Some teams work well and achieve their goals. The members of the team enthusiastically contribute their particular skills, and everyone involved feels they have got something out of being part of the team. When teams work well it looks so easy that you might think it's all down to luck. It isn't! A lot of work needs to go on behind the scenes for a team to be successful - and this starts with knowing your team .

Over the next 20 minutes of study you will be introduced to some ideas and concepts you can use to help you be successful with teams. Your aim should be to apply the concepts, to reflect on what you already know and to develop ideas to help you to get to know your team better.

You are probably already involved in a range of teams. Some of these may be task-based - maybe you're a member of a project team? Others may be functional - for example management or administration teams.

One definition of a team is:

This definition covers a very wide variety of teams, including:

Teams that work well are the ones that take into account the three elements: task achievement, team interaction and individual members' needs.

The three elements could be thought of as an iceberg, most of which is below the water's surface (the right hand side of the diagram). Observation of teams in organisations tells us that most, if not all of their energy is devoted to the explicit task (what is to be achieved, by when, with what budget and with what resources). Naturally this is important, but too often the process (ie how the team will work together) is neglected. As with real icebergs, shipwrecks can ensue.

Knowing your team is about the two underwater issues - team interaction and individual members' needs. We will now look at each of these in turn.

In books such as 'Management Teams: Why they Succeed or Fail' Belbin has identified nine team roles. Each role brings strengths to the team, but all strengths bring with them what Belbin describes as 'allowable weaknesses'. None of us is expected to be perfect!

More simply, you could write down in a table your own thoughts about the attributes of each member of your team. What are their desirable attributes? Which attributes are not so desirable? You could also do this for yourself!

Some of these attributes lead on to our second area: individual members' needs. Even if a team has a clear task and is well balanced, it won't succeed unless the individual members are committed and enthusiastic.

So what's in it for individual members? Are their needs being met? Individual team members will have two types of need - job-related and personal .

Successful teams pay attention to process issues (team interaction, individual members' needs) as well as to task issues. That way they best avoid hitting submerged icebergs!

There is a lot of work involved in knowing your team but the investment will pay off.

Each member will have a preferred team role or roles. None of us is perfect and our strengths invariably come packaged with allowable weaknesses.

Each individual team member will have both job-related and personal needs. The more these are acknowledged and taken into account, the more enthusiasm and commitment they will give to the team.