· 3 min read
Five types of team: Why the most important question isn’t ‘How can we improve?’!
Automatically translated from German.
This is the first post on my new website. I’ve deliberately chosen not to start with myself, but with a recommendation – because it highlights a distinction which, in my view, is constantly overlooked in day-to-day management.
The recommendation
The podcast "High Performance Leadership" by Stefan Lammers (external link, opens in a new tab) (SLBB) and Joel Kaczmarek (external link, opens in a new tab) In my view, it addresses the topic of high-performing teams with a level of precision and practicality that I have rarely encountered – without the usual clichés, but with clear models and examples that can be directly applied to one’s own organisation.
I would particularly like to recommend episode (6) "Team Structures and Working Principles for High Performance". The book draws on the model developed by Katzenbach and Smith and explores the five types of team in detail: from the working group, through the pseudo-team and the potential team, to the genuine team and, finally, the high-performance team.
Three points that stuck in my mind
1. The working group is not a shortcoming. It is often dismissed as a preliminary stage – yet in many contexts it simply works efficiently. Everyone takes responsibility for their own results, and the need for coordination remains minimal. Anyone who is obsessed with turning a functioning working group into a team will, above all, create friction.
2. The pseudo-team is the real danger. It calls itself a team, holds team meetings and sets team goals – yet achieves less than the sum of its parts. This situation costs money, time and energy, without anyone openly acknowledging it.
3. High performance is not a state of being, but a choice. The path to achieving this involves principles that are uncomfortable: genuine autonomy at work, a productive approach to competition within the team (‘co-opetition’), a culture of active feedback, and a willingness to resolve conflicts rather than gloss over them. This is precisely where most teams fall short – not because of a lack of will, but because of the ‘harmony trap’.
What I’ve learnt from this
The first question is not ‘How can we improve our team?’, but rather: "What sort of set-up are we actually working with here – and is it the right one for the job?" If you reverse this order, you’ll be optimising in the wrong place. And if you take an honest look, you’ll probably find more pseudo-teams in your own organisation than you’d like.
🎧 Consequently: LINK TO THE EPISODE (6) (external link, opens in a new tab) To the full PODCAST (external link, opens in a new tab):
If you’re familiar with the series: Which episode did you find most compelling? And even more interestingly – which team dynamic do you recognise in your own circle? Feel free to drop me a line. PvW (01.20)