The 4+1 Team Model

Preamble and Contents

This post is a continuation from these earlier posts:

• Teamdom — A new term for Team-Friendly Environment, where I laid the groundwork for my team philosophy (groupdom vs teamdom).
• The Case for a Simplified Team Terminology, where I explained why team-related discussions might be difficult (four barriers).

Today’s menu:

• The 4+1 Team Model — a thinking tool that simplifies team terminology.
• Extending the Model (sneak peek) —
  the fifth element, team evolution and multimodality.

Team building, -development and -coaching are out of today’s scope but I’ll write deep dives on these topics later. Everything you’re about to see is only a small part of a larger team-package. This core DNA of the package was ready already four years ago in 2020 and reviewed by a select few coaches/orgdevs in 2021–2023.

Please remember that models are mere viewpoints and never the full truth. My model isn’t important, but discussions about teamwork are. Thanks for being the kind of a person who takes interest in it. 🌸

The 4+1 Team Model

As motivated in the previous post, our team terminology is culturally and professionally convoluted. We have too many terms and competing ideas, and it makes finding the essence of teamwork difficult.

What then is the solution? We’d need some kind of a stepping stone where we could all agree “what is what”. Ancient cultures explained the world with four classical elements: earth, water, air and fire. Later a mysterious fifth element, aether, was added. To simplify team terminology, we’d might benefit from something similar. My proposal is four archetypes.

The 4+1 Team Model compresses most small-scale people units into four distinct archetypes: committees, groups, teams and open teams. These four archetypes comprise the essence of most small-scale units out there, regardless of their domain.

Each archetype has quite a few characteristics. Obviously I have more elaborate and practical characterizations of each archetype for coaching purposes, but a full listing now would be overkill. Here’s the bare minimum summary of the dominant characteristics:

• COMMITTEE is an unit for decision-making.
  A committee enjoys hierarchical power but is often distanced from reality, subject to multiple biases/dysfunctions and seldom create value.
• GROUP is a unit controlled by a someone else.
  A group is lead by an internal or external “mastermind” who alone decides its goals, tasks and ultimate fate. The members are competing individuals who might not even want to be part of the group. Groups are fast to setup but a bit like “fool’s gold”; unorganized, conflicted, toxic and give unpredictable results.
• TEAM is a self-aware unit in control of its own fate.
  A team has been properly launched with members who take team-life seriously. A team has fluent leadership in term of goals and tasks. It has fertile habits regarding interaction, reflection and problem-solving. A team is naturally egoistic and will protect itself furiously.
• OPEN TEAM makes substantial impact to the outside world.
  An open team is in a mutually beneficial relationship with periphery; supported, taken seriously, and learning together with its environment to aim its impact. It can sacrifice its form (shape-shifting) in order to adapt to changing conditions. Open teams are very rare.

Going forward we can take this four-quadrand “DNA” as a base and begin adding layers of visuals on top. For example, we can add line+column headers and axes now.

(Sidenote: A number of axis-configurations exist, but I find these two most useful and consider them as the default: “FAR” for Freedom, Authenticity and Reality and “PIP” for Power, Innovation and Progress — both applied in the above diagram.)

With the axis and headers turned on, we can observe common qualities and comparative strengths:

• The teamdom units are reality-driven and progressive.
• The groupdom units live more or less in a fantasy.
• The extrovert units are more free and influential than introverts.
• Only the open team can unlock superior authenticity and innovation.

To make this concrete, here are a few real-life counterparts:

• US Supreme Court of Justice = COMMITTEE
• The Rescue Team in film “Predator” = GROUP
• (Quintet of) Team Finland 2019 IIHF Worlds Lineup 🏆= TEAM
• Mature Agile Team (operating into the periphery) = OPEN TEAM

One could interpret that the model discourages the use of groupom units (committees and groups). It’s important to realize that these unit have their place and we will never get rid of them completely.

Extending the Model (sneak peek)

There are three basic ways to extend the model:
- via exceptions (the fifth element)
- via evolution (4+1 evo version)
- via borrowing from other models (multimodality)

The Fifth Element

The model has four quadrants, what’s the fifth element? There are actually a few extra elements. I’ve identified three exceptions that don’t fit the model and denote these with a running post-fix (+1, +2 and +3).

• Ideal Team — or ‘the team of the future” is morally perfect. No evil tyrant can use this social technology because of active moral impulse present in this kind of a team. I’d place this team north-east of the open team. Since it’s an ideal, it’s a curiosity rather than a pragmatic evolution goal.
• Super Group — or the “all-rounder group” borrows qualities from all four quadrants. In the model, its place is smack in the middle. These are not theoretical but exist in real-life, for example brotherhoods and sisterhoods.
• Gray Area - or the “team with a leader” is placed between group and team. This is my concession for hierarchical leadership in a team; in a big organization a team leader who can effectively navigate the higher politics is a golden ticket for the team. Another example would in high-stakes environment, a Navy Seal platoon needs an officer and a few NCOs. However, my general rule holds: a team doesn’t need a dedicated leader.

If more exceptions should appear, I’ll number them respectively.

Team Evolution

The simplified 4+1 Evo Model (below) is compatible with many kinds of team development theories and doesn’t take a preference over them. Think of it as a neutral basis upon which to inject your favourite theory.

These are the main motifs:

• Groupdom is a “evolutionary wasteland”. Committees and groups are dead-ends. In other words a group cannot evolve into a team.
• Teamdom allows two types of evolution (micro & macro)
  Micro-evolution is about small development steps. For example, Tuckmann’s stages would fit inside the micro-evolution. Macro-evolution is about bigger steps where the filters a team needs to overcome are will filter, glass ceiling, and moral filter.

Team development and -coaching are huge topics that warrant separate posts. But very shortly; a team coach might want to focus their efforts in transition points which this simple version unfortunately hides away. A more detailed evo model can help planning interventions and mapping a team’s path forward. Interestingly, this process can spin up new team development strategies as a side product, so I’m hopeful for the future of our craft.

Multimodality

Multimodality means the use of more than one semiotic mode in meaning-making. In today’s context, it means that the 4+1 Model can be expanded upon and it’s quadrants can be propped with qualities from other models or theories.

Here are a few examples, left-to-right; Otto Scharmer’s ‘Levels of Listening’, Generic Problem Types, and Biological ‘Modes of Interaction’:

What does this mean? My running assumption is that the corresponding archetypes either naturally embody that specific characteristic or are able to adopt that specific quality/skill easily. Taking the ‘Levels of Listening’ as an example, I assume it’d be easy to teach a team what empathic listening is and they’d be open to trying it, but the same would be almost certainly wasted effort on a committee or a group.

To my surprise the model adapts to external models, be their pedagogic, psychological or philosophical. At the moment I’m unsure if this is due to my wishful thinking, a happy coincidence or something deeper. In any case, I have come up with tens of such mappings. Here’s a colorful mapping with Spiral Dynamics:

Why to embark on this kind of ‘doodling’? Well, I’m hopeful that another model’s characteristic deepens my understanding about an archetype. This can sharpen the description of all four archetypes— which by the way I haven’t even shared yet! Or maybe it opens up some other insights that I can use with actual teams I’m working with. Another reason is that I just find it intellectually pleasing. 😉

A little concession; whenever play with extensions, I feel like I’m pressing my own coaching-stance upon the base model (four archetypes). On the other hand, playing with the extensions also builds me up and sharpens my coaching stance. I guess at some point everybody needs to choose who they are and what they stand for, don’t we.

Outro

There you have it, a short introduction to the 4+1 Team Model and its extensions. Don’t let the model’s simplicity fool you because there are actual benefits:

• easy to remember
• simplifies team terminology
• works with any professional field / domain
• packs silent, heuristic explanatory power
• extendable (the fifth element, multimodality and team development)
• raises the bar for teams
• opens pathways for the team-forms of the future

After I grasped the model, it has been impossible to unsee many fake-teams out there. To be honest, many “teams” in the org chart are not teams in my eyes anymore, but groups.

This post was just a start with a promise of more. 😁 I hope it evoked insights and confidence for team-related discussions with your colleagues. I can only repeat that models aren’t important but they can be useful.

(PS: If you have feedback, you can comment below this article or privately via LinkedIn. However, I won’t commit much time for responding, public debating, conferencing.)