In most jobs today there is frequent teamwork required. However, in most academic courses teamwork in unauthorized, and is called "cheating" or "plagiarism" or "collusion" or ... other uncomplimentary names. As a result, most students develop biases against collaboration while skills in teamwork atrophy. This course will introduce each student to procedures that help develop effective teams and give every member of the class considerable practice in developing the associated skills.

Depending on the initial relationships among the members of a new team, one of several "introductions" and "personal orientations" may be used. Suppose the members of a new team are only superficially acquainted, and there are no personal conflicts, one of a couple approaches may be used. If a team has a very clear objective and a "team" (instead of an individual) is needed because of multiple efforts shorten the time to reach an objective, then these preliminary "human resource development" phases may be greatly abbreviated. The initial stages in building a team would be mostly assignment of what to do, and where to do it. The collaboration needed would be minimal. Such a "team" mostly is a collection of individuals performing similar tasks mostly independently of one another except for the common assignment.

If, however, the team formed from such individuals involves more complex objectives, and they are expected to develop a plan of action as part of achieving that objective, more "team building" activity is needed. For example, an understanding and respect for the individual differences among the members will be needed before the full resource of the team can be utilized. Individual differences may include their different background experiences, their ways of learning and organizing thoughts, or their different personalities. Without a clear recognition of the values of these differences members of the team may soon be irritated by the differences, and soon thereafter, especially is there is a high stress level from time demands, danger, or serious consequences of failure (a failing course grade, for example), the team may become a brawling mob! Holistic management works proactively to avoid this situation.

The conflict may in some cases be initiated before the team was formed. Suppose that you need to form a team from a group of people who are politically polarized. It will take much more effort and initial work to help the members find a common ground of agreement, and develop an understanding to avoid those areas of disagreement that are peripheral, or unrelated, to the success of the team. This is what collaboration often means -- the members may not agree on everything, but they have agreed to work together to accomplish the tasks at hand. For example, an external threat to their common safety quickly brings people together in times of disaster and war.

If the team is to collaborate for an extended time, consists of people who normally disagree in significant areas, some of which are directly related to the accomplishment of the objectives, then the first objective becomes the development of respect among the members, and the maintenance of the respect throughout the project. Respect is not a decision, but an emotion. This must be clearly understood, and dealt with in ways that may be unfamiliar to technically oriented people, such as scientists and engineers. In fact, often the emotions of these scientists and engineers is one of discomfort when this aspect of team building is instituted! More than any other source of failure of teams in technical areas is the omission of the emotional development that holds the effectiveness of the team together. For an account of an effective team, beginning as a group of antagonists but now internally strong and supportive, read the saga of the PlanIt Texas Coalition.

In "boot camp" of military training, the emotional "adjustments" are achieved by placing the recruits under extreme stress shared by all, and demands a behavior pattern that is expected universally for all. This both "homogenizes" behavior and habits while it causes the recruits to have a common "enemy" -- the drill sergeant. An emotional distance is maintained intentionally so that this "us vs. them" focus is clear. This procedure produces a functional team quickly, and further danger such as combat forms very strong bonds among former strangers and even former enemies. For most of us in ordinary life we would not choose to use such a technique for the necessary emotional adjustments. We want "softer" techniques, which, incidentally, are much faster and more long-lived. This is the essence of "consensus building", which differs from collaboration by having the parties learn to appreciate and value the differences, whether in politics, religious convictions, or any other source of human "hate". Lasting friendships may form. This sounds a bit like "magic", or insanity which in polite company would be called "Pollyanna-ish". It's a skill that you probably will find useful many times in the future.