3.1 How is a Team Different from a Group?

Rothwell (2018) notes, “All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams” (p. 150). Let us begin by defining what is a group and then differentiate between the two. Three or more people working together toward a common goal is considered to be a group (Rothwell, 2018). A team (or a work team) is a group of people with complementary skills who work together to achieve a specific goal (Thompson, 2008). Thus, a team is clearly something more than a mere group of individuals. Members of a group—or, more accurately, a working group—go about their jobs independently and meet primarily to share information. Teams, by contrast, are responsible for achieving specific common goals, and they’re generally empowered to make the decisions needed to complete their authorized tasks. Let us identify key characteristics of work teams (Baker, 2019; Rothwell, 2018):

1. Teams are accountable for achieving specific common goals. Members are collectively responsible for achieving team goals, and if they succeed, they are rewarded collectively.
2. Teams function interdependently. Members have high levels of cooperation. They cannot achieve goals independently and must rely on each other for information, input, and expertise.
3. Teams are stable. Teams remain intact long enough to finish their assigned tasks, and each member remains on board long enough to get to know every other member. Teams often require more time and resources than groups to meet their goals.
4. Teams have authority. Teams possess the decision-making power to pursue their goals and to manage the activities through which they complete their assignments.
5. Teams have members who have complimentary, not identical or similar skill sets.

Hughes and Jones (2011) ask “what makes a team something different from any other group of people?” Teams, they say, are composed of individuals who share the following defining characteristics:

1. A shared collective identity,
2. Common goals,
3. Interdependence in terms of assigned tasks or outcomes,
4. Distinctive roles within the team (p. 54).

Collaborative learning, according to Barkley, Cross, and Major (2005), can be “carried out through pairs or small interactive groups”; however, collaborative learning takes place when students work together to “achieve shared learning goals” (p. 4).

Patrick Lencioni (2002), in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, notes that while “teams… are made up of imperfect human beings [and so] are inherently dysfunctional” (p. vii), there are five traits that are hallmarks of a good team:

1. They trust one another.
2. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.
3. They commit to decisions and plans of action.
4. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.
5. They focus on the achievement of collective results” (p. 190).

This section is adapted from the following sources:

“What is a Team?” In Teamwork: An Open Access Practical Guide Copyright © 2020 by Andrew M. Clark; Lolin Martins-Crane; Mengqi Zhan; and Justin Dellinger T. available at Teamwork: An Open Access Practical Guide , licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

“The Team and the Organization” in Professional and Technical Writing 2025 by Suzie Baker, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International.