The problem is that when you get below the “team” the interaction between members is limited to weekly meetings or social events (mainly going to lunch or cigarette breaks together). Each team member may have been given the same high level goal as the others but they are still placed within silos in that team and given individual areas and sub-goals. As a result there is little collective ownership, or shared knowledge and individuals become more and more focused on their own worlds and quickly forget about working together whilst management focus on “team activities” to attempt to resolve this. A great example of this is how few organizations use pairing, one of the most effective ways of creating a real sense of team.

I think it is this disconnect between perception and reality that Ricky Gervais managed to capture perfectly in “The Office”.

I am very much a big supporter of collaborative decision making, set design/options and am familiar with the ideas of wisdom of crowds. For me, it’s important that all of these are still pointing in the greater direction (the same ultimate goal). How you get there can be different, and is important to investigate different options.

a) the diagram implies everyone is thinking exactly the same thing?
b) it’s strange to think that everyone can be focused on looking at the same big picture?
c) Something else?

Would you mind sharing a little bit more detail about why you say that? Thanks.