Have you heard it too? “There is no I in team!”.

Maybe you even stated this as an obvious and untouchable fact about [agile] teams, or while coaching an [agile] team. Of course not you, but others …

Here’s why I think there are good reasons to reconsider that statement as well as how teams are formed in our organisations.

First, a team is not a person, it has no will or mind of its own.

Team work is when the individuals of the team co-operate to complete a task. They may perform poorly and even fail to accomplish the task, but it can still be teamwork.

In a successful team, generally, all the individuals of the team share the same vision and goals, and put in their best effort to cooperate to accomplish those goals.

In an TV-interview, the swedish national ice-hockey team coach, Per Mårts, was asked how he had succeeded in making this new generation players so successful ( winning the 2013 world championship). Part of his answer was:

… we have worked very hard to make “I” part of the team.  (swedish “jaget-i-laget”)

I think Mr. Mårts understands and practices something that the agile community in the large, has a lot to learn and benefit from.

Treat people as individuals but form the team from clear goals and common aspirations. The slogan, there is no I in team, has relevance only when the individual has no choice but to be part of the team. In Star trek such in-humanity is known as “Borg”.

How about changing the spelling into “tIIIIIm”?