Written by: Luca Berni, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
All organizations, public or private, are based on the concept of collaboration. However, there are still many who struggle to organize collaboration between people effectively, not exploiting its full potential and increasing conflict. One of the reasons for this difficulty comes from the lack of knowledge of possible forms of collaboration and, consequently, from the inability to choose the best one to meet the specific need. Usually, especially in companies, you hear about a "team" whenever you are faced with a group of people working together. But the Team is only one of the possible forms of collaboration and, like the others, it has its own rules and its specific purpose. Choosing the proper form of cooperation facilitates the setting up of the work, the choice of people, the definition of results, and their achievement.
Organizations that study and apply the most suitable form of collaboration for their purposes get the most value from people and gain greater engagement and improved business climate as additional benefits.
The primary forms of collaboration are Working Groups, Task Forces, and Teams. Deciding which is the most suitable in each situation is a key step to maximizing performance.
Working Group
A Working Group is a group of people who collaborate, interact and work with a low or medium-low level of interdependence. Although people are placed in a context where there are common goals, each acts individually to carry out their duties and pursue their goals, the achievement of which is only minimally influenced by the work of colleagues. The Working Group is the most widespread form of collaboration, and it is also the most unconscious one because, most of the time, it does not derive from an organizational decision but is gradually created by an aggregation of people in the same context (company, department, same boss, etc.). Often the organization refers to the Working Group as a Team, but this is a mistake because the Team – as we will see – is a different form of collaboration.
Purpose: to manage the current activities of an organization
Duration: Long term
Goal: the goals must be established individually, in line with the general objectives of the organization
Feedback: feedback is given individually and refers to the actions and behaviors of individuals
Task Force
The Task Force is a form of collaboration dedicated to single events of high importance that require different skills. These are events with a well-defined deadline for which it is necessary to produce a high effort for a short time and which also involve very different professionals. Consider, for example, obtaining ISO certification. The event can be represented by the audit of the certifying authority, which will take place on a certain date and will involve staff from various departments of the organization. The Task Force will be made up of people who have different skills (quality, administration, production, sales, IT, and so on), who don't usually collaborate with each other, and who all have a very similar hierarchical level. The Task Force does not have a real Leader but is mainly based on the professionalism and ability of its members to organize themselves to get ready for the event. The level of interaction is very high, but everyone maintains great autonomy in their area of expertise. After the event, the Task Force no longer has any reason to exist and can be disbanded.
Purpose: manage an extraordinary event
Duration: short or very short term
Goal: the goal is given by the event itself
Feedback: the Task Force must have the strength to give itself frequent and instant feedback
Team
Of all the forms of collaboration, the Team is perhaps the most complex. A team is a group of people who work in a coordinated and interdependent way. A real Team acts as if it were a single entity made up of different particles (members of the Team) with a Team objective. Unlike the Working Group, there are no individual goals, and the achievement or not of the Team goal is equivalent to the success of all or none. The creation of a team requires a series of steps that can take some time, but the advantage is that the performance of a real team is much higher than the performance of the sum of the individuals that compose it. Creating a real team is useful when the organization is called upon to achieve high-level performance over time that has a significant impact on the life of the organization. A team can be made up of people of the same function who integrate their skills, or it can be a multifunctional team where the integration of different experiences generates added value, such as in the case of creating a new product. Ideally, a company's Board of Directors should be built as a Team.
Purpose: guiding and managing changes with a high impact on the organization
Duration: long term
Goal: the goal is of the Team, and there are no individual goals
Feedback: feedback is always addressed to the Team as a whole and never to any of its members
Luca Berni, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Luca Berni is an Executive & Team Coach that works with Leaders, Top Managers, Entrepreneurs, Boards of Directors, and Leadership Teams. Before becoming a Coach in 2009, he worked as a Manager in different Multinational companies in different Countries for almost twenty years. Luca also works as a management consultant, he co-founded and runs TheNCS The Neuroscience Coaching School, and he writes articles and books about Coaching and Management.
