The lack of skills: an obstacle in teamwork

Purpose – Team concepts do not necessarily include both of the following important facts: implementing team work leads to shifts in traditional supervisory relations; and these shifts bring about a need to ensure that teams have the requisite skills. The lack of either of them may cause empowerment to get unspecified interpretations and breadth. This paper aims to stress the need of specified empowerment both as a part of skill structure and as a part of the concept of a suitable team. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper two well‐known concepts of management and leadership – the idea of Katz and the division constructed by Kotter – are addressed as tools to open the backgrounds of teams. The paper constructs a background for empirical investigations. Findings – It is useful to assure the skill structure especially during and after shifts within changes which happen in team organizations. The division into management and leadership tasks, combined with the idea of skills needed at several management levels: offers a fruitful background to address the need of different skills in teams. Also finds that it is argued how unspecified empowerment can establish an obstacle to the success with teams. Originality/value – This paper contributes to developing tools for considering explanations for failures of teams.