ARTICLES

Organizational Dynamics, 1999, #27 (3), pp. 66-77

The objective of this article is to describe the best practices for effective work teams. Taking the way of relating among the pygmies of the African rain forest as a metaphor for effective group work–as the pygmies hunting-gathering society represents a microcosm of key survival practices of teams operating under very harsh conditions–this article offers a number of lessons for creating successful work teams.
From observing the pygmies we learn that in high performance teams, members respect and trust each other; they provide mutual protection and support; they engage in open dialogue and communication; they share common goals; they possess strongly shared values and beliefs; they subordinate their own objectives to those of the team; and they subscribe to distributed leadership, in other words leadership that is not confined to a few people at the summit of the organization but distributed throughout.
This article also pays attention to a number of factors that destroy teamwork. Among the team killers are not only overt but also covert conflict, power hoarding, the impact of status differences, self-censorship, and the effects of groupthink. Groupthink refers to the pressure to conform to the opinion of others without questioning the consequences of such decisions.