Developing and Leading Emergence Teams: A new approach for identifying and resolving complex business problems

By: Tom Cockburn and Peter A.C. Smith

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Synopsis: Developing and Leading Emergence Teams describes a future business landscape that seems to be complicated, complex and chaotic, in almost equal measures. The variety and diversity of the environments within which large organizations will be seeking to operate, require a similar variety of systems, process and structures if they are to respond successfully to emerging opportunities. The established models of teamworking (matrix, cross-functional or transdisciplinary) can all adapt to this new environment but will only do so if the culture, leadership and management style of the business enables this. The authors describe a model of emergence teams; high-trust teams that exhibit exceptional affinity for knowledge sharing, sense making, and consensus building. They then explore the specifics of leading such a team, how the team leader should: design the team; interact and facilitate the team’s development; understand the personal nature of each of the team members and the overall emotional regime that will affect trust, commitment and motivation. Peter Smith and Tom Cockburn draw on research and detailed case examples to provide techniques your organization can adopt in order to build and support the various teams capable of addressing complexity.