Group Work ≠ Team Work

U.S. Air Force women’s rugby team playing against the U.S. Falcons in 2019. Source: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

For years, my experience of being on a team followed a predictable pattern. We'd meet weekly, divvy up the work, and then scatter to our individual corners to do the work.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. 

Hardly any interaction with the other team members in between meetings, and if there was, it was often asynchronous or required a contortive dance just to find time to meet. When we did manage to meet live, it took time to get on the same page and just when we were starting to get into the work that mattered, we had to adjourn to make it to our next appointment. The bulk of the work? Completed in isolation or with others who were not even part of the team. Not only that, I found myself a member of multiple such teams. Splitting my attention and loyalty across, arriving late and leaving meetings in a frenzy of commitments, trying to keep all the plates spinning and not disappoint anyone. Multitasking was my middle name.

In most teams, work is divided up and done outside the team. The team becomes a group, not a real team.

This might sound familiar to you. It's a model that many of us have grown accustomed to, especially in corporate environments where maximizing output per human is a key goal. But it’s not real teamwork. 

As I've learned over the years, this model often leaves us feeling disconnected and unfulfilled. We feel busy, and though part of us secretly takes pride in that, underneath, we have a lingering feeling that we’re just getting by, keeping our head above water. 

In my experience, real teamwork means that the majority of the work is done together. 

Picture this: team members sitting side-by-side, whether in a physical room or a virtual one. Yes, we venture outside the team to gather information, test our creations, or secure resources. But we think together, we build together. We invite others into our team space if they want to witness our progress. The magic happens within the team.

Teams perform better when work is done together, in a focused and dedicated way.

This shift from fragmented work to real teamwork isn't just about proximity. It's about creating a shared mental and emotional space where ideas can flow, where creativity is amplified by the collective energy of the group. Where we can protect and augment our focus. We become more efficient. Building trust and understanding at a level that simply isn't possible when we're all working “out there”, in isolation.

Here’s a funny story from a company project I once led. Our goal was to guide people through this very transition from group work to true teamwork. However, we quickly encountered a very tangible obstacle: a severe shortage of conference rooms where people could do work together for days at a time. 

The schedules for each of these rooms were carved up like pies, with multiple teams each claiming a small slice throughout the day. We spent long weeks trying to negotiate for rooms that had just a few time slots taken, hoping to convince those teams to relocate. It was too much work.

I had noticed that three weeks — roughly 15 business days of focused, dedicated work together — is the typical time frame to get an agile team from forming to performing. But how could we achieve this without a dedicated space (note: this was pre-pandemic, working with employees distributed across various buildings on a large albeit single campus)?

Fortune smiled upon us when we discovered a building slated for decommissioning. We pounced on the opportunity, swiftly transforming it into our team hub. Everyone eager to embrace this new way of working migrated to this satellite building. The air conditioning was temperamental, and the vending machines offered stale snacks, but we loved it. These scrappy times filled us with a sense of purpose. Despite the odds and elements working against us, we felt that we were changing the world.

Our little outpost gained a certain mystique. It became known as this slightly mysterious place where people went to work "in the new way." As this collaborative approach gained traction in the organization, teams eventually secured their own permanent rooms. These spaces were shared with satellite teams that sprouted from these core teams, creating entire ecosystems with permanent homes. Sometimes a single wall was sufficient, nothing fancy. You’d walk around and you’d see all the work. Transparency at its best. Visitors could drop by, ask questions or marvel at the work displayed on the walls, and witness the analog and digital tools in action.

This experience taught me several valuable lessons about fostering true teamwork:

1. Teams need a home: Having a dedicated area for collaboration can significantly impact a team's ability to work together effectively. It's not just about having a place to meet; it's about creating an environment that encourages constant interaction and idea-sharing. You can do this in virtual spaces, but I am partial to physical places, especially now as I do so much of my work online. Nothing beats the limbic resonance, the freedom of using our bodies to think together in 3D, the instant gratification of having an idea quickly build on it with someone sitting right there with you. 

2. Scrappy starts drive long term success: Sometimes, less-than-ideal conditions can actually foster creativity and team bonding. Our makeshift space in the soon-to-be-decommissioned building created a sense of shared adventure and rebelliousness that brought teams closer together.

3. Transparency is key: So often teams go off on their own to do work, never to be seen again. By having work-in-progress visible on the walls and their process open for others to see, teams created the transparency that built trust, both holding teams accountable and inviting others to engage with the work.

4. Culture change can happen quickly: The transition from individual work to true collaboration doesn't happen overnight. But it also does not take years. I’ve seen culture change in just 3 weeks, exactly because teams stuck together to do focused work, instead of their energy and presence being scattered across multiple teams and projects which as a result dragged on and took months to show any (and usually underwhelming) results. 

5. We can architect healthy ecosystems: As teams began to spawn satellite teams, we saw the importance of creating the connection of space and time. Synchronizing their rituals and practices, locating themselves close by. This allowed for both focused work within teams and cross-pollination of ideas between related groups.

A team is far more than just a group of people working together for a common goal. It's a place of belonging. It has its own distinct identity that exists separately from each individual while simultaneously depending on each person's presence and contribution. Working as part of such a team can be one of the most gratifying experiences in one's professional life. 

When a team truly clicks, it's like a well-choreographed and interpreted dance. Each member knows their role, but they're also acutely aware of how their movements affect the whole. There's a rhythm to the work, a flow that carries everyone along. Challenges are met not with frustration, but integrated and met with collective problem-solving energy. Successes are celebrated together, failures are examined without blame, and learning is constant. There is also a lot of joy and laughter, inside jokes, a unique dialect even. It is difficult to get to this level of intimacy on a team if you’re moonlighting in several teams.

As we move further into an era of complex challenges and rapid change, the ability to work effectively in teams matters more and more. Siloed work and keeping decisions at the top are practices that break down under the pace and interconnectedness of modern times.

Being able to truly collaborate, we not only produce better results but also create more fulfilling work experiences. We tap into the collective intelligence of the group, using diverse perspectives and skills to tackle challenges that no one person could solve alone. All this does come at a sacrifice: giving up the sugar rush of multiple sources of stimulus for the deeper joy of committing to one or two endeavors that are worth dedicating our short life to.  

I'm curious to hear about your experiences.

What was the best team you've ever been part of? What made it stand out? How did that experience shape your approach to teamwork going forward?

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