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It is raining heavily outside. A group of curious participants listen to thespian Atul Kumar's¹ rich, sonorous voice thunder through the group: "Now, sit in a circle, hold hands on either side and close your eyes. As a group, you have to count up to twenty without overlap. If more than one voice speaks simultaneously, the group starts all over again from one, and continues the exercise till you reach twenty in one go."

Assuming this to be a fairly simple, non-threatening exercise, the seventy five odd participants tentatively begin. But lo and behold, fifteen minutes later, they are still struggling. Atul then gives the clue: "Let everyone hold back and not say the numbers. Believe me, someone in the group will!" In the next three minutes, the group merrily counts up to twenty, without an overlap. The golden words from the wise theatre director linger in the minds with an epiphanic clarity. That day, the dinner table discussion in the mess finds the groups counting up to 200!!!

The torrential rain sweeps more than the muck on the ground.

When I planned the theatre workshop on team skills for MBA students at Bhavan's S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, little did I know what a profound impact it was to have on the group. It was evident from the comments of participants that team work does not just happen automatically to students who have hitherto worked for individual excellence all through the academic system. The concern then is, what happens to individual excellence?

Over the years, I have watched the participants perform as members in various teams all through the academic programme and I will address some of the recurrent issues that came my way.

Let us first start with 'why teams', 'what are teams' and how are they different from 'working groups', and what must be done to ensure 'team basics' in an organization. Thereafter, we can tackle the issue of team performance and what are the ways to inculcate, nurture, measure and reward it within the team and organizationally.

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1. Atul Kumar is a well-known actor and director of Company Theatre, based in Bombay. He conducted five-day theatre workshop for MBA participants at S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research on team skills and staged a performance of his play 'Noises Off' as a case study.

Dr. Uma Narain is Associate Professor in charge of Assessment & Development of Managerial Aptitude Programme at S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai. Her area of specialization is 'non-classroom learning'. She runs a course 'Management by Movies' at the institute.