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1 • The Creative Team - Part 1

Strictly speaking, two or three persons probably cannot be called a "group." The creative team is, however, such a commonly used working unit today that it deserves some consideration to set it off from its opposite, the individual.

Teams have probably won their widest acceptance in scientific and technical fields. They are, however, coming increasingly into use in management and administration. Where they are used wisely, they can produce effectively. Where they are used care­lessly and casually, they can end up as prime villains, breaking morale and destroying initiative. In far too many cases, unsuccess­ful team operations have resulted from a lack of understanding of the objective of a team: to put two complementary minds into proximity so that each will help and strengthen the thinking of the other. It was Emerson who said that "Idea and execution are seldom found in the same head." By a proper combining of the "heads," therefore, a team can be built that will combine both ideas and executions. The trouble starts when the selection of teammates becomes a haphazard thing, done on the basis of ex­pediency and without regard to the compatibility, or lack of it, of the two or three individuals involved. A good team operation will utilize strengths to offset weaknesses. If both members are weak on the same characteristics, or if both are strong in the same directions, there will undoubtedly be failure or outright conflict rather than a self-complementing cooperation. At the same time, an outright conflict of completely opposite personalities will prob­ably never produce an effective team. The focus of team efforts must be against a common problem—not against the teammate!

Another reason for giving special consideration to the team operation is that it is the normal work pattern for almost every person in business: the executive-subordinate relationship; the executive-secretary team; department head A and department head B, who have to coordinate the work of their respective inter­ests. And even a key administrator, with several secondary man­agement men reporting to him, will usually find himself dealing with them one at a time, on a strictly two-man team basis. For this reason, an understanding of the principles of good team oper­ation, together with a knowledge of what makes good team tech­nique, can make almost anyone more creative and productive when working with another person—even if the other person just happens to be the man's wife.

To start with principles, there are two that can make a team collaboration more productive: the separation of creative and critical (or judicial) thinking; and the alternating of team and individual effort.

Related terms include managing a business and business benchmarking.