When Is a Team a Neighborhood

An executive development client was telling me about the complaints from his group regarding the lack of team spirit. But every time he brought them together for a team meeting they complained about its lack of relevance. It turns out that his group might not have been a team at all but a community, like a neighborhood or a village. Unlike a team, their individual outcomes were not directly beneficial to other members of the group. He had much better success when his “team” meetings were more like Amish barn raisings, everyone pitching in to lend support to the member in need.