Something about teams… (next time you write a speech)

Now, I apologize for the rant, but do you ever question the use of “team(s)” in business?  Let me explain.  Have you ever played (yes, participation is important for the argument) in a team sport? That’s where your “team” has a meaning. Take volleyball as an example. You regularly rotate from position to position throughout the game, so each player has the same opportunity to contribute equally in a team effort.  In fact, this is how my Mac dictionary defines teams: “a group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport.” The dictionary definition suggests an egalitarian meaning, as in all players are equal or equally important. 

In the business world, just take a look at any organization chart and it’s rather obvious that every team has a leader and some team members are clearly not as important as others. In fact, most organizational charts look like dog packs.  In a functioning organization, there is a leading dog, then there’s a 2IC, followed by dogs to form a perfect pack.  An org chart for a volleyball team would have one level. That’s nowhere near what some companies call “a flat organization.”  There are no flat organizations.

When I was searching for my company name, I recalled a conversation I had with a CEO I worked for.  We were coming back from a conference where he met other CEOs. After the meeting, I commented on how similar those CEOs were, to which he said, “Sure, we’re all alpha dogs.”  Meaning: we’re all pack leaders.  Or, as Cesar Millan, the great management guru says, there are leaders and there are followers. (I’m kidding about Cesar, but somebody should tell him to write a management book.)

There is another thing that bothers me about “leaders” who overuse the “we-are-a-team” mantra. More often than not, they use it to justify their inability to say: “I’m responsible for this the mess we’re in.” Dick Fuld, CEO of now bankrupted Lehman Brothers and voted by Portfolio.com as the worst CEO, had this endorsement by Fortune in 2006: “Fuld’s modus operandi has been to bind his employees’ fates together—to turn the culture from one of sibling rivalry to cooperation and teamwork.”

I think we should move away from this “team” business and focus on leadership.  Funny enough, when you look at the dictionary definitions, this is what it says:  “the ORIGIN Old English tēam [team of draft animals,] of Germanic origin about ’team;’ related to German Zaum ‘bridle,’ also to teem 1 and tow 1, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin ducere ‘to lead.’” In other words, it’s all about leadership.  Can we agree on that?