Thomas Meylan, PhD's Page

The short answser is that the only place teams come from are emotion-structured groups. The question is, "What makes a group turn into a team?"

Let's look at the "new group" case first, because for the most part, it's the easier one to work. A new group forms because there is some new task it has to complete. If there are no solution-oriented people in the group, the system-default emotional group structure will drop into place, and people will wrangle with each other until by trial and error a… Continue

Team building is extremely difficult to accomplish. It ALWAYS has to start with an explicit choice, and it takes a continuing string of explicit choices to keep working in that direction.

"Why is that?" you might ask.

Well, most of the people reading this will understand what a "system default" is, right? For those who don't, it's more or less the standard way a system is designed to run without any special directions to run a different way. The system default for all human behavior is the emo… Continue

Blog entries are supposed to be short, so there might be a couple entries on team formation.

Team formation, as opposed to emotionally intimidated groups, require people with a reasonably well-wired set of collaborative instincts. For a quick, one point profile on people with collaborative instincts, look for people who have good problem-solving skills and habits, even if they usually work alone. One of the main reasons good problem solvers work alone is there are so few other good problem solv… Continue

For clarity's sake, if it seems that I'm using the terms "group" and "team" in a particularly defined way, I am. On the other hand, I think all of our mutual experience indicates that there are critical differences that allow us to say, "This group is NOT a team," but that "This other group IS a team." For most of us, a team has a certain positive emotional feel and a noticably higher level of coordination in their activities. Groups that don't have these two features typically aren't thought of… Continue

Since this blog is aimed at team building and leadership, let's get technical about some of the sociology involved in entrepreneurial ventures.

It is likely that if your venture is aimed for great things, you will gather people around you to make things happen. Those gathered people are a group. Duh! However, the chances of that group being able to perform well is not based merely on the strength of the individual skills each member has. It is based more strongly on their ability to coordinate… Continue