The antithesis of teamwork…  Revamp a necessity?

In today’s competitive and dynamic business environment, is “teamwork” the right terminology and way to go or is it more “Oneness”? At times, the word, notion or connotation of “teamwork” can pose hindrance to organizational progress and growth. This is because teams themselves can become self-centred in achieving their own goals as apposed to overall corporate goals – at the expense of the entity. Organizations are already divided due to functional representation with their own set of objectives and therefore teams and goals within these teams can create more issues. The more successful they are in the chosen area/discipline, the more compartmentalized these teams could become. Cross functional teams… yes perhaps they serve better; but, yet again, can become simple executors of that task (the focused goal given) at the expense of the other.

The issue could be the purpose itself – meaning the very task given can dominate the overall purpose of the entity. For that reason, would like to call teams to focus more on “oneness” in an organization. Oneness, as we could profess is more focused on building uniform values across members. Through that focus, values and attitudes would supersede the task essentials thus making them fuller members of the larger organization – first through the values, and through that – the tasks. The essence of this concept is that the task is being achieved through a clearly centered value system which does not override the organizational goals and values. The members would automatically understand the direction. They would clearly know and feel that the value system supersedes the task. Achieving the best at the expense of defeating this value system should be known as unacceptable.

One might debate that this argument is merely playing with words and not deeds. My thinking is otherwise. Let me draw parallel examples to a family and situations associated with it, there-in to a place of work. This is because I believe a work place, is a larger manifestation of a family unit – of course in literal terms.

Why is it that we do not talk of teamwork in a family? Is it that we do not have teamwork or don’t practice teamwork at home?  Is it because it is a small unit? If this is true, there can’t be anything called small group/teams operating at work places.

Take for instance the underlying factor in families. Isn’t it because we operate as one unit, especially so that we safeguard and espouse the same values across? We always refer it as a family unit. Habitually, we usually say let us as a family, achieve this or do that. The underlying essence is that the entire value system across the unit moves in the desired direction.  We seldom or hardly say that we have two teams of males and females or parents and kids or in any other form of division to achieve tasks. We might execute tasks in that manner – be it cooking or gardening but it is overshadowed by the values and attitudes that we have built within the family. Just because the team cooking likes a particular meal, they might just not do that (though at the end it produces a meal). Rather, they will take into account the overall family need. That is because of the overarching sense of a value driven system that prevails where team centric micro wins are defeated by thoughts of a macro or bigger achievement. That is how the word oneness describes a family. That’s when we say we are one unit and think alike.

We’ve heard many stories of war where platoons are withdrawn or lay idle for the sake of overall victory of the war and not just the battle. As Sun Tzu states, “those who know the terrain and the enemy and themselves win many wars”. The larger goals are dependent on the very fabric of values that a team is interwoven with. If each team does what they think is right to win the battle, then wars can become much more chaotic than what they are today.  It might have short term gains in battles, but can be catastrophic in terms of achieving the end results holistically. Even a deep penetrating reconnaissance team will have very clear values embedded into it which will have an overarching effect on their final value delivery.

This is the argument that we are building for this discussion. The word “team” if left alone can bring about a division of sorts within the system. It can also defeat the overall values espoused by the entity. We’ve seen teams meeting their goals at the expense of organizational objectives. Yes! We’ve seen it…. We get it.  The heads of these teams fail to ensure goal congruence. Yes. That’s written and is the idea – but it is taken for granted. The word and the mandate more often than not can give rise to other effects; probably influenced by the group-think phenomena which in most instances can overshadow the core purpose. Besides this, the rewards associated with this can make it to be an even bigger issue.

Structures within organizations today are more of a maze. We try to break vertical walls of departments only to find the emergence of horizontal walls. This situation prevails immaterial of the size of the organization or the environment in which it operates. Hence the reason as to why we feel that value system of an organization should supersede the team process.

In some way, a mere change in the term “teamwork” can make the members of the same team wonder, rethink and relook at what is required of them – once again… for a second time. Any change, whether simple or complicated, will induce people to rethink and re look. In that sense, if we argue the fact that it’s only a word change, this mere change can create a drastic change – it can make people relook at tasks and ensure they embed the values to the task when working in small groups.

The term “oneness” in that sense brings about that meaning of being together and achieving things together as opposed to the “team” which kind of brings about the feeling of being compartmentalized. Any act or results that defeat the value system should be shot down in literal terms (thoroughly questioned and validated) even at the expense of a great short-term gain for the team or unit.

In pursuing any team effort, it is probably a good idea to be clearer about the organizational values that need to be safeguarded at all instances, and the need for “oneness” as a value system to prevail in all tasks that the team executes. Emphasis on ‘oneness’ will defeat their thinking of being self-centered in achievements for it’s an alliance geared towards achieving a common goal.

• Should we simply call teams as “Oneness Alliance” or “Ideals of oneness”
  
• Along with any task for the Oneness Alliance, the value parameters within which they need to operate would be clearly spelled out. Such values would be embedded within the overall organizational values.
  
• Simply ensure every such oneness alliance uses the TASK, VALUE, TIME matrix as part of the activity.
  
  

A value, as we believe, cements a strong rooted foundation for sustainable business growth within a dynamic business environment. This should be taken beyond a buzz word and be inculcated in every aspect of the organization – basically it should be the DNA of every organization. Short term tasks/goals too should be part of it; lest we forget and go for short economic gains.

Would this idea/concept curtail creativity or improve? This opens doors to many arguments but that’s the idea of a thought process!