A group becomes a team only through a shared goal – and the goal holds only if it ranks above each person’s own role.
A group of people working together is not yet a team. What makes it one is a goal that everyone wants and no one can reach alone. This goal gives the work its direction: it says what the individual contributions are for and what decisions can be measured against.
The team principle in detail
Four steps through the principle: understand, check, connect, apply. Open any topic to read more.
The explanationThe second half of the sentence is the harder one.
- The second half of the sentence is the harder one.
- Everyone on a team has interests of their own: their own area of responsibility, their own metric, their own reputation.
- As long as these interests serve the shared goal, they strengthen the team.
- As soon as they rank above it, everyone works for themselves – even if they all sit in the same room.
Read closelyWhat the principle says – and what it doesn’t
A goal gives a team direction only if everyone wants it and it can only be reached together. Individual goals have their place, but beneath the shared one.
- It does not say
- That a shared goal is enough. It is necessary but not sufficient – structure, composition and the way people work together are also needed.
- Strictly speaking
- “A group becomes a team only through a shared goal” is more a definition than an empirical finding. What is established is that group goals are linked to better performance.
- Vague goals achieve little. A “we’ll do our best” goal works much less well than a specific, challenging one.
The signs3 signs that the principle is at work · 3 that it is missing
- Everyone can state the goal in their own words.
- When goals conflict, the shared goal decides, not the loudest department.
- Members help one another even when it does nothing for their own numbers.
- Everyone optimizes their own area.
- Successes are celebrated individually, mistakes are passed on.
- Ask about the goal and you get as many answers as there are people in the room.
The research6 sources: 3 primary studies, 1 meta-analysis, 1 theory, 1 critique · 1949–2014 · with research limitations
- low
- moderate
- high
Moderate – that group goals raise performance is well established by meta-analysis; that the goal must rank above one’s own role rests on a clear finding from only a few studies.
- 1949Morton Deutsch
Experiment with student groups at MIT: where everyone shares the same goal, there is more coordination, more division of labor, better communication and higher productivity than under competition for rankings.
- 1958Muzafer Sherif
Mere contact between hostile groups does not help. Only a series of goals that both want and neither can reach alone breaks down the hostility.
- 2000John E. Mathieu et al.
56 two-person teams in a flight simulator: the more similar their mental models of the task and the team, the better their teamwork and performance; the effect is mediated by team processes.
- 2002J. Richard Hackman
A “compelling direction” is one of the five conditions for effective teams.
- 2014Gina Perry
Archival research and interviews with former participants in the summer camp experiment: the camp staff intervened heavily. A precursor experiment in 1953 failed.
- The first half of the statement is more a definition than a finding.
- The finding on egocentric and group-centric individual goals rests on only six and four effects respectively, and the authors point out the lack of more recent field studies.
- Muzafer Sherif’s summer camp study is questionable as evidence: 22 boys from a single, homogeneous background, heavy intervention by the experimenters, and a failed, unpublished precursor experiment (Gina Perry).
Read more: what the research shows
Social psychology speaks of superordinate goals: goals that everyone involved wants and that no side can reach alone. Muzafer Sherif described how mere contact does not reconcile hostile groups, but a series of such goals does. In experiments with student groups, Morton Deutsch found that a shared goal goes hand in hand with more coordination, better communication and higher productivity than competition for rankings. A meta-analysis by Ad Kleingeld, Heleen van Mierlo and Lidia Arends shows that group goals raise group performance on average, and specific, difficult goals raise it even more. Egocentric individual goals do harm; group-centric individual goals help. J. Richard Hackman counts a “compelling direction” among the five conditions for effective teams.
The originJohn C. Maxwell · “The Law of the Big Picture” · “The Law of the Compass”
- 2001OriginJohn C. Maxwell
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
- The Law of the Big PictureThe goal is more important than one’s own role
- The Law of the CompassA vision gives the team direction and confidence
- todayExpanded
Research adds here that the goal must be specific and is not enough on its own.
The related team principles01 Necessity · 17 Identity · 11 Attunement · 15 Dissent
The principle builds on “Necessity” (the task is the reason for the team, the goal gives it direction) and is related to “Identity” and “Attunement”.
In tension with it is “Dissent”: a very strong shared goal can stifle dissent.
The action steps5 steps: Make the goal specific and challenging
- Make the goal specific and challenging: What should be achieved by when, and how will you and your team know?
- Check whether the goal passes the test: Does everyone want it, and is it something no one can achieve alone?
- Look at the individual goals. Align them so that they contribute to the group goal; drop or change those that pit people against one another.
- Don’t talk about the goal just once. In meetings, ask what a decision means for the shared goal.
- Allow people to challenge the route. A strong goal must not stifle objections.
The questions for your team3 questions for your team conversation: How would each of us put our shared goal in one sentence – and would the sentences match?
- How would each of us put our shared goal in one sentence – and would the sentences match?
- Where do individual goals or metrics get in the way of the shared goal?
- How would we know that we had reached the goal?
Take time for one question at your next team meeting. Talk about it openly and note down what you take away from it.
The picture to rememberThe dots mill about in confusion until a golden target appears.
- The dots mill about in confusion until a golden target appears.
- Then they all line up and move toward it as an arrow.
What the Team Principle of Direction looks like in practice
What Brought the Rattlers and the Eagles Back Together
In 1954, the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif splits 22 boys at a summer camp in Oklahoma into two groups that live apart; a tournament turns them into rivals who burn flags and ransack cabins. Shared meals change nothing – only tasks that neither group can solve alone bring them back together.
All 33 Out Alive
On August 5, 2010, 33 miners are trapped some 700 meters underground in the San José mine in Chile. Below, the group around shift supervisor Luis Urzúa stretches a two- to three-day supply of food to more than two weeks; above, three drilling operations run at the same time – after 69 days, the goal is reached.
Former Enemies Supply a City
When the Soviet Union cuts off the routes into West Berlin on June 24, 1948, the Western Allies supply the city by air – 278,228 flights in just over fifteen months. Berliners build Tegel Airport in less than 90 days and unload the planes.
