Looking back

The workshop centred on the question of how individuals can become a real team. Different logics collide in research and industry. On the one hand, there is the time commitment and career pressure, and on the other, the desire to work together and share responsibility. There are also structural barriers, such as a lack of interdisciplinary assessment and career paths. In companies, the situation is exacerbated by digital transformation, growing complexity and rapidly changing framework conditions. Nobody alone is as smart as everyone together, but organisations often find it difficult to implement this insight consistently.

The Team Performance Curve according to Katzenbach and Smith offers a relevant illustration. It distinguishes between loose working groups, pseudo-teams, potential teams, real teams and high-performance teams. The decisive step is the transition to a real team with a common goal. A high-performance team is created when members feel responsible not only for their own task, but also for the success of the others and build sustainable relationships with each other. The example of a Formula 1 pit stop illustrates how clear tasks, suitable roles and the best people in the right place come together.

Team development is not a one-off act, but an ongoing process that is never completed once and for all. Surveys of employees show that trust and productivity change over a period of months. New people on the board or in the team always require new team building. The decisive factor is a culture in which it is natural to contribute one's own skills, in which mistakes are allowed to happen and are corrected together and in which a common goal is recognisable and binding for everyone.

A distinction must also be made between co-operation and collaboration. According to the common understanding, co-operation means a rather loose collaboration. Collaboration, on the other hand, describes the conscious pooling of resources with a view to a common and shared goal. Everyone involved contributes what is really helpful for the project. This includes an internal assessment of one's own organisation, an assessment of the partners and an active shaping of the collaboration. Trust is a necessary basis for dealing with conflicts openly. When arguing about the best solution, the ability to listen is essential. A healthy debate thrives on different perspectives becoming visible and being able to put one's own position on the back burner, even if one does not ultimately represent the majority opinion.

Organisation and hierarchy have to change for this to happen. In the past, it was often assumed that the best engineers automatically lead. Today, leadership is understood as an ability in three dimensions: leading oneself, leading others and leading the business. Models such as ‘Overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team’ or ‘Radical Collaboration’ serve as a framework for consciously shaping collaboration. At the same time, examples such as the cooperation between Bosch and Daimler in the field of autonomous driving show that different work cultures and hierarchies can be a real hurdle.

The focus of good teamwork is on the culture and learning ability of organisations. The movement is from a knowing to a learning organisation.

This requires self-organised work, renegotiated working methods and agile strategy processes in the form of a ‘loop approach’. The aim is not one big measure, but many small steps that are ‘safe enough to try’. This is exactly where the ‘seed model’ comes in. Project groups define desirable ‘seeds’, test them for feasibility in everyday life and integrate them into routines such as reviews, retros and planning. Seeds can then gradually spread in everyday life.

Cultural change in teams follows the principle of ‘goal before method’. Methods should inspire and counteract the fatigue of change, while at the same time triggering self-reflection and cultural reflection. Top-down initiatives are not enough for this. Rather, participation is required. It is also important to treat the past of an organisation or institution with respect. Otherwise, resistance to change is inevitable. Culture can also marginalise, for example if someone does not fit into the image of a team or a company. Many small initiatives that add up to make a difference are therefore crucial.

For teams, this means making their own team competences visible and anchoring them in structures so that they are not just a psychological model. It is helpful to differentiate between zones of team culture. A green zone corresponds to an ideal state, a red zone makes problems clearly recognisable. The pink-coloured zone, in which dysfunctional patterns are present but remain hidden, is particularly critical. This shows how closely work is linked to culture, roles and communication. Language and professional barriers reflect different views of the world. A learning organisation takes these differences seriously and uses them as a resource instead of covering them up.