Team Of Teams

Team Of Teams reveals the incredible power that small teams have to manage the difficult and complicated issues that arise in every company and how even large organizations can take advantage of them by building a system of many teams that work together.

Do you remember in school when your teacher would divide the class into groups to perform certain tasks? This is because a group has the ability to solve problems that a person on their own isn’t able to. This concept applies to companies as well.

Looking at problems as a team rather than as individuals will better prepare an organization for tackling complex challenges. Many organizations care more about efficiency and structure themselves in a way that everyone follows one person’s commands. The problem with this is that one single person can’t grasp the complexity that comes with modern problems.

An example of this is the plane crash at Portland International Airport in 1978 that killed 10 people. When there was a minor malfunction, the captain prolonged safety preparations until they ran out of fuel, even though his crew members were warning him of the fuel levels. It was clear that they should’ve been working as a team.

What makes a team so good at navigating complexity? Having mutual trust and purpose. As opposed to bosses and subordinates, team members share a common purpose, and sharing experiences inspires trust. This trust enables them to respond quickly when they need to. They all understand what the desired outcome is and what each person needs to do to achieve it.

After the Portland plane crash, United Airlines realized a plane’s technology was much too complex for one person to handle alone. So they introduced the Crew Resource Management program that consisted of teams to handle such situations. The emergency landing on the Hudson River in 2009 where everyone survived is just one example of the benefits of this change.

You might be wondering how you can feasibly run an organization with teams when you have a company of thousands. It’s simple: build of team of teams Too many people in a team will make it ineffective. So for companies larger than 150 people, break things down into multiple teams. When you build your smaller teams, make sure they work together with the other teams as a larger team. Teams are great at creating cohesiveness. But they also come with the problem of needing to exclude those outside of the team. If you have multiple teams, make sure they all share the same overall processes and purpose, otherwise, there will be things that are only partially done and things missed. Another tip for having a team of teams is to…