Business fads come and go. Driven by consultants and academics looking to sell the latest “it” thing I suspect. MBO, Re-engineering, 6-Sigma are just a few that come to mind. However, Kevan Hall, posits another one, with which I agree; and that is “teams.”
While neither Kevan or I are against teams, his research suggests that over-reliance on team-based everything (my words not his) is inhibiting productivity and costing companies money. (He estimates $20K/person/year).
Many of the classes in MBA programs are almost all team-based at this point. Thus driving a belief that teams are the answer, what was the question? I felt that approach does not help create better prepared graduates, and have seen too many instances in the real world of process improvement inhibited by unnecessary teamwork. Again this does not suggest teams are bad, just not the “final solution.”
Kevan’s company’s research, as reported by Chiefexecutive.net, is interesting (at least to me since I agree with it). It may change your thinking about teams as well.
Mitch
