#3d2: Teams exist for goal alignment, not goal attainment.

Teams are beneficial but not necessary in enabling individuals to attain a goal. The individual, not the abstract concept of the team, does the work. And while collaboration and shared knowledge benefits goal attainment, these can occur outside team boundaries.

Why then are teams ubiquitous in our organisations? It is because a team is necessary not for goal attainment by individuals, but for goal alignment.

Social cohesion creates an aligning pressure that directs the team towards a shared goal. Alignment leads to better team — as well as organisational — effectiveness. And so a group with multiple competing objectives is a group fragmented. A fragmented group is antithetical to the ideal of a team.

Related: 3d