Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, asks the question, "How can a team of committed managers with individual IQs of 120 have a collective IQ of 63?" Chris Argyris writes in The Fifth Discipline that most management teams break down under pressure. The team may function quite well with routine issues. But when they confront complex issues that may be embarrassing or threatening, the teamness seems to go to pot.
Senge was referring primarily to upper management teams. But we find the similar conditions for teams made up primarily of professional specialists. Collective inquiry can be threatening because individual preferences and actions must be justified and this forces examination of traditional approaches and methodologies. Professionals are just as resistant to change as the general population. Someone’s favorite process, or technology, or planning system, or component, or material has been working for years, so why change it? It’s easier to go with the old rather than take the risk with the new, the unknown. It’s easier to tweak the system than to explore new opportunities.
Collective inquiry forces us to find new ways to solve problems that will accommodate the needs of other professional specialists. It forces us to give up the old for the new but with some logical justification. It forces new thinking to determine whether our demands really exist, and find out if our position involves certain biases or just our inability to face the uncertainties and risks. It forces us to examine whether or not the tried and true methods continue to provide a benefit in a dynamic and interconnected society. Argyris refers to this position of refusing to face up to reality as skilled incompetence, teams made up of exceedingly capable people who keep themselves from learning.
There is no doubt that problems are more complex today than in the past. Finding solutions requires input from many disciplines. Managing those professional interfaces takes not only knowledge and skills but also determination on the part of all the participants to reach an equitable and viable solution. That solution will involve compromises, but those compromises cannot go against the basic tenets of any discipline involved.
Team participants do not have to love each other. They do have to show respect and common courtesy as they would to any person. They may or may not socialize; there should be no required attendance at the Friday after-work session to get to know each other. They do have to communicate and listen to each other. They must consider the views and needs of others. They must bury their egos. They can’t fight turf wars. They must face reality and deal with their problems. They must focus on delivering the outcomes of the project that they were assigned.
These conditions are common to all teams regardless of discipline. The process is so simple; define the purposes and objectives of the project; select the team based on the required competencies; develop the plan and the criteria for measuring performance; communicate, communicate, and communicate some more; resolve the interface problems; begin the dialogue; lay all the cards on the table, face up; identify the different points of view and search for common ground; don’t be afraid of creating some cognitive dissonance to bring problems to the surface early in the project— but difficult to implement.