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As a change or project manager, you've seen it before. You announce an exciting new initiative—a new software rollout, a streamlined...

Some time back, I ran across some powerful wisdom described in a podcast with Dr Richard Boyatzis hosted by Dr Krister Lowe at the Team Coaching Zone. Listening to Dr Boyatzis describe his long history in coaching and research was both humbling and fascinating and there is enough material in this 45 minute podcast for many blog posts. I took particular notice of the suggestion that a sense of shared purpose may just be the key element of a great team and the suggestion that t

In business, a term often used is putting out fires. This will apply where the business is beset by one crisis after another and where extraordinary effort is required from the team to get a much-needed result.

Someone very clever posed this question to me recently. This was in response to my suggestion that possibly one of the most important events in the life of group based work is that moment when we individually become engaged with the goals that we share with others.

There is a view that the concept of teamwork is suggestive of the need to be like-minded and instep with team members.  This view is reflected in the writings of many team scholars (Eg. Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) who espouse the importance of shared goals.

Teams are common structures within many organisations and are often central features of the deployment of resource to satisfy strategic need. However, simple descriptions of what constitutes a team based on size and qualities of the team members would do well to consider the highly nuanced organisational environment where the team is deployed.