Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity

Chapter 10. A note on teams

Since the early 1990s teamwork, which played an important role in the Black & Decker case study, has found widespread attention in themanagement literature in general and the innovation and new product development literature in particular. Teams are often described as the backbone of innovation. For example, Tidd et al. (2001) certainly agree, stating that, "Innovation is primarily about combining different perspectives in solving problems, and there is thus much potential value in team working." But what actually is a team?

We believe that organisations only truly innovate and grow when three fundamental elements are all firmly in place (http://www.innovaro.com):

• The ability to conceive and exploit new ideas

• A clear strategic vision focused on value generation

• Aligned and empowered teams to drive progress

In their work Katzenbach and Smith (1993) define a team as "A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." They differentiate between five different types of teams whereby the distinguishing factor is the degree to which performance can be delivered (see Box 10.1).

For teams to succeed in innovation they have to be at least Real Teams. But while there is general agreement that teams are essential for innovation, companies often complain that they do not seem to work. Henke et al. (1993) suggest that most firms are not using teams ...