Team Vs. Group: The emergence of self-managing teams

As groups begin to share responsibility for the overall performance, then the whole subject of self managing teams becomes a topic for exploration.

In our experience with a high performance work system in a manufacturing setting, it became clear that individuals were demanding a stronger voice: a group moved into a more democratic phase ... and began to behave much more like a team.

Individuals' rewards depended on the performance of the group as a whole. Team members started to demand a much bigger say in those areas that have been traditionally the responsibility of the leader.