I made comment recently about the wonderful experience I once had as member of what many of my peers considered to be the Ultimate Team. It concerned a Rugby-football I was member of during high school, a team which enjoyed –over a period of four years- wonderful success resulting in an unblemished record and the envy of schools for miles around.

At that time if my life, like many people my age, I realised that being member of a team was very enjoyable when winning but not so much fun when losing! I never thought that years later I would be encouraging and facilitating teams in industry - a totally different arena yet a place where teams and team behaviour was every bit the same. Nor did I think I would be involved with another Ultimate Team in my lifetime – but now, years on, I recall involvement with several such teams which exhibited similar qualities to the Ultimate Team I knew back in 1950’s

Wickipedia describes a team as being:

“comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses. Thus teams of sports players can form (and re-form) to practice their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.”

Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularized the concept of building teams. There was a considerable resurgence in modern business during the 1990-early 2000’s.

Some see "team" as a word that’s: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the human relations movement’s desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer -pressure and peer surveillance.

Teams may be compared also with the more structured concept of ‘crews’ which are generally focussed around specific skills and tasks, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.

Team members normally have different roles, like team leader and agents. Large teams can divide into sub-teams according to need.

Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, and performing adjourning- more often referred to as “forming, storming, norming and performing” .The latter stage ‘performing’ is where teams begin to reach their potential but very few ever reaching the status of becoming an Ultimate Team

Virtual Teams

Developments in communications technologies have seen the emergence of the virtual work team. A virtual team is a group of people who work interdependently and with shared purpose across space, time, and organisation boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate.

Virtual team members can be located across a country or across the world, rarely meet face-to-face, and include members from different cultures. Many virtual teams are cross-functional and emphasise solving customer problems or generating new work processes. The United States Labour Department reported that in 2001, 19 million people worked from home online or from another location, (Pearlson & Sounders, 2001).

The team that I recently became a member of calls itself the Ultimate Team and has been born from such a structure. It’s totally Internet based with members from many parts of the world.

I imagine that most virtual teams – such as our Ultimate Team are self-managed in much the same way. Participants recognising the need to work for the common good avail themselves and their skills where they perceive them to fit best. This is a very powerful and highly motivating factor and something worth appreciating.

Throughout industry and commerce it’s been my experience that teams which have been constructed by management often fail dismally for lack of motivation for the members. Often there’s a perception that management who develop teams do it for the company’s benefit whilst the team has to be satisfied with a reward system that is usually insignificant and often has a de-motivating effect. Dissention follows, teamwork suffers and performance suffers.

In a traditional management role, the manager is responsible for providing instruction, conducting communication, developing plans, giving orders, and disciplining and rewarding employees, and making decisions by virtue of his or her position. In this organizational model, the manager delegates specific responsibility and decision-making authority to the team itself, in the hope that the group will make better decisions than any individual. Neither a manager nor the team leader make independent decisions in the delegated responsibility area.

The main idea of the self-managed team is that the leader does not operate with positional authority. Decisions are typically made by consensus in successful self-managed teams and are better because of this due to the value of individuals committing themselves to achieving a solution.So it is with our Ultimate Team – perhaps even more-so because of its virtual team aspect.

In this environment, the team has to deal with time and space and geographical distances – lacking the ability to even meet each other face to face!

Imagine, joining a business venture one minute then suddenly finding yourself having to work people you don’t know, can’t see, can only communication verbally – or more often via text. On top of this, having to learn the systems – even develop the systems “as you go” , learn new skills, share hard-earned knowledge with strangers and much more.

It really is a shake-up to the normal work experiences of most people.

Yet, despite all this our Ultimate Team is achieving great results. A guiding hand from the ‘older’ members of the team, agreed delegation – even a willingness to uplift voluntarily team -chores / duties etc. if essential.

There’s a complete abandonment (it seems) of everything we were ever taught – either during schooling or work-experience. This free-wheeling ‘all-for-one and one-for-all’ ethic is extremely powerful – but rarely achieved in a controlled environment.

No! this team feeds itself on trust, integrity, interdependence, honesty and loyalty. That’s not to suggest that people have to toe-the line or subject themselves to formal discipline either. This Ultimate Team displays , charity, understanding, acceptance of differences, acceptance of what people can and cannot do, respects their wishes and desires, appreciates their skills and knowledge and disperses the hard-won rewards by the team evenly and with fairness. The saying “no-one gets left behind prevails” along with a sense of ‘Brothers in arms’ you might say.

Certainly in a lifetime of experiences I cannot recall another example where so much is being accomplished by such diverse individuals in such a harmonious way. Given too that membership of the Ultimate Team is growing by the day, like the human cell – ever growing, ever changing, this result is even more remarkable given the limitations placed upon it.

So how is all this achieved? What enables the Ultimate Team to operate so well with the noticeable absence of what many consider to be the modern tools of management ?

The answer to that is quite simply, a common goal, prolific discussion and communication via the internet chat systems, dedication to purpose, blind-faith and trust in other members of the team a a strong unfailing belief that above all else God’s hand is at work!

For more in-depth explanation about the Ultimate Team, its business and its goals visit this this website: the Ultimate Team

Frank Heath - Ultimate Team member

Skype: frank.heath1

Tel:1-925-476-7480

Cell: 64 21 33 45 69