, this group rarely meets or communicates. It is a grouping, which might be bounded but does not have any ongoing goals or objectives that require members to work together.
STOP AND THINK!
Within your working life, what teams are you a member of and to which groups do you belong?
Within your personal life, what teams are you a member of and to which groups do you belong?
In what ways was it easier to answer in your personal life, and in what ways more difficult?