Teams No Longer Work. Organize Around Community

Initially published on Forbes July 9, 2025

Teams have long been considered the basic unit of work, but that model no longer fits how work actually happens. We’re shifting from teams to community—a structure designed for how work truly gets done.

The org chart used to mean something. Your manager managed your work. Your teammates were also your co-workers in doing that work. And as a manager, your people were your resources, the ones through which you accomplished what you were responsible for.

The org chart today no longer represents how work gets done.

The move from traditional org charts to dynamic “work charts,” as outlined in Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index, reflects a reality that many of us already experience. Work is increasingly fluid. Roles shift constantly. People contribute across projects, and often across boundaries. And now, they’re doing it alongside AI agents that draft documents, summarize conversations, automate workflows, and accelerate decision-making.

If the work chart is our new map of collaboration, then we need a new structure to make that collaboration real. That structure isn’t the team. It’s the community.

Why Org Charts No Longer Work

For most of the 20th century, when organizations needed to do more, the answer was simple: hire more people. The org chart scaled accordingly—with formal hierarchies, clearly owned roles, and managers tasked with extracting value from the teams beneath them.

Then, a little over a decade ago, we saw the unbundling of work. Platforms and ecosystems gave companies access to talent and capabilities without needing to own them, allowing them to collaborate without control, to scale without hiring. Alongside the org chart we saw the emergence of networks, distributed systems of value creation across freelancers, gig workers, outsourced teams, and partnerships.

Today, we’re entering the next phase of that evolution. With the rise of AI, organizations don’t just have workers on tap—they now have intelligence on tap. Instead of scaling capability through more people, or even more partners, organizations are now scaling through AI agents, embedded in every workflow. The team now includes both people and technology.

But that model no longer satisfies our need for connection and belonging. We need new ways of organizing, aligning, and connecting the human side of work.

That’s where communities come in.

Teams Were Built for Stability. Communities Are Built for Flow.

Traditional teams were designed for predictability. They assumed clear ownership, stable objectives, and defined lines of accountability. We invested in ‘teambuilding’ to create long-term relationships that supported stable collaboration under a single manager.

But today’s reality is different. When a product designer contributes to a customer journey initiative led by marketing, while also advising on an AI pilot with IT, the boundaries of “team” blur. Add AI agents into the mix—each managing parts of the workflow autonomously—and the idea of a fixed team starts to feel not just outdated, but inefficient.

Work is increasingly organized around problems, not departments. People come together to solve those problems and then move on. The work chart reflects this evolution. But to make that chart actionable, organizations need a structure that is as fluid as the work itself.

That’s where communities come in.

Work Communities Reflect How Work Actually Happens

Unlike teams, which are formed by assignment, communities often form by purpose. They emerge around shared challenges, interests, or domains. People join because they have something to contribute—or something to learn. Membership is flexible. Leadership is often informal. And value is created through participation, not hierarchy.

These are not feel-good social spaces. When designed intentionally, communities become core infrastructure for getting work done. They allow knowledge to flow across silos. They create redundancy by spreading expertise beyond a single individual or team. And they make work visible in ways that reduce duplication, accelerate learning, and spark innovation.

In a world where AI agents now perform tasks that used to define our jobs, the role of human collaboration becomes even more critical. We no longer need each other to execute checklists. We need each other to make sense of complexity, to ask better questions, and to find meaning in the work.

This changes the role of managers too. In a world where everyone manages both people and agents, the manager is less a taskmaster and more a context-setter. Their role becomes one of enabling clarity, facilitating flow, and supporting collaboration across increasingly dynamic ecosystems.

But managers can’t do that alone. They need structures that help people find each other, align quickly, and share knowledge freely. They need spaces where humans and agents can contribute visibly, iterate in public, and build on each other’s work.

Teams aren’t designed for that. Communities are.

Making the Move From Teams to Community

This transition doesn’t require a reorg. It starts by allowing people to self-organize around problems that matter. It requires creating shared digital spaces where contributions—human or agent—are visible and connected. It involves recognizing value based on impact, not title. And it means assigning facilitators instead of managers—people who keep work flowing rather than controlling how it gets done.

Over time, these moves build a different kind of muscle. Instead of waiting for permission or assignment, people begin to step into opportunities. Instead of information flowing up and down a hierarchy, it flows outward, through the network. And instead of relying on static teams, organizations begin to operate through adaptive, resilient communities that reflect how work actually happens.

Looking forward, there’s no point in clinging to the idea that productivity depends on a fixed team structure. Instead, you should be designing for reality: that people and agents will form fluid, evolving collaborations—and that the structures supporting them must do the same.

Work charts make the invisible visible. But they are only as powerful as the systems that bring them to life. If the org chart gave us teams, the work chart moves us from teams to community.