Team Building - Developing Performing Teams
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Keywords
Team Conflicts, Argyris, Team Learning, Peter Senge, skill, Team Building, Teamwork, collective work-products, leadership, Michael Dell, John Medica
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Team Learning
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We all know that the real work in organizations is done by teams and not lone individuals. So for organizations to be effective, they need effective teams. Teams need to constantly operate at a higher level of intelligence than that of individual members. Thus, teams need to be continually learning. The cost of neglected learning can be high. To avoid this, teams need to be aware of the following: Team ConflictsIt is commonly assumed that great teams do not entertain or have conflicts. According to Peter Senge, on the contrary, great teams encourage productive conflict. In these teams, the free flow of conflicting ideas leads to creative thinking.15 Conflict becomes, in effect, part of the ongoing dialogue. In fact, visible conflict of ideas can be one reliable indicator of continual learning. Conflict is a common feature in most organizations. Organizations arrive at their vision only after going through certain level of conflict. The shared vision of an organization emerges from the conflict of personal visions. Even when a vision is shared there are different ways of realizing it. This difference is certainly a source of conflict. |
On mediocre teams, one observes two situations surrounding conflict: the appearance of no conflict, and rigid polarization. In the first condition, team members suppress their conflicting views to continue as a team. In the second condition, though the team members speak out their conflicting views, their positions are clear, and no exchange or change of views takes place.
Defensive routines
Chris Argyris16 studied management teams for 25 years to identify why managers fail to learn in management teams. He found that these managers avoid constructive conflicts and are defensive when a conflict arises. He also identified some basic differences between mediocre teams and great teams. A mediocre team is different from a great team in how it faces a conflict, and how it copes with defensiveness that arises due to conflict. According to Argyris,
human beings "are programmed to create defensive routines, and cover them up
with further defensive routines...This programming occurs early in life."17
Argyris further says that defensive routines are entrenched habits people use to protect themselves from the embarrassment and threat that comes once they express their views18. People use defensive routines as a protective shell around their deepest assumptions. They employ defensive mechanisms to protect themselves from the pain that occurs when these assumptions are questioned or the thinking behind these assumptions is exposed. While these defensive routines protect them from pain, they also prevent them from learning about the causes of the pain.
What is the source of defensive routines? Argyris feels that people become defensive not because they believe in their views, or desire to preserve social relations but because they dread others finding errors in their thinking. As Argyris says, this fear starts in childhood, and is reinforced throughout life. Defensiveness stops people from knowing about the validity of their reasoning. Defensive routines can do more damage in organizations where incomplete or faulty understanding is seen as a sign of weakness or incompetence.
15] Team learning, McKinsey Quarterly, 1991, Issue 2.
16] Chris Argyris is a leading thinker, and has done extensive research on
"Organizational learning."
17] Strategy, Change, and Defensive routines , By: Argyris, Chris, Boston, Pitman, 1985.
18] Team learning, By: Senge, Peter M., McKinsey Quarterly, 1991, Issue 2.