The difference between a real team and a pseudo-team

I once took over a division with five teams, each with a team leader. In the beginning we tried to have a weekly team meeting with myself and the team leads.

I say tried because the meetings felt awkward and unnecessary. I quickly replaced it with more one-on-ones and ad-hoc inter-team meetings as needed.

This was not the first time in my career that I’ve seen “team meetings” that just don’t feel like they are working. And I finally discovered a nice way to describe why...

The answer comes from an important question: Is the team really a team?

I’ll link to an article below in which Stefan Lindbohm and Viktor Cessan explain that for a working group to really be a TEAM, two things must both be true:

1. They must have a common goal
2. They must need each other

The division I spoke of earlier had a fair amount of shared goals but didn’t need each other very often. The group of team leads was actually what can be called a PSEUDO-TEAM. That’s why treating it like a true team felt like forcing the issue.

In situations where people do need each other but don’t have a common goal, this can be called a TEMPORARY ALLIANCE.

And with no common goal or need for each other, you simply have CO-WORKERS.

I highly recommend reading this: https://lnkd.in/dedadf7