City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Li, F. ORCID: 0000-0002-6589-6392 (2020). Team to Market (T2M): Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age. Slack Technologies. This is the published version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23484/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. 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City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Team to Market Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age Professor Feng Li, PhD, FBAM, FAcSS Chair of Information Management Head of Technology and Innovation Management Cass Business School City, University of London United Kingdom 13 CHAPTER 5 1 Digital Executive Technologies Summary and Virtual Contents teams 8 22CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 3 Team to Building and Market Leading Effective Teams in the Digital Age 4CHAPTER 1 17CHAPTER 6 Introduction Teams to Markets 10CHAPTER 4 Teams and 24 Teamwork About the Author 6CHAPTER 2 ‘Hunting for 20CHAPTER 7 Treasure’ Team Structure and Leadership Team to Market Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age 1 Executive Summary © SLACK TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 2020 Team to Market Executive Summary 2 Teams are the essential of custom business processes and Teams are work- These factors affect team this Team to Market concept. means of product or third-party apps and software on in-progress and effectiveness, but no consistent Its potential to be a source of service delivery and the a single platform, some integrated they evolve over patterns have been identified competitive advantage looks set to fundamental building tools are poised to evolve into distinctive phases between team characteristics and increase. blocks of modern new digital working environments of innovation performance; and contrasting organisations. An for teams which may potentially and execution in features have often been found effective team can produce results supersede traditional proprietary response to product life cycles in equally effective teams. far outperforming a collection of systems that have dominated the and changes in technology, even the most talented individuals workplace for decades. people and business environment. Empirical evidence when team members coalesce and While some teams are long-lived suggests that channel jell into a single, well-functioning, and autonomous with engaged and thread-based fully-aligned organism. This members, others are formed to Collaborative communications report advances the notion of fulfil a specific goal and then technologies play a are on the rise, “Team to Market” to help business With almost all dissolve. Emerging collaborative key role in driving which challenge leaders and knowledge workers organisations technologies empower business communication the dominance of email in the understand, create and lead high today being a leaders and knowledge workers patterns, workplace. A generational gap performance teams in the digital team of teams, to assemble and evolve teams cognitive load and exists between the younger age. improving team quickly and flexibly, break down communication bottlenecks generations who have grown up performance and spatial, temporal, cultural and in teams. Unfettered many-to- with instant messaging and the their seamless integration is the organisational barriers, and many communications can turn older generations who still rely new battleground for competitive deliver exceptional performance into monolithic, tangled, highly predominantly on emails and advantage. There is no shortage in response to rapidly changing coupled, interdependent systems. telephones for communications, Teams are increasingly of guidelines on how to create the internal and external demands. However, emerging collaborative but the gap is narrowing as supported by a dream team. However, despite technologies allow team members messaging is increasingly used new generation over half a century’s research to decide how and when to both at work and in people’s lives of workplace and experiment on teams and communicate and proactively outside of work. collaboration teamwork, building teams that manage cognitive load to maximise technologies which consistently deliver superior Teams vary in size, team effectiveness, enabling enables teams to form, evolve and performance remains a hit-or- structure, scope of unrestricted communications perform with great fluidity. Such miss affair. The notion of Team to responsibility and without overwhelming team new tools use channel or thread- Market helps business leaders and activity domains, members. The ability of these based communications to reduce knowledge workers create high cognitive load, tools to enable fluid, rapid and our reliance on emails, offering a performance teams in the digital team chemistry and flexible team formation, alongside rich, permanent, searchable record age. cohesion, boundary and mode of integration with existing software of organisational knowledge. By interaction with other teams, and tools and business processes enabling the seamless integration team technologies. is facilitating the emergence of © SLACK TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 2020 Team to Market Executive Summary 3 Despite the avoid hurting others’ feelings software is growing with the collaborative technologies can enthusiasm of some instead of being truthful. It average enterprise today using be used to overcome traditional business leaders to represents the sense of confidence over 1,000 different software apps. constraints arising from bust bureaucracy and that the team will not embarrass, By integrating existing software geographical separation, time pursue extreme forms reject or punish someone for tools within a collaboration hub, zone differences, organisational Collaboration of organisations, most speaking up, reflecting the level teams may be able to save time boundaries and cultural diversity, is essential for successful teams do things in of interpersonal trust and mutual and better share knowledge which and actively cultivate them as team success, but moderation, selectively adopting respect amongst members. Since would otherwise be siloed within valuable resources for efficiency if not managed new organisational forms to we are hardwired and socialised a separate application. For the and competitive advantages in the effectively, always- alleviate problems of traditional to care about what others think greatest efficiency gains, these digital economy. on connections hierarchies without abandoning of us, creating and maintaining a integrations need to be intuitive and constant real-time hierarchies completely. The right psychologically safe environment and accessible for all users, communications can exhaust organisational form depends on the requires persistent effort and a including those who don’t have employees, sap productivity and nature of the tasks involved, with culture of directness. Psychological a deep technical knowledge or hamper creativity. It may also some relying on creativity which safety can vary significantly even coding and programming skills. create challenges for dispersed calls for flexible structure and self- within one company, with strong teams in different time zones. management, while others relying relations with diversity, inclusion Some new collaboration tools on execution, which calls for and belonging. It is an essential effectively tackle information explicit rules, central control and condition for organisational overload risks by offering clear hierarchy. learning, innovation and excellence More research granular controls over how and should be actively supported is needed to and when notifications appear, and cultivated. understand and which communications how emerging are prioritised while advanced workplace search features can help teams Psychological collaboration get up to speed quickly or find safety is technologies can be used to information autonomously. It is up critical High performance redefine communication patterns to team leaders and members to for team teams require and team cohesion, optimum collectively decide how best to use cohesion and interpersonal team sizes and their capacity such tools in order to deliver high performance, communication to manage cognitive load, performance and bring the best which reduces the risks for and an ability to enabling organisations to create out of everyone, perhaps through people to cover their tracks to leverage all of and sustain high performance an experimental approach to find avoid being embarrassed or their existing specialist software teams consistently in the digital the sweet spot between autonomy punished, cut corners to meet with ease and simplicity. The age. Future research should and control. impossible targets, or simply complexity and variety of this also investigate how emerging © SLACK TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 2020 Team to Market Creating