The purpose of the paper is to examine how
organizational development and change (ODC) consultants engage in complex
processes of facilitating and implementing team interventions in organizational
contexts. The notion of high-performing teams in organizational contexts needs
to be re-examined and reinterpreted beyond the team building, developmental and
training strategies. Complexity issues such as organizational cultural and
political realities impact teams and teamwork effectiveness or lack of it. The
qualitative methodology integrates ODC methodologies in examining the
challenges and opportunities experienced in facilitating change related to
tasks and roles required in the diagnosis and implementation of team
intervention. The case study of team intervention in a business school depicted
capacity improvements in team building and training outcomes which demonstrated
its success. However, the organizational cultural and political factors
remained the team’s challenge. Since these
complexities were not solved the team eventually collapsed.
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