Teams cannot work in isolation with any real hope of achieving their organizational objectives. The nature of organizations today – complex, sophisticated and with increasing loose and permeable boundaries – creates situations where a team’s goals can rarely be achieved without input from and output to others.
However smart a team has been in addressing the previous four categories, the authors have found in consulting with numerous organizations that attention needs to be paid to inter-team relations now more than ever before. This is because of the rise of strategic partnerships and global organizations. Teams need to connect more. It is also because the environment is changing faster and is more complex, so keeping in touch with information outside of your own team is a basic survival strategy.
STOP AND THINK!
Using the five elements above, what is your current team effectiveness?
What needs to change, and how would you go about it?