Smart Teams

Maximum productivity requires coordination and collaboration.  

For a team to be productive, its members need the proper systems and processes in place. To achieve full productivity, they must come together and coordinate their efforts.

To build a “smart team,” its members must be able to “communicate, congregate, and collaborate.” They must understand that even one person’s unproductive behavior will have a negative impact on the entire team. Team leaders should promote a productivity culture within their team and their organization. To strive toward that goal, it’s helpful to understand culture as “a set of collective habits.”   

The all-important triumvirate of communicating, congregating, and collaborating proves particularly challenging for teams in hybrid or remote work environments. Team members based in scattered locations must remain aware of the necessity of connecting without creating noise. For example, as remote employees attempt to carry out teamwork from home, they tend to depend on email – a source of noise – for communicating with one...