Over the years, as teams have grown more diverse, dispersed, digital,
and dynamic, collaboration has become more complex. But though teams
face new challenges, their success still depends on a core set of
fundamentals. As J. Richard Hackman, who began researching teams in the
1970s, discovered, what matters most isn’t the personalities or behavior
of the team members; it’s whether a team has a compelling direction, a
strong structure, and a supportive context. In their own research, Haas
and Mortensen have found that teams need those three “enabling
conditions” now more than ever. But their work also revealed that
today’s teams are especially prone to two corrosive problems: “us versus
them” thinking and incomplete information. Overcoming those pitfalls
requires a new enabling condition: a shared mindset. This article
details what team leaders should do to establish the four foundations
for success. For instance, to promote a shared mindset, leaders should
foster a common identity and common understanding among team members,
with techniques such as “structured unstructured time.” The authors also
describe how to evaluate a team’s effectiveness, providing an
assessment leaders can take to see what’s working and where there’s room
for improvement. [ABSTRACT
FROM AUTHOR]