John is confused. He prides himself as being a fair and reasonably good manager. This is not his first assignment as a manager, but it is certainly turning out to be his most challenging. John had taken over the sales team almost six months ago. Performance at the time was not up to standard and although individual performance has improved over the last six months, John just cannot get his sales people to work as a team. What is he missing out on, or not doing so well?

Whenever you are put in charge of a "team", the first question that must be answered is, "Is this a genuine team or merely people grouped together (perhaps for organisational convenience) and labelled a team?" What makes a group of people a real team? Simple answer: a common goal.

Here's a practical example that may help you decide whether your current group of people is, or should be, a team. Picture for a moment the games of cricket and baseball. While they are somewhat different in their rules and the way each game is played (at least they both use a small, round ball), they do share some distinct similarities that require each game to be played by a team, not a group.

For instance in both cricket and baseball:

- Every member has to be able to bat - the team goal is to score more runs than the opposition.

- Every member has to be able to throw and catch a ball - they must all have at least a basic level of hand/eye coordination. The team goal is to restrict the opposition to as few runs as possible.

- Some members, as well as being able to bat, throw and catch, need to have specialist skills if the team is to be successful. In baseball, for example, it's the pitcher and catcher; in cricket it's the bowler and wicket keeper.

- In both games, teams can only be successful when every member of the team feels confident that he or she can rely on every other member of the team to make a competent contribution and do his or her job well.

In John's sales "team", they did not have a common goal. And each member could perform quite adequately and effectively without relying on the help of others in the group. There was nothing binding them together or motivating them to work as a team. John clearly was managing a group, not a team. Whilst he might be able to improve cooperation to some extent, it is clearly a waste of his time to try and turn them into a team.

If it's not quite clear whether your group is a real team, you can find out by answering the question, "What is the goal toward which the whole team is working and which cannot be achieved without the cooperation and support of all the members?"

Once you've decided that your group of people do have a common goal, it's time to set some performance standards or expectations. These should be both for individual team members and for the team as a whole. Both individual and team performance standards should include:

- A description of the expected behaviours. These are often known as "process measures"

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