Comparison of Team Work to Create Results and Team Work to Create Learning

Teamwork & Team Building works when people learn together. Learning is a differentiator. The company that has learning teams & people may understand, learn, apply, re-learn & make rapid changes that competitors (non-learning teams) cannot understand.  Or the challenges may be understood, but the focus is so aggressively on results that the people, processes & profit will be hurt in the long term.

Thinking about Team Work to Create Results
  • Results are great. This is not an anti-results statement. It is a pro-learning statement. I’ve worked with many teams that focused & were pushed so hard to achieve results that the fun & learning were sucked out of their work. This behavior causes underemployment and people who may be actively working against the results you are pushing to achieve.  Causing a resistance loop.
Thinking about Team Work to Create Learning
  • Results happen while the team is learning. This is the core of people working to their full capacity. To encourage learning through the work, teams can grow stronger & achieve results. This cooperation loop is self-reinforcing.
Team Work to Create Results Team Work to Create Learning
  • Leadership knows what to do.
  • Leadership knows the right answer.
  • Work processes can be measured & stabilized.
  • Change is a BIG challenge that requires everyone to buy in.
  • Feedback is the manager to staff – one way.
  • The judgment of success, failure & effort from employees is unnecessary & discouraged.
  • Fear of the manager is normal.
  • Leadership sets boundaries.
  • Leadership is with the team seeking answers that might work.
  • Work processes are seen as starting points that will change. They are only worth measuring to see what did & did not work.
  • Change is a constant, small & part of the work.
  • Feedback comes from many places – multi-directional.
  • The judgment of success, failure & effort from everyone is expected & needed.
  • A constant effort to remove fear & attract trust.
Goal: Capture profits today – if not sooner. Goal: Create long-term value.