High performing teams are given credit for being the element that sets businesses apart.  It is often said that the challenges and complexities of todays world require the effective working of teams.  Ironically, if we look at what is celebrated, collaboration tends to get a left out?   At work, bonuses are divided between exceptionally perfomring individuals, and rarely to teams.  In school, it is an individual’s performance that is accredited and recognised.  In fact, for most of my schooling, outside of drama and sport, team work was not a featured part of the way that we were schooled.

My experience in schools today does not provide me with much evidence that this has changed.  Yet it is that sense of something bigger than oneself that encourages me to put that extra piece in for the team.  And this trait is not one that is encouraged in much of the school environment.

Does your kid’s school have team assessed work?

Does it have collaborative opportunities, whether they be sport, drama or somekind of project work?

If not, I would encourage them to find ways of making meaningful contributions to group projects.  Of course we all learn on the job, but work is still pluaged by an individualistic culture. Of course Rand would argue the benefits of this, and systemically, we are encouraged to celebrate our personal success.  However, it is effective colloboration that gives organisations the edge.

Ironically, accorrding to Katzenbach, it is not teams for teams sake that drives successful collaboration, but goals that require team inputs that forge successful teams.