“If they could just function as a team” often seems to be the perceived solution to many business challenges. Who among us has not wished that our direct reports or peers or superiors work better as a team so that strategies become easier to execute or problems more readily solved? But if you were to speak with most employees, the common perception they would have is that the managers in their department, division or, for that matter, in the company do not function well as a team. They often see individual goals, petty differences, and conflicting objectives as getting in the way of their managers acting as one mind, with one objective without regard to personal gain. Moreover, they would shake their heads incredulously at the notion that their managers could ever develop into a cohesive team on a consistent basis!
THEY HAPPEN TO BE RIGHT. The entire workforce of any large and complex organization can never function as a team, but think about how often executives refer to their company as such. And even more important, it is not necessary or even desirable to a group of managers to always function as a team. Now I know this idea goes against the mind set of most Human Resources professionals and enlightened line management. But this is certainly not a new concept; others have effectively argued this very notion. To better illustrate this concept, we need to first consider how a manager’s job, whether it is an executive or first-line one, is generally structured.
In practice, the overall goals of a corporation are segmented into compartments for maximum efficiency. A company organizes managers to take full advantage of their experience and skills. Manufacturing executives generally only focus on production issues, R&D executives generally focus on research and development efforts, etc. Of course there has to be activity and coordination between departments (R&D has to develop products that can be manufactured on a volume scale), but the reward systems are structured more to stimulate individual, rather than group performance. As manager become more efficient and productive, they become more valuable. They are then given better raises and responsibility for more people and company assets.
This structure is desirable because abstract goals such as “maximize the company’s or “implement the company’s strategy” are too broad to provide the appropriate focus or mutual accountability that is necessary for a real team effort. Without this type of structure, companies, their divisions and their departments would get very little accomplished. Deciding on strategy, getting things done in a timely fashion, taking maximum advantage of specific expertise and skills would all suffer. The company over time will cease to exist or will be gobbled up by another because of poor execution and efficiencies.
On the other hand teams are usually defined as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, a group approach for which they are held mutually accountable and where rewards are given out on a group basis. The structure of a team is often diametrically different to the traditional Corporate construction.
Several ingredients must be present for a group to be truly labeled as a team:
- A specific, tangible goal or purpose that the team itself obtains
- Shared leadership roles
- Mutual accountability
- Group incentives and rewards
- Collective work products
Yet no one is understating the importance of team efforts. In fact, as companies are confronted with the need to manage change across their organizations to successfully compete on a global level, the need for more teamwork will be necessary. Teams will become the driving force for success because they can cut though the established bureaucracy, resistance to dynamic change, and limited diversity in skills and knowledge of a homogeneous group.
But this does not mean that teams will or should crowd out individual opportunity, performance or formal hierarchy and process. Rather, teams will enhance existing structures, effort and leadership, rather than replace them. A team opportunity exists anywhere traditional structure, hierarchy or organizational boundaries inhibit optimum results.
Thus, for example, product innovation requires preserving functional excellence while eliminating functional limitations through cross functional team efforts. And first line productivity requires preserving directional and guidance through hierarchy while drawing on the benefits of teamwork. Specific goals, such as getting a new product to market in less than half the traditional time, resolving customer complaints within 24 hours, or reducing error rates by 1/3, trimming costs by 15% are all appropriate for team efforts.
On the other hand, when teams lack that specific, singular purpose, they rarely are effective. This waste of time, energy and talent can be seen in instances such as “quality circles” that could never identify specific quality improvement goals.
The challenge for all executive and human resources leaders is to preserve the traditional hieratical corporate structure where the benefits of individualism, specialization and command control are realized while taking advantage of the vital and discrete work products and results that can only come about through the joint contributions of their teams members. For a company to be successful in this ever increasingly competitive environment, it must do both well!
Company officials must ensure that both hierarchical and team groups are structured and function in a manner to allow its individuals to truly feel engaged and motivated to maximize their contributions. And they need to create an environment where individuals can seamlessly migrate from one group type to another.
We welcome the opportunity to discuss how this can be accomplished at your company. For more information, please contact Joseph Kran at 800-376-8176 or via email at joe.kran@gigincmail.com.
Staff Review by: Joseph (Joe) Kran, Lawrence (Larry) Maglin, Walter Sonyi, Jr. and Rick Spann
No comments:
Post a Comment