8 Things We've Learned About Teams in a Difficult Year

Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.

  Leadership   Talent Management   Teams  

For the vast majority of us, teams are the vehicle by which significant work happens in our organization. Whether operationally focused or responsible for delivering a project, teams are what make the world go round.

Despite that truth, we often struggle with teams. Building them, sustaining them, maintaining momentum…there are days where none of that feels easy. It doesn't help that some of the most popular theory around team building is at best misguided and more particularly wrong (see my article here for a longer elaboration on that). In the best of times, when we were face-to-face and able to collaboratively interact, developing and sustaining team performance was hard. Since the advent of the pandemic, it has become much more challenging.

Regardless of the situation, teamwork over the last year has been difficult. Even if status as an essential worker means you are still going to work every day, interaction is harder. Everything has been harder. We are all still trying to get work done. We are also managing the safety of ourselves, being concerned about the safety of our colleagues, looking after our families and responding to very different living, family and social situations. All of that has created emotional and psychological hurdles that we have all had to manage, and none of it has been easy.

Face-to-face teamwork has become more complicated. …

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