Examining the fauna within [teamworking]

Some writers predicted that growing corporate bureaucracies would tend to become less centralized and that future organizations would contain 'task forces' to deal with specific problems. Organizational charts would then consist of a series of project groups rather than traditional hierarchies. In many ways, this mode of operation has come to pass. In fact, today's project group has its roots in the nonbureaucratic kind of organization Joyce Rothschild-Whitt (1979) called the collective. As Rothschild-Whitt pointed out, the collectivist form of organization differs sharply from the bureaucratic one in several key respects. For example, individual members of the collective are encouraged to use their various talents. Authority arises from the consensus of the whole collective, not from a hierarchy of officials. Individual initiative is valued more highly than rigid adherence to a set of rules. Also, the status of members within the group depends more on their personal qualities than on any official titles they may have. This paper briefly examines the benefits and misconceptions of teams, and when to form a team set up as opposed to individual working.