Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on January 21, 1998 at 08:56:35:

In Reply to: Re: Teams are community?: An Issue of Control? posted by Tom Sudman on January 20, 1998 at 19:26:51:

I share your thinking that drawing artifactual distinctions between 'community' and 'teams' may not necessarily serve the purpose. [Albeit, the notion of 'teams' in organizational literature has specific connotations outlined below.]

However, trying to assess the interpretation of the two concepts from previous discussion, the distinction [though artifactual, and apparently, not generalizable] seems something like:

Teams: Within organization boundaries, formal, less structured, controlled, purposive toward common organization's goals, and so on.

Community: May cross organizational boundaries; informal [and if so, may not identify with any organizational boundaries], less structured, less controlled (ad hoc), purposive toward the team members' individual goals, and so on.

One key difference that seems to stand out is the level of individual involvement, self-control, and autonomy in what we generally call as community of practice. Given that, we may have organizational teams that may function [or shall I say, should desirably function] as CoPs.

You have hit a key point that seems relevant to implementation of most knowledge management initiatives (formal or informal):

>The community stays the same it is the coaching and outcome that changes. Same people could >be in both groups why would you call them a team one time and a CoP another?

Perhaps, it is the orientation of the owners, organizers, managers, resource controllers, etc., that is different in the traditional organizational notion of teams and the newer notion of CoPs.

Traditionally, organizational literature and management thinking has believed in the ability of being able to 'control' the behavior of individuals and groups. However, more recent discussions in practitioner literature [based on some theories that are gaining greater visibility] suggest that what the managers get is not 'control' over behavior, but 'temporary compliance.'

More on such issues is discussed in the following article by Alfie Kohn in the Sep-Oct. issue of HBR and the dialog on the same topic published in the subsequent Nov-Dec issue.

Kohn, A. (1993). Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work. Harvard Business Review, 54-63.

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Teams and Communities: An Issue of Control? Tom Sudman 10:30:26 1/21/98 (3)
  • Teams and Communities Denham 11:34:24 1/21/98 (2)
    • Re: Teams and Communities: A Feeling of Déjà -vu Yogesh Malhotra 12:10:01 1/21/98 (1)
      • Participation vs. assignment Denham 14:42:19 1/21/98 (0)

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