By Tunde Oyadiran ([email protected])

The concept of Teaming is becoming increasingly popular in management sciences essentially for its futuristic though disruptive approach as it seeks to make-up for the shortcomings of the prevalent and widespread idea of Teams.

This article will attempt to discuss Teaming as a shift in organizational leadership from providing answers to asking questions, and further reveal how it requires a reassessment at how teams come together.

The article will also differentiate between Team and Teaming both in definition and application while also highlighting how the concept has evolved over time with a view to projecting an outlook for the seemingly novel concept.

Proponents of Teaming such as Amy C. Edmondson of Harvard Business School, have argued that although Teaming is something that is unnatural in the way we are wired and in the way that organizations and institutions are built, Teaming requires a new cultural build.

Some other have argued that the rise of the era of teaming will automatically result in the end of the concept of Teams as we know it. The article will also do well to discuss the probable enablers, inhibitors as well as the successes of Teaming without losing sight of the identified pillars of the concept.

As it is generally believed that team-building is an important aspect of Teams that will very likely not have any place in the world of Teaming, this article will seek to discuss the adaptability of the idea of team-building in an era of Teaming. The article will conclude by looking at the application of Teaming in music, geo-politics, health care, sports etc. as it promotes the idea of diversity and specialization.

At about mid-day towards the end of the 2010 Summer, there was a huge collapse at the San Jose Copper Mine in Chile that led to a cave-in that trapped 33 miners 2,300 feet underground – more than the height of two (2) Eiffel Towers – and about five (5) kilometers from the mine’s entrance.

It didn’t take long for the Mine owners to realize that a quick and smooth rescue was highly improbable as no drilling technology existed at the time that was capable of getting through rocks that hard and deep enough to save the lives of these trapped Miners in good time.

In a swift turn of events, the operators of the Mine alongside the government of Chile launched a rescue mission that solicited the assistance of experts of different nationalities, races, and professional backgrounds to save the lives of these trapped miners.

For context, this rescue operation which was estimated to have cost about US$20 million witnessed the collaborative efforts of three (3) separate rig teams, every government ministry in Chile, Chilean Special Forces, the United States NASA, over 12 private corporations around the world and hundreds of volunteers.

The collaborative spirit and sheer commitment of every member of the rescue team paid off as all 33 trapped miners were rescued and safely brought out of the caved-in mine after 69 days of relentless hard work to bring a relieving end to the Copiapo Mining Disaster, as it is now called.   

This incredible story makes a good case for the concept of Teaming. The gathering of different professionals cut across sectors, industries, and backgrounds to launch a rescue strategy illustrates the essence of Teaming. Amy Edmondson, a professor at the Harvard Business School who has done extensive research on the concept of Teaming defines it as teamwork on a fly which involves coordinating and collaborating with people across different boundaries to get work done.

Given the neck-break speed at which our world is changing with shifting schedules, rapidly evolving and dynamic workforce and limited expertise means that the luxury of a stable, confined group of people will no longer be readily available.

More and more, we are faced with more project-based and open-ended work with people working on different projects from different organizations and time zones. In such situations where there’s hardly enough time to build trust– the foundation of teams –, the concept of Teaming becomes most appropriate.

Edmondson argues that in earlier management practice, Team is a noun used to describe an established, fixed group of people interdependent on achieving shared goals. However, in today’s knowledge-based economy, Teaming is more or less a more active form of Team.

It is a verb used to connote a dynamic activity, a skill that will require certain changes in the way we relate with people we don’t know, improve how we assess them, enhance how we extract knowledge from them, and process it a lot faster. Teaming refers to the processes, activities, and what people have to do or say to each other to accomplish interdependent work.

Today, most collaborative work happens in the absence of established teams. Effective Teaming consists of two essential components. The first is primarily about scoping, structuring, and clear coordination of what needs to happen for shared goals to be accomplished, this is also known as the Hardware component.

On the other hand, however, the Software component focuses on having a shared purpose and a sense of psychological safety – the ability to speak up without fear that one will be rejected for views and concerns shared – as well as exercising empathy with others. 

While team building is important and valuable, we must also accept the fact that realistically, there isn’t as much time to go offline to do it. Hence, we need to start re-imagining team building more in the context of Teaming.

The future of team building will very likely evolve into building the team while working on a project or series of projects. On a related note, the fluidity of work structures that seems to blur out boundaries implies that the focus should be less on creating effective teams but more on leading effective teaming.

The shift from noun to verb will also help to identify other central topics in contemporary leadership.

The process of producing a music album which is a highly collaborative process appropriately typifies the concept of teaming. To foster a healthy and efficient studio atmosphere, each professional has to develop traits to enhance teamwork and focus on the team’s collaborative goal and timeline.

Much like film production, the music production team comprises a diverse array of highly specialized professionals. These individuals are typically not fixed groups of people who have spent enough time together to engender trust amongst one another.

Every project presents each of them with the rare opportunity of collaborating, learning and teaching one another as they each play an integral part in the production of an album that might become the next Spotify or Apple music sensation, or even go on to win a Grammy Award.

Although the Musician/Artist is the one most recognized, there are six (6) other key roles typically involved in an album production process including Composer, Music Arranger, Music Manager, Recording engineer Remixer and Mentor.

Similarly, healthcare delivery is also dependent on teaming as medical experts are hardly specialized in everything. Hence, for the delivery of safe high-quality care, there’s reliance on multiple expertise, and bringing them together effectively is very key.

More than in any other profession, diverse perspectives are a huge resource in healthcare, so you must create forums where people can come together to share and develop mutual understanding across the many specialist boundaries.

Sports, especially football is the embodiment of teamwork. In reality, national football doesn’t provide the core of teams relative to club football. Put differently, at the club football level, the players are guided by contracts and other personal commitments which ensures the relative stability of most of the team members at every point in time to achieve set goals.

At the national level, however, the frequent replacement of coaches and the ad-hoc nature of most team camping and preparation, coupled with the absence of contracts that bind players to always represent their country at competitions, makes it difficult to guarantee the players that will be available at competitions.

Also, the refusal of some clubs to release some players to represent their country is a contributory factor. The teams that have achieved success at these competitions are those that understand and effectively adopt the tenets of teaming.

As a disruptive concept that encourages agile practices, there’s a huge emphasis on trust, support and open interaction to aid evolving process of communicating, learning and adapting. 

Many experts have argued that the rise of Teaming will result in the gradual end to the idea of Teams as we know them. Prof. David Slocum of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership says that there are different interaction levels of bounded teams as compared to active and unbounded teaming.

While the former encourages a fixed mindset, the latter nurtures a growth mindset. He further suggests that a growth mindset and teaming are characterized by resilience, nimbleness and commitment to both self and group.

Proactive organizations must become more intentional about helping their employees become passionate, curious and empathic. These components are otherwise known as the pillars of the Teaming culture.

While curiosity fuels the need for people to get acquainted with one another, passion drives enthusiasm as empathy help people see things from another perspective different from theirs. Leaders must also emphasize psychological safety, which is a vital ingredient for the success of Teaming.

It describes a climate where one believes that it is okay to speak up freely with questions, and concerns, admit errors and ask for help. 

The need for leaders to promote and articulate a compelling case for teaming by framing the work or project as one that inherently requires teaming could aid widespread acceptance. Available research suggests that organizational and hierarchical structures could be major impediments to the effective implementation of teaming. Rigid hierarchical structures discourage collaboration, inhibit internal innovation, and create bureaucracy and communication barriers.

For Teaming to succeed, organizations must rid themselves of hierarchies and transition to a nimbler organizational structure such as a flat structure.  

With a supportive organizational structure in place, the following behavioral adjustments are also needed to guarantee successful teaming:

– Speak-up: honest and direct conversation between teammates should be encouraged.

– Listen Intensively: commit to understanding teammate’s knowledge, expertise, ideas and concerns.

– Integrate different facts and viewpoints: Leaders should be mindful of this as ideas and information do not process themselves, people do.

– Experiment Iteratively: Promote the adoption of an iterative step-by-step approach that will learn on the go as against over-analyzing and taking risky leaps of faith.

– Reflect on ideas and actions: Normalize discussing processes and outcomes regularly to help reflect the pace of the work at intervals.    

Teaming is indeed unnatural to the way that we are wired, to the way institutions and organizations are built. Hence, it requires a new cultural build to be successful. It will see individuals humble themselves in the face of challenges ahead, improve interest in what others bring to the table and encourage the willingness to take risks for quicker learning.