Team of Teams is a leadership and organizational framework that departs from traditional hierarchical structures and embraces a more flexible and interconnected approach. At its core, Team of Teams advocates for breaking down silos, promoting information sharing, and fostering collaboration among diverse teams or units within an organization. This concept is driven by the recognition that in complex and rapidly changing environments, traditional top-down command structures can become slow, inflexible, and ill-suited to address emerging challenges.
Key principles and components of Team of Teams include:
Decentralized Decision-Making: Instead of relying solely on a centralized decision-making process, Team of Teams empowers individual teams or units to make decisions autonomously within their areas of expertise.
Shared Awareness: To facilitate collaboration, teams share information, insights, and intelligence across the organization. This shared awareness ensures that everyone is working from the same information and can adapt quickly to changing circumstances.
Adaptability: Team of Teams prioritizes adaptability and responsiveness to evolving challenges. Leaders encourage teams to experiment, iterate, and adjust their approaches as needed.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaboration is not limited to within teams but extends horizontally across different functions, units, and departments. Teams work together to solve complex problems that require diverse expertise.
Continuous Learning: Team of Teams encourages a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Lessons learned from one team’s experiences are shared and incorporated into the broader organization’s knowledge base.
The Team of Teams approach is significant for several reasons, particularly in today’s rapidly changing and interconnected world:
1. Adaptability: Traditional command-and-control structures are often ill-equipped to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. Team of Teams emphasizes adaptability, enabling organizations to pivot and adjust more quickly.
2. Complex Problem Solving: Many contemporary challenges are multifaceted and require diverse perspectives and skills. Team of Teams promotes collaboration and cross-functional problem-solving, making it better suited for addressing complex issues.
3. Enhanced Communication: Effective communication is critical in dynamic environments. The shared awareness aspect of Team of Teams ensures that information flows freely, enabling timely decision-making.
4. Resilience: By breaking down silos and fostering collaboration, organizations become more resilient in the face of disruptions, crises, or unexpected events.
5. Empowerment: Team of Teams empowers teams and individuals to take ownership of their areas of responsibility, fostering a sense of accountability and ownership.
6. Innovation: Encouraging experimentation and learning from failures promotes innovation and the discovery of new solutions to complex problems.
7. Improved Engagement: Teams that have a sense of autonomy and a stake in decision-making are often more engaged and motivated.
Applications of Team of Teams
Team of Teams has found applications in various sectors, including business, healthcare, and government:
1. Business: Many modern organizations have adopted elements of the Team of Teams approach to enhance agility and competitiveness. This includes adopting cross-functional teams, embracing agile methodologies, and promoting a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.
2. Healthcare: Hospitals and healthcare systems have applied Team of Teams principles to improve patient care, streamline processes, and respond more effectively to medical emergencies or crises.
3. Military and Defense: Team of Teams originated in a military context, and it continues to influence military strategies and operations. The concept is particularly relevant in counterinsurgency efforts and asymmetric warfare.
4. Tech and Innovation: Technology companies, known for their fast-paced and innovative environments, often adopt Team of Teams principles to drive product development and respond to market changes.
5. Government and Public Sector: Government agencies have explored Team of Teams approaches to improve coordination across departments and respond to complex societal challenges, such as disaster management and public health crises.
Challenges and Considerations
While Team of Teams offers many benefits, its implementation can pose challenges:
1. Cultural Resistance: Transitioning to a Team of Teams approach may face resistance from individuals or teams accustomed to traditional hierarchical structures.
2. Coordination: Ensuring effective coordination and communication among teams is crucial. In larger organizations, this can be a complex endeavor.
3. Leadership Shift: Leaders may need to adapt their leadership styles from authoritative to more facilitative and collaborative.
4. Information Overload: The increased flow of information in a Team of Teams environment can lead to information overload if not managed effectively.
5. Accountability: Ensuring accountability within decentralized teams may require clear frameworks and metrics for evaluating performance.
6. Balancing Autonomy: While autonomy is a key aspect of Team of Teams, balancing it with the need for centralized strategy and governance can be challenging.
The Future of Team of Teams
The Team of Teams concept continues to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of contemporary organizations. Several trends and developments are shaping the future of this approach:
1. Digital Transformation: Technology plays a pivotal role in enabling Team of Teams. Advanced communication tools, collaboration platforms, and data analytics enhance information sharing and decision-making.
2. Hybrid Work Models: The rise of remote and hybrid work models is changing the way teams collaborate. Team of Teams principles are being applied to distributed workforces, emphasizing the importance of virtual collaboration.
3. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Data analytics and artificial intelligence are increasingly used to inform decision-making and enhance the adaptability of Team of Teams structures.
4. Resilience and Crisis Management: Team of Teams principles are invaluable for organizations seeking to build resilience and respond effectively to unexpected crises, such as pandemics, cyberattacks, and natural disasters.
5. Global Challenges: Global issues, such as climate change, require coordinated responses from diverse stakeholders. Team of Teams principles are being applied to address these complex challenges at international levels.
6. Innovation Ecosystems: The rise of innovation ecosystems, where organizations collaborate to drive innovation, aligns with Team of Teams principles, fostering cross-sector collaboration and rapid innovation.
Conclusion
Team of Teams represents a shift in leadership and organizational thinking, acknowledging that traditional hierarchical structures are sometimes inadequate for addressing the complexities of the modern world. By breaking down silos, promoting collaboration, and empowering teams, organizations can become more adaptable, resilient, and innovative.
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In a flat organizational structure, there is little to no middle management between employees and executives. Therefore it reduces the space between employees and executives to enable an effective communication flow within the organization, thus being faster and leaner.
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The Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model was created by David Nadler and Michael Tushman at Columbia University. The Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model is a diagnostic tool that identifies problem areas within a company. In the context of business, congruence occurs when the goals of different people or interest groups coincide.
McKinsey’s Seven Degrees of Freedom for Growth is a strategy tool. Developed by partners at McKinsey and Company, the tool helps businesses understand which opportunities will contribute to expansion, and therefore it helps to prioritize those initiatives.
Mintzberg’s 5Ps of Strategy is a strategy development model that examines five different perspectives (plan, ploy, pattern, position, perspective) to develop a successful business strategy. A sixth perspective has been developed over the years, called Practice, which was created to help businesses execute their strategies.
The COSO framework is a means of designing, implementing, and evaluating control within an organization. The COSO framework’s five components are control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring activities. As a fraud risk management tool, businesses can design, implement, and evaluate internal control procedures.
The TOWS Matrix is an acronym for Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Strengths. The matrix is a variation on the SWOT Analysis, and it seeks to address criticisms of the SWOT Analysis regarding its inability to show relationships between the various categories.
Lewin’s change management model helps businesses manage the uncertainty and resistance associated with change. Kurt Lewin, one of the first academics to focus his research on group dynamics, developed a three-stage model. He proposed that the behavior of individuals happened as a function of group behavior.
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Airbnb follows a holacracy model, or a sort of flat organizational structure, where teams are organized for projects, to move quickly and iterate fast, thus keeping a lean and flexible approach. Airbnb also moved to a hybrid model where employees can work from anywhere and meet on a quarterly basis to plan ahead, and connect to each other.
The Amazon organizational structure is predominantly hierarchical with elements of function-based structure and geographic divisions. While Amazon started as a lean, flat organization in its early years, it transitioned into a hierarchical organization with its jobs and functions clearly defined as it scaled.
The Coca-Cola Company has a somewhat complex matrix organizational structure with geographic divisions, product divisions, business-type units, and functional groups.
Costco has a matrix organizational structure, which can simply be defined as any structure that combines two or more different types. In this case, a predominant functional structure exists with a more secondary divisional structure.
Costco’s geographic divisions reflect its strong presence in the United States combined with its expanding global presence. There are six divisions in the country alone to reflect its standing as the source of most company revenue.
Compared to competitor Walmart, for example, Costco takes more a decentralized approach to management, decision-making, and autonomy. This allows the company’s stores and divisions to more flexibly respond to local market conditions.
Dell has a functional organizational structure with some degree of decentralization. This means functional departments share information, contribute ideas to the success of the organization and have some degree of decision-making power.
eBay was until recently a multi-divisional (M-form) organization with semi-autonomous units grouped according to the services they provided. Today, eBay has a single division called Marketplace, which includes eBay and its international iterations.
Facebook is characterized by a multi-faceted matrix organizational structure. The company utilizes a flat organizational structure in combination with corporate function-based teams and product-based or geographic divisions. The flat organization structure is organized around the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg, and the key executives around him. On the other hand, the function-based teams are based on the main corporate functions (like HR, product management, investor relations, and so on).
Goldman Sachs has a hierarchical structure with a clear chain of command and defined career advancement process. The structure is also underpinned by business-type divisions and function-based groups.
Google (Alphabet) has a cross-functional (team-based) organizational structure known as a matrix structure with some degree of flatness. Over the years, as the company scaled and it became a tech giant, its organizational structure is morphing more into a centralized organization.
IBM has an organizational structure characterized by product-based divisions, enabling its strategy to develop innovative and competitive products in multiple markets. IBM is also characterized by function-based segments that support product development and innovation for each product-based division, which include Global Markets, Integrated Supply Chain, Research, Development, and Intellectual Property.
McDonald’s has a divisional organizational structure where each division – based on geographical location – is assigned operational responsibilities and strategic objectives. The main geographical divisions are the US, internationally operated markets, and international developmental licensed markets. And on the other hand, the hierarchical leadership structure is organized around regional and functional divisions.
McKinsey & Company has a decentralized organizational structure with mostly self-managing offices, committees, and employees. There are also functional groups and geographic divisions with proprietary names.
Microsoft has a product-type divisional organizational structure based on functions and engineering groups. As the company scaled over time it also became more hierarchical, however still keeping its hybrid approach between functions, engineering groups, and management.
Nestlé has a geographical divisional structure with operations segmented into five key regions. For many years, Swiss multinational food and drink company Nestlé had a complex and decentralized matrix organizational structure where its numerous brands and subsidiaries were free to operate autonomously.
Nike has a matrix organizational structure incorporating geographic divisions. Nike’s matrix structure is also present at the regional and sub-regional levels. Managerial responsibility is segmented according to business unit (apparel, footwear, and equipment) and function (human resources, finance, marketing, sales, and operations).
Patagonia has a particular organizational structure, where its founder, Chouinard, disposed of the company’s ownership in the hands of two non-profits. The Patagonia Purpose Trust, holding 100% of the voting stocks, is in charge of defining the company’s strategic direction. And the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit, holds 100% of non-voting stocks, aiming to re-invest the brand’s dividends into environmental causes.
Samsung has a product-type divisional organizational structure where products determine how resources and business operations are categorized. The main resources around which Samsung’s corporate structure is organized are consumer electronics, IT, and device solutions. In addition, Samsung leadership functions are organized around a few career levels grades, based on experience (assistant, professional, senior professional, and principal professional).
Sony has a matrix organizational structure primarily based on function-based groups and product/business divisions. The structure also incorporates geographical divisions. In 2021, Sony announced the overhauling of its organizational structure, changing its name from Sony Corporation to Sony Group Corporation to better identify itself as the headquarters of the Sony group of companies skewing the company toward product divisions.
Starbucks follows a matrix organizational structure with a combination of vertical and horizontal structures. It is characterized by multiple, overlapping chains of command and divisions.
Tesla is characterized by a functional organizational structure with aspects of a hierarchical structure. Tesla does employ functional centers that cover all business activities, including finance, sales, marketing, technology, engineering, design, and the offices of the CEO and chairperson. Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, decide the strategic direction of the company, with international operations given little autonomy.
Toyota has a divisional organizational structure where business operations are centered around the market, product, and geographic groups. Therefore, Toyota organizes its corporate structure around global hierarchies (most strategic decisions come from Japan’s headquarter), product-based divisions (where the organization is broken down, based on each product line), and geographical divisions (according to the geographical areas under management).
Walmart has a hybrid hierarchical-functional organizational structure, otherwise referred to as a matrix structure that combines multiple approaches. On the one hand, Walmart follows a hierarchical structure, where the current CEO Doug McMillon is the only employee without a direct superior, and directives are sent from top-level management. On the other hand, the function-based structure of Walmart is used to categorize employees according to their particular skills and experience.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
