The Wisdom of Teams, Essay Example

On page 132, the authors summarize the essence of the team leader’s job as “striking the right balance between providing guidance and giving up control.” In what ways could this concept benefit different areas of your work? Which portion of the spectrum presents more of a challenge for you- providing guidance or giving up control? (Also, respond to other student’s posts giving input on how they could overcome their particular challenges.)

This concept can benefit different areas of my work in many areas. Right off the bat I think of day planning. In day planning, it is often suggested that people make a “to do list.” The problem with “to do lists” is that there comes a point when tending to the list too much significantly decreases the amount of time you spend doing what is on the list. This is known as “the tyranny of the list.” In economics, it is known as the law of diminishing returns. The concept is that there is an optimal point at which production generates the highest possible profit per piece. That means that anything before that piece is less than optimal as is anything after, and the more pieces you produce past that point the less profit you make per piece. It is similar with leadership. You want to provide motivation and guidance, but too much of either actually diminished performance of the team at the task at hand. For me, the greater of the two challenges is giving up control. As things seem less than optimal, it is my impetus to continue working at project management tasks in hopes of bringing them to a more optimal level, but in reality, I am just spinning my wheels some of the time. When I am done “optimizing” my day, a good portion of time and energy have been invested, sometimes too much. To overcome this, I plan to institute more standard, time-limited procedures for scheduling work.

After reading The Wisdom of Teams – Develop a plan for “the perfect team”. 

I try to derive my concept of a perfect team multifactored from what I have learned from social science and business. First, my team would be 6 to 8 people, up to 12 and as few as 3 depending on the task. There would be a primary leader and at least one secondary leader, depending on the number of people. There would be 2 to 4 highly skilled subordinates and the rest simple subordinates. My team would consist of at least one tenured leader and an advisor. Furthermore, my team would consist of at least one graduate level candidate, and half the rest would be bachelor level candidates. Team members would be highly skilled communicators. They would use language economically such that the most meaning would be conveying most concisely. Furthermore, there would be job specialization, sufficient overlap, and high moral and high team consciousness. Team members could execute their specialized tasks independently, and still participate in the overarching effort as a team whenever necessary. Plus, their roles would be complimentary, and each would be cross trained in the duties of at least one other person. Furthermore, each would ideally be oriented toward self-improvement and leadership development such that they would gain skills that would enhance their marketability as well as their opportunities for advancement within the opportunity. All team members would engage in behaviors that signify mutual dignity and respect for themselves and others. Most importantly, they would develop a work culture that tended toward innovation and efficiency and exploitation of emerging technology wherever possible.