Things are getting much more complex and customers are demanding products faster with higher degrees of quality, and one person just can t do it all. So people need to communicate across areas of expertise, and companies are becoming more team-oriented. It s a good approach when you ve got a problem or a process that s complex and interdependent. I call it an extraordinary team. That s kind of my byline.
Extraordinary teams have a couple of things that are important.
The first is that the team has to have clear goals. What makes a team different from just a group of people in a room is that when a team meets in a room together or comes together virtually, it s to accomplish a specific goal. A well-functioning team, an extraordinary team, knows what that goal is, both in the long term as well as the short term. Another facet of an extraordinary team is something I call shared roles. I also believe in open and clear communication, from both the speaker s side and the listener s side, and in providing feedback.