ABSTRACT
Effective management teams establish a clear team purpose, a mandate or a mission, and a set of goals that is shared and understood by all members. The team purpose is not equivalent to the organization’s overall mission, and it is not the sum total of the members’ individual goals. The team purpose should reflect what it wants to achieve that could not have been achieved had the team not existed. The research of Wageman and colleagues on more than 120 senior management teams showed that a team’s purpose should be consequential, challenging, and clear. Much research has been done on the relationship between goals and performance, both for individuals and for groups. For a management team, a clear team purpose can lead to more work being focused on the important challenges and tasks that need to be addressed, which will increase the members’ motivation and desire to carry out the tasks the team is working on.
