ABSTRACT
Anyone who has ever been involved in even a fleeting relationship knows that when you bring two people together you get a new emergent phenomenon - in fact, a new system - that is made up of more than the sum of its parts. Bring more than two people together into a team, or group, and the phenomenon becomes more complicated still. Of course, the behaviour of a team is still affected by the factors that shape the behaviour of each individual team member, but there's an additional and entirely different level of considerations that affects the behaviour of the team as a whole. When you're by yourself communication is a non-issue, unless you enjoy talking to yourself Similarly, when you're working alone, the task of dividing up
work responsibilities and figuring out who should be in charge is quite uncomplicated. All this changes when you have a team. Key factors such as communication, authority, responsibility and priority-setting must all be taken care of, otherwise the team members won't be able to coordinate their respective actions. A viable team relationship can't be based solely on independent, selfish behaviour. We learn this early in our family interactions, and it's essential for good managers to recognize this if office life is to run smoothly and the business or organization to succeed.
