From the course: Creating Winning Teams

Teams matter more than ever

From the course: Creating Winning Teams

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Teams matter more than ever

- Teams are now the primary way work gets done in most organizations across every industry. I want to share with you some interesting data, because it will frame the rest of this course. Nearly 90% of workers say they spend a third to a half of each day working in teams and 95% are participating on more than one team at a time. Around the world and across every sector, more and more organizations are moving to team-based models, organizing employees into smaller groups that are more nimble and flexible. In addition, a recent global human capital trends report found 80% of respondents now operate almost wholly in teams with another 23% saying that most work is done in teams within a hierarchical framework. Their research suggests that moving towards a team-based organizational model improves performance often significantly. This new norm means that teams are not just self-sufficient units, but actually networks collaborating across organizational and geographical boundaries. Teams are also shifting in forms. A team used to be a group of people working together in person in the same area at the same time. Now it's just as likely to include people from another region or even country, thanks to technology and web-based work tools. In fact, 89% of employees said that they are on one global virtual team and 27% work on at least four of them. The vast majority, 91% of both employees and executives believe that teams are central to their organization's success. And yet 30% of employees have considered leaving their job because of negative team environments. High turnover can be devastating because the groups development, not only pauses, but actually backtracks every time a team member leaves and is replaced. This is why teams are perhaps the single most important entity in today's workplace. When we get them right, we can propel both individuals and the organization forward, but getting it wrong can cripple an organization's ability to compete or succeed.

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