1 Introduction

'"The joy of working harmoniously with small groups of people who are dedicated to something bigger than themselves, and are completely loyal to each other, counts in my experience as one of the most rewarding things in life," a senior manager told me. Most of us would agree with him.'
John Adair (1987), Effective Teambuilding, Pan

There's no doubt that a team that is working well can accomplish great things, and belonging to such a team is a satisfying experience. As we will discover, success is largely determined by the way people behave and how well their needs are met.

We'll look at the needs of teams in this session, but before we do we have to decide what we mean by a team. We all have our favourite teams, and perhaps our favourite groups. Yet how many of us could define the words 'team' and 'group'?

There are many kinds of teams: small teams, and large teams; temporary teams, and long-standing teams; teams that are drilled to work with precision, and teams that falter and fumble; dynamic teams and lazy teams.

What makes a team special? What is the secret of success? These are not easy questions, but if we want to know how to run and participate in teams successfully, we must search for answers.

2 What is a Team?

A team is a group of people; so if we want to define what a team is, we could start by saying what a group...