Jon,
In a message dated 97-10-19 23:37:31 EDT, you write:
" A small company yes but a big company I don't think so. I think companies
can have teams but not really be a single team. It is not the size that
determines this but the social dynamics. I think there is an implicit
assumption that every member's contribution is equally valuable to the
success of the team's work. "
Pardon me, but I believe even GE (as it has teams in various levels of its
corporate structure) can call itself a Team if it wants to. And its worth
for the smallest team possible and the individual employee himself lies,
for one, in the psychic value of being part of "Jack Welch's family", if
you may.
Agree that social dynamics is a factor in determining how closely-knit,
for instance, a "team" might be relative to others. Presumably the extent
of closeness and degree of interaction would be greater at the smallest
team unit, say, a section of a department. But a department can still
regard itself as a "team" relative to other departments. And a division as
a "team" relative to other divisions. And GE relative to Team Xerox or
Team Coke. (For that matter Team Malden relative to Team Scarsdale.)
Apparently then, size and social dynamics are relevant to the degree of
"team-ness", but we can go a little further: a bigger size does not
necessarily make GE's social dynamics as Team GE less intense than one of
its internal teams at the department level. The matter of synergy cannot
be downplayed.
In this sense, there may be an implicit assumption that every member of
the team has "something valuable" to contribute. Why else would you hire a
new recruit? Why else would you keep a division? But I doubt that the
contribution in practical terms can be "equally valuable". Everyone has
his place in a team, and that place if correctly determined as his for the
moment, has its own value. If GE as a team folds up, we know the SEC will
get involved in some way. If the pet supply store by the corner closes
shop, only pet owners in your neighborhood may be affected. So, I think
there is a difference between one with "something valuable to offer" and
one having "something equally valuable" to contribute. It's not
nit-picking either. In a corporation, it spells the difference between the
bonus a design engineer receives and the bonus a night watchman gets. In
spite of any one's egalitarian notions and wishes.
Chuck Gesmundo
Minneapolis
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