Why Teamership matters
Teamership is the key to unlocking engagement and performance at individual, team and organisational levels. Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
Teamership can be defined as "practices that make together better". A more casual way of describing Teamership could be "what it takes to be a great team member".
Being a great team member - and supporting others to do so is becoming increasingly important in modern workplaces. Here are three (of many) factors that are driving the rising importance of Teamership.
1.Organisations are operating as complex networks of teams - shifting away from functional hierarchies
A 2019 report from another global consultancy, Deloitte, calls organisational performance a ‘team sport’. In other words, the competitiveness of organisations in the current and emerging climate relies on the ability to operate in teams. The Deloitte research picked up some interesting trends – in particular, the gap between the opportunity presented by working through teams and the current reality.
The shift from ‘functional hierarchy to team-centric and network-based organisational models’ was viewed as important or very important by 65% of the survey respondents — but only 7% felt very ready to execute this shift.'
2.Up to 95% of knowledge workers are on multiple teams
Because of the structure of organisations as a complex network of interdependent teams, most people in knowledge working roles (what we might have called "office jobs" in those pre-COVID days) are on more than one team. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is common for an individual to be a member of “five, ten, or twelve or more teams at a time” within some organisations. Anecdotally, it is very rare to meet someone who is only on one team at work.
3. Multiple Team Membership has the potential to have either a positive or negative impact
Research by Pluut and others in 2014 found that multiple team membership has the potential to have both a positive and negative consequence for individual work performance when applying the Job Demand-Resource framework. In other words, being on multiple teams can either energise or drain individuals.
This final point speaks directly to the case for Teamership. Without designing an approach to multiple team membership, there is an increasing risk that being on a number of teams drains the energy and engagement of individuals. Conversely, well designed and supported approaches to multiple team membership can drive effectiveness at all levels. Both of these possibilities for impacts on individuals (positive and negative) scale up to a compounding effect across organisations.
For this week, here are some questions for you to consider around the importance of Teamership:
How many teams are you a part of?
How many teams does your team interact with?
What would happen if you - and everyone else you worked with - was just 1% better at being a team member?