#51: Team work - part 2
Often, the most visible result of poor team work is inefficiency, whether in the form of wasted resources, wasted time, or wasted effort. No wonder managers normally tackle team problems from an efficiency perspective and immediately set out to improve team work.
Yet, the fact that it seems necessary to teach people how to work together should warn you that you are confusing symptoms and causes.
An efficiency perspective aims to fix what is perceived to be wrong and automatically draws your attention to symptoms. On the other hand, an effectiveness perspective aims to achieve desired results and outcomes; hence this approach tends to focus you on underlying causes.
Note that an effectiveness perspective does not concern itself with team work, because team work is not really the desired outcome. What is desired is the output that the team should produce.
I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com
Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh
Yet, the fact that it seems necessary to teach people how to work together should warn you that you are confusing symptoms and causes.
An efficiency perspective aims to fix what is perceived to be wrong and automatically draws your attention to symptoms. On the other hand, an effectiveness perspective aims to achieve desired results and outcomes; hence this approach tends to focus you on underlying causes.
Note that an effectiveness perspective does not concern itself with team work, because team work is not really the desired outcome. What is desired is the output that the team should produce.
I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com
Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh
posted by James Henry McIntosh at
7:20 AM
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