The word team is often used a bit too casually to refer to any group of people working together. However, not all groups are teams. Knowing whether or not your group is a team or a working group can make a difference in how you work together. Both are valuable, but treating a working group like a team or visa versus can cause problems. Listen to this short episode to learn the difference and why it matters.

What You’ll Learn

* The definition of a team and working group and why you need to know the difference.

Resources

* The Wisdom of Team by Katzenbach & Smith

The Weekly Challenge

Assess the groups you are a part of, which are teams and which are working groups? Talk with the group and come to a consensus. Talk about why it matters.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the PDF Transcript now or read it below. Enjoy!

Transcript for Episode #033: The Difference Between Teams and Working Groups

Amy Climer: Welcome to Episode 33 of The Deliberate Creative Podcast. My name is Amy Climer. This podcast episode, we are going to talk about the definition of a team. That may seem kind of elementary, a bit silly, but this podcast is all about building innovation in teams, and I do not think I have ever actually defined what a team is. The reason I wanted to share it is because I had a huge aha! moment when I read the book The Wisdom of Teams by Katzenbach and Smith, and they define teams in there and it really helped me understand some confusion that I had experienced as a member of teams in the past.

Definition of a Team

So let me explain. Katzenbach and Smith give this definition of a team; that “a team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” So there are three things that a team needs in order to actually be a team. There has to be a common purpose. There are performance goals; there are some goals that they are setting for themselves. And there is an approach and they are holding themselves mutually accountable.  

Now, I think this definition is actually somewhat aspirational, that high functioning teams would have all those three things. But perhaps not every team is there yet. But the aha! moment for me came when I was reading this and I read a different definition, the definition of a working group. Because I realized there are some teams that I have been on that actually were not teams but they were actually working groups.

Definition of a Working Group

So a working group is where members are coming together primarily to share information, to share best practices, or perspectives, and to make decisions to help each individual perform within his or her area of responsibility. So there is not necessarily a shared accountability, there is no common purpose, at least there is not like a small group common purpose. Ultimately at the end, each individual is making their own decisions about how they want to move forward and there is no collaboration, essentially.

So let me give you an example. I am a member of a mastermind group. If you are not familiar with mastermind groups, first of all, they are super awesome and I highly recommend creating one.