How often did you start a work or project with a goal setting exercise? And how often did that result in fluent cooperation between team members towards a common and relevant goal?
In modern business work or projects, teams are created as a way to achieve a specific goal. HR managers and specialists have a central role in these teams, either as leaders, participants or facilitators. This article is about how we can increase the chance that teams will form that can work together and achieve their goals.
A Different Perspective
When work teams are formed, two things are surely on the top of the agenda: the common team goal, and the roles and responsibilities. While individual input is discussed, individual goals are usually not. After all, the focus is on building the team, not promote individual interests.
Here I present a different perspective: that a shared goal or vision is not a prerequisite for functioning. And, that establishing goals and responsibilitiesat the start may actually block team growth and energy.This perspective is based on the work of Floyd Allport, who was considered the father of experimental social psychology.
No Vision Required
Quite often, managers and consultants take their inspiration from people who say how organizations, teams and individualsought to work. Allport took another approach and started with studying how groups actually form and work. Because while setting visions, missions and goals may seem common business sense, we forget that most management tools were invented somewhere in the last hundred years.
Allportconcluded that people come together not because they have a shared goal, but because they want to achieve something that they need another person for.So a team functions precisely because the individuals have diverse, not shared, goals. He also concluded that understanding the common goal is not a prerequisite for performance: as long as each individual has an idea how working together will lead to the outcome they want, the group can function.
How a Group Forms
How does this work? For example, when a group of acquaintances decide to go play soccer every Tuesday night, it could be that one person wants to play a sport they like, that another is mostly interested in doing some exercise, andanother wants the social bonding it may bring. Some are skilled players, others not that much. There is a good chance this group will form and flourish even though they lacked a common goal to begin with.
Kicking a ball against the wall on your own just isnot the same. When individuals decide they cannot achieve their goals on their own,they begin to coordinate their behaviors and form a group. They decide a time, a location, who brings what materials, and what kind of game they will play. In other words, they pool their resources, and decide how they will use those resources.
Only then when they play soccer on a regular basis, will something like common goals arise: for example to have a good time together, or, to win from other teams. These kinds of goals help to maintain the group, in other words, to continue serving the ends of the different members.People begin to uphold norms as they help preserve the group: ‘be on time, so we have enough time to train’. Or, ‘make sure you bring the right shoes so we prevent injuries’.
Goals are best understood in hindsight. While at the start group members may have statedthat, for example,‘a social form of exercise’ is their goal, their behavior on and off the field could show that winning or just chatting is actually what members focus on. This also happens when work teams make a goal statement: whether these are the actual goals that people will work for can only be established by observing what people do in practice.
When common goalshave emerged, something else happens quite naturally: members start to diversify in their contributions to the common goal. On the soccer field, some members take an offensive, and others a defensive position. Off the field one person always makes sure there are drinks and snacks, and so on. In other words: a division of labor arises.
Turning Point
While division of labor is something we tend to welcome in groups there is also a downside: the offensive player starts to think it ismore important to score a goal, whereas the drinks-provider focusses more on everyone feeling good. Their individual goals become more salient, and because of this, conflict may arise. This is a reason why it could be better to hold on with creating a division of labor right at the start of a team—when there is no meaningful goal yet, since separating tasks and subgoals between members could prevent them from creating a joint goal.
So, individual goals lead to sharing of resources, which leads to a common goal, which in turn leads to a division of labor. And that leads to a renewed importance of individual goals and a turning point in the group formation: will the interaction end, or continue in a new and deeper form?
As long as the group is serving the needs of the individuals in a way that is superior to not being a member, the group has a good chance to thrive.One way to preserve and stabilize the group is for members to form more bonds. So the players may not only come to play soccer and go home, but will also have drinks together afterwards. Or in the case of a work team, members find more ways to help each other. And that’s when a group starts looking like a ‘team’.
Back to Business
In business life there is one significant difference compared to friends playing soccer. We are used to predefined goals so we can legitimize the use of time and money. But assuming that the initial reason for calling people together is important enough, why not postpone a detailed project charter until the group is actually able to create good goals?
Does this mean you lose control of the outcomes of the team? Not likely. Whether we like it or not, individual goals have a large impact on the direction a group takes. It is best to know these goals and find ways to align them with the organizational needs at the beginning, rather than in the middle of the process.
So next time when you start a new project, take some time to discuss individual goals, rather than the common goal. Try to define how each can help achieve the individual goals of the other. Trust that, if the initial reason for forming the team is strong enough, a sense of commonality will arise soon enough. And thatyour team members will invest more, and achieve their common goals with energy.
Jostein van Vliet