In a recent Fast Company Magazine article "What Makes Teams Work" a great point on this issue was demonstrated by Jon Katzenbach:
"The critical decision for any manager or leader who wants to get higher performance from a small group of people is determining whether the group should try to work as a team, or whether they should be satisfied with what I call "single-leader unit" discipline. Single-leader units are intrinsically faster and more efficient than teams. Tasks are more clearly defined by one leader, and members work on their own much of the time."
In this practice, I choose to use "Teams" because it represents a group of people with a bond in their common objectives and reason for being (customers). I agree with Jon Katzenbach's "single-leader unit" idea and that very often this is more effective than a team from an organizational structure point of view. I feel this practice has benefit and the ability to facilitate long-term customer focus for the group regardless of the structure used.
At ThankingCustomers.com, our approach is that any group of people who work towards a common purpose are a "team". This is always a work in progress. Improving communication, co-operation and understanding is the basis of all successful groups/teams. One of, if not the most necessary attributes of this work is that of "focus". Our philosophy is that creating and maintaining focus is a leadership activity that provides an invaluable tool for today's manager/leader for daily operations. We help you develop a process for focus, then target it towards customers, rather than hope that focus continues as a result of a system, program or procedure which provides customer orientation.