Provide Organizational Supports for Teamwork

Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems, is an eleven-chapter book written by J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University, and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers in May of 2011. Although based on the latest scholarly research, the book is written for both the experienced and novice team leader, and can be used as well in academic courses that examine groups and teams. The work comprises three sections. The first, "The Challenge and Potential of Teams," explains the general structural components of a team and the benefits and pitfalls of each. The second part, "Six Enabling Conditions," elaborates in detail on six environmental conditions that can help to produce successful team collaboration. The third part, "Implications for Team Leaders and Organizations," discusses specific methods leaders have adopted, or avoided, to foster collaboration and improve the quality of their teams' work, including what the author calls the 60-30-10 rule. In chapter 8, the author discusses the fifth of the six enabling conditions for effective teamwork: the importance of organizational support to team performance. This chapter focuses on how leaders can successfully deliver to their teams four essential components of this support: (1) provide access to the information the team requires, (2) make available educational support and technical tools to supplement team members' own skills and knowledge, (3) balance material resources the team has access to, and (4) engender external recognition and acknowledgement of the team's accomplishments.

• Fostering collaboration
• Business communication
• Organizational behavior
• Management
• Corporate strategy
• Teams