• Understand the importance of teams in business communication
• Recognize the difference between different types of teams found in organizations
• Understand the benefits and challenges of working in teams and how team interactions work
• Understand how the number of people in a group affects communication
• Understand different ways to interpret and deal with conflicts when communicating to others

The Value of Teams

You hear a lot about teams every day—sports teams, disaster and rescue teams, and medical support teams. Teams exist because they are effective in achieving goals, especially when the goal is well-defined. In the business environment, reliance on teams has been growing in the last few decades as organizations become more distributed (operating over distance in virtual and hybrid arrangements) and more structurally complex. 

group vs. team

A group is formed around a common interest or purpose with the goal of sharing information, but there is no collective accountability.

 

A team is a collaborative group of individuals working together towards a common goal, with interdependent roles and shared accountability for outcomes.

Business organizations have both groups and teams.  For example, all of the people who work in accounting are a group. But people from each functional department, such as financial reporting, audit preparation, or tax compliance, who meet regularly to work on shared goals are a team.

Teams bring together members of the organization with a wide variety of skills to achieve a common goal. Organizations accomplish these goals by carefully selecting the type of teams they use.

Types of Teams

The team is only as good as its members and how they interact with each other. Here are several types of teams that may be used in the workplace. As you read through them, consider their purpose and the likely communication issues.

cross-functional team

A cross-functional team is a team that pulls its members from across the different functional areas of an organization.

These teams are typically permanent or long-standing. For example, cross-functional teams may be composed of representatives from production, sales, marketing, finance, and legal. The strength of this type of team lies in its members having different functional backgrounds, education, and experiences. The diversity of experience contributes to innovative problem-solving and decision-making.

Cross-functional teams may be used to implement new solutions in the workplace. A simple example is a group of instructors who want to use grant money to purchase laptops and external monitors for all four of their classrooms. To avoid unexpected difficulties and pitfalls, the instructors invite representatives from the facilities management and information technology departments to join their teams. Without this cross-functional team, the teachers might have overlooked the special electrical considerations of rack-mounted charging stations for the laptops or the special campus security software that must be installed. Including other departments leads to greater project success by using expertise from many areas.

Unfortunately, the very factors that give cross-functional teams strength can also lead to weaknesses. Without a strong leader and very specific goals, it may be hard to foster social cohesion in cross-functional teams and to create a system of accountability.

task force

A task force is a team, usually of experts or specialists, formed to analyze, investigate, or solve a specific problem.

Quite often, a task force is formed in reaction to a problem or specific event, and once the job is done, the task force is disbanded. The goal of a task force is to offer solutions and support, and, if possible, to put preventive measures in place against future problems.

Types of concerns that may generate task forces in the workplace include bullying, health and wellness, employee training, increasing customer sales, or improving employee job satisfaction. A project team is similar to a task force, but a project team is often ongoing and covers a wider range of tasks.

virtual team

Virtual teams are groups of individuals working together with a common purpose but in different locations.

Virtual teams may overlap with other types of teams. People may be in different time zones or even different organizations. The obvious advantage of a virtual team is the low cost, both in time and money, to maintain it. Meeting in a virtual space increases flexibility for team members since people can attend from wherever they are, and allows the organization to use the talent of employees around the globe.

Virtual teams are possible thanks to advances in communication technology, such as e-mail, the Internet, videoconferencing, collaboration platforms, and other products. The COVID-19 pandemic sped up the adoption of virtual, or remote, working arrangements. As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work a hybrid model, splitting time between an office and home.^[1]

When considering virtual teams, remember that working across cultures can be as challenging as working cross-functionally. Working with team members from different cultures means working with potentially different leadership styles and decision-making processes. In the United States, managers tend to gather data, make quick decisions, and move forward, making corrections as needed. Northern Europeans prefer to build consensus slowly, whereas the French are taught to debate and confront from the time they’re in primary school. Some business consultants will tell you that decisions in Japan are made in small, informal conversations before the formal meeting ever takes place. All teams need to be sensitive to these issues, which may be far more prevalent among the members of virtual teams.

self-managed team

A self-managed team is comprised of employees that is responsible and accountable for all or most aspects of generating a product or delivering a service.

A self-managed team could be thought of as a mini-company within a larger organization. Traditional organizations assign tasks to employees depending on their skills or functional departments (sales, finance, production). A self-managed team carries out the supporting tasks as well, such as planning and scheduling the technical workflow, and human-resource tasks such as managing vacations and absences. Team members may take turns leading and assuming technical responsibilities.

An example of a self-managed team is a remote group of engineers that double-checks and configures technical sales data that is uploaded daily. Rather than wait for a supervisor to assign tasks to the group, the group manages job assignments based on availability and skills. The group then works with project managers to implement solutions, again based on the team rather than a supervisor’s decision. The work finishes with the billing team. When difficulties or disagreements are encountered, the team works it out for themselves.

Because of the autonomy given to self-managed teams, these teams have greater ownership of the jobs they perform. One benefit of self-managed teams is that team members share accountability for what they accomplish, which can be a great motivator. Individuals have greater commitment to the task because they’re directly responsible for its results, and team members take on some of their manager’s work so he or she can work on other tasks.

However, self-managed teams are susceptible to groupthink. Groupthink refers to a psychological phenomenon where members of a group prioritize consensus and harmony over critical thinking and independent judgment, often leading to flawed decision-making or conformity to the group’s ideas, even if they are not optimal. Also, members may struggle during the transition from supervisor-led management to self-management, possibly because of a lack of interpersonal skills or poor implementation by the company. Not surprisingly, the most effective self-managing teams are found in companies where the corporate culture supports democratic decision-making, and the employees are generally well-educated.

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