Stephen Downes says that teams are a fiction that purport to represent everyone when in fact they reflect only a select subset of opinions [such as the team leader?].
Liong Huai Yu, highlights this quote in his review of Dave Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous – “The world is too diverse for any single classification system to work for everyone in every culture at every time.”
Classification systems, like teams, are artificial structures. Liong goes on to compare Weinberger’s premises with education:
To bring the discussion further from what is discussed in the book, what are the artificial structures and organisational methods have we put in our schools? Artificial subject segregation, timetabling and even teacher-specialisation. As we move forward facing new challenges, fighting regional and global competitions, we may have to re-examine the structures we have in place, as most of the time, these structures were created for a world that was last century. Also, are they benefiting the users (both students and teachers) the way it set out to be.
Any change initiative or attempt at systems improvement has little chance of success if you don’t take the time and effort to really examine the underlying structures. All of our management models and organisational structures are artificial structures and we have the collective intelligence to change them. Usually what is standing in the way are the vested interests of those with power and the all too powerful ingrained culture that we take for granted.
Remembering that it’s all artificial may be a good first step in seeing with new eyes.