3.2 Team or working group?

One difficulty in distinguishing groups from teams is that many so-called teams are really working groups because the emphasis is on individual effort. For example, people doing exactly the same job in a call centre answering customer enquiries, with the same individual targets and being overseen by the same supervisor or manager, may be called a team, but would be better described as a working group.

Figure 5 A team or a working group?

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A birds-eye view of three people sitting at a desk working on a computer. They each have a headset on and are facing their computer screens.

Figure 5 A team or a working group?

For a team to be effective there needs to be a clear, shared understanding of team objectives, mutual respect, trust and an appreciation of individual strengths and weaknesses. There also needs to be an atmosphere in which knowledge and expertise can be shared openly, with opportunities for each team member to make a distinctive contribution.

While this level of distinction between groups and teams and working groups may not feel important to you as an individual, from an employer’s perspective it is vital, particularly when thinking about the time and effort that it may take to build a team if a group can do the job just fine.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of the differences between a team and a group, you can return to the examples you came up with in Activity 2 and reassess those experiences.

Next you will consider some of the challenges and benefits of working in a team.