There was an interesting, if cynical, article in the Kansas City Star on teams.

“That’s how some corporations have come to think of themselves. As teams up against a lot of other teams in a never-ending season of profit and loss.

And those on the payroll, why, they’re members of the team.

Remember when the worker bees were simply referred to as employees, whereas everyone else was in management?

The relationships haven’t changed. Only the terminology.”

And in far too many cases it is only words.

University of Missouri-Kansas City sociology professor Deborah Smith says, “Workers aren’t stupid. They know this is a gloss.”

Also true, people aren’t stupid.

In large companies each person is a member of multiple, distinct teams. The teams nest, much like the dolls you see.

The smallest team is composed of the immediate people who work together, several similar teams form a group, several groups form the department and multiple departments form the company.

No matter the corporate culture, each team is a product of the manager’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)—the source of it strength or its hypocrisy.

The article presents the idea of teams as a management sop to the masses; a sop that shows its true colors when things go bad and there are layoffs.

I disagree. I’ve known too many people who’ve been laid off and still have strong, positive feelings for the various teams they were on, but it was totally dependent on each manager.

So the next time you’re thinking about how to improve your team building, start by looking in the mirror and asking yourself this question, “If my manager treated me as I treat my people would I want to be on his team?”

Image credit: scx.hu

More than 30 years ago I noticed that people seemed to have two sides of their brain—personal and professional—and they rarely utilized the knowledge from one side to address situations on the other. One way that the two areas were kept separate was with language—different terms for what were essentially the same thing. This was especially true about their human interactions.

Many people attended “relationship workshops” on the weekend, but rarely thought to take what they learned to work on Monday because those were colleagues—not relationships.

But that was then and this is now.

These days relationships are recognized as business lifeblood and everyone works to improve them, so Diana McLain Smith’s Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength is right on the money.

Smith says that all teams “rise or fall on the strength of their relationships,” but instead of the typical discussion of team relationships, strengths, etc., she draws on her 25 years of experience and analyzes a number of high profile relationships to graphically illustrate her points.

She shows us why our belief that the problem is the other guy’s attitude/action and focusing on getting him to change boomerangs convincing the team that the source of the problem is actually us.

Smith says that what must change is how we interact, i.e., change the old patterns and create new ones, explaining how to build work relationships that are flexible and strong—the kind that can survive the tough challenges found in today’s global economy.

She takes you behind the media stories of relationships that made headlines, such as the recruitment and eventual meltdown of Steve Jobs and John Sculley, to illustrate how a broken relationship can cause severe damage not just to the people, but to the company and the brand.

Relationships happen, but great relationships take thought and effort. They’ll never be easy, but Divide or Conquer provides the tools and insights to make them easiER.

What did you think of the book?

Image credit: Wesman PR