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The Driving Force excerpt - Chapter 1
TripleWin Relationship Continuum
Win-lose approaches ultimately curtail any true teamwork. To illustrate how important this is, consider the TripleWin Relationship continuum. This model defines the appropriate relationships for creating and maintaining a team-based culture.
Team Realities (p 11-17)
All over the world, organizations are discovering that with
the right conditions, teams can be the right answer. In exploring
the questions surrounding teams, many myths and assumptions
must be clarified. Based on my years of experience, I have identified
certain realities that cut across organization and country boundaries
when it comes to successfully implementing a team structure.
Therefore, I recommend that you examine these realities against
what has gone on in your own organization and make the necessary
adjustments.
Reality #1: More than 50 Percent of Major Change Initiatives Fail.
As with any major investment, team initiatives
succeed only when they are treated as seriously as acquiring
a brand new business. This means providing sufficient up-front
planning and resources and allotting sufficient time for growth.
Teams are a long-term strategy that will only yield a reasonable
return on investment over time. Statistics indicate that many
team concept projects fail5. A combination of factors leads
to this reality: poor planning, insufficient resource allocation,
and ill-conceived implementation strategies are just a few of
the more common mistakes. When an organization needs employees
to actively co-manage the business and achieve higher quality
levels or a stronger customer focus, a team-based structure
can help. Teams only work when a framework to build and sustain
the team is solidly in place.
Reality #2: Change Is Inevitable, and Every Change Causes a Team to Start Over.
Even the best sport team
starts over with a player change. When adding a new player,
a team must step back, figure out what has changed, find a new
rhythm, and establish a new game plan. This same premise holds
true for work teams—and in today’s rapidly changing
business environment, a team that can make quick membership
or task changes and accelerate the team’s development
is worth its weight in gold. Defining the change process, allowing
for endings, making quick yet effective transitions, and moving
on to strong, new beginnings is a formula for success. Developing
the mindset and the skills to allow a change to trigger an assessment
of how things are going and to identify necessary changes is
also key to the success of a team structure. When new members
are added or a new and different task is handed to the team,
the team must digress and start over in meeting its challenge.
With skill and experience, this development process can happen
quickly. Knowing the rate of change ahead, investing in team
process skills that allow teams to become “quick-change”
teams is a smart decision.
Reality #3: We Miss Opportunities to Learn with Every Team Failure.
Every organization that has tried to
implement a team concept has a tremendous amount of information
about what worked and why, what failed and why, and what tools
can be used to help teams in all stages, from start-up through
continuous improvement. So why are we not getting smarter about
how to implement and sustain teams? It may be that our organizations
have a learning disability. As corporations try to do more work
with less staff and fewer resources, the use of teams can provide
more value than traditional business structures. This is true
only if an organization has a process for capturing and using
learning. Increasing the discipline in the set-up, implementation,
and evaluation of all team initiatives would increase our learning.
This requires the ability to think critically and implement
proactively. It also may require organizations to admit when
the team structures are not working. From that realization,
decisions to repair, restructure, or regroup can save time,
money, and wear and tear on the organization.
“WE TEND TO THINK OF TEAMS as having
high-involvement norms, consensus decision making, and freedom
to act, and we spend a lot of time training and developing around
these elements. I’ve come to believe that instead we should
focus on creating loyalty, ownership, and acceptance of the
norms of the team. In teams, the motivation is ‘What’s
in it for me?’ This is not a selfish attitude; it’s
how the world works.”— Carl Boyer, Retired
Clark Equipment Manager
Reality #4: Not Every Person Wants to Be on a Team.
WIIFM—“What’s In It For Me?”
is a fair question. If the organization doesn’t address
individual employee concerns, it risks the success of the team
initiative from its inception. You’ve all heard the clichéd
adage that “there is no ‘I’ in teamwork,”
but many employees still feel that I do the work. Making assumptions
about the nature of people and work may lead to problems down
the road. The key is to address each individual’s concerns
and questions. Is the team approach really meant to engage people
in the business, and are people encouraged to work with as well
as for each other? When this commitment is real, the organization
indicates that it values and welcomes a diversity of opinion
and approach. If the organization doesn’t value and welcome
such diversity, then it should tell people what to do with clear
boundaries and expectations in order to yield better results.
If an organization has decided a team structure is the right
next step, skeptical members need time to evaluate their options.
Most members of the organization will support the change. Those
who do not must be provided a way to leave with their dignity
intact.“THE BEST TEAMS START FROM SCRATCH with a clear
charter from above, resources to do the job, and the freedom
to work and experiment. Each person had a way of contributing
something unique and of value when they were working best. And
they made a measurable impact on the business.” —
Chuck Mallue, Ex-Exxon Consultant and Manager
Reality #5: Teams Are Not a Stand-Alone Answer; They Must Fit Clearly into an Overall Plan.
Not every organization
should implement a team-based structure. Teams do not work well
unless the organization’s structures and systems support
them. They must reinforce the principles and values outlined
in the company’s vision and mission statement. A common
question is “can teams work in a hierarchical structure?”
The answer is maybe. In a hierarchy, teams must be a true extension
of management, used to assist and support the needs of management7.
If the organization can clearly define the purpose and roles
of teams and set up mechanisms and structures to gain benefits,
then teams can work. If teams are not the right answer, having
collaboration at the individual level can also lead to great
results. Building trusting relationships, maintaining open lines
of communication, and using teamwork to solve problems does
not require a formal team structure to be in place. Equally
important is what the organization recognizes and rewards. A
quick way to undermine the success of the team structure is
to reward individuals in a way that discourages them from helping
other team members. Traditional systems, such as suggestion
programs, ranking employees for pay raises, and individual performance
appraisals, can subtly or directly communicate that teamwork
is today’s panacea, but individuals must really watch
out for themselves. Without a strong foundation of congruent
systems and structures, teams can easily fall apart under ordinary
workplace pressures.
Reality #6: Most Organizations Haven’t Figured Out the Manager’s Role in a Team-Based Organization.
Many managers struggle with the participative elements of team
structures. Status has always been a privilege, even a goal,
for management members. Leveling the positional power base requires
an adjustment in thinking and a new definition of the manager’s
role. For managers at all levels, team-based management can
be threatening, and ignoring the situation does not make it
go away. Failure to link managers to new roles that support
and grow the teams is a big mistake. To address the evolving
role of managers within team-based structures, managers must
become leaders, and as leaders they manage, provide strategic
direction and operational advice, and build their teams. This
is not only a way to deploy the managers, but this new role
strengthens a team’s performance by providing the right
kind of management support. Unless the role of the managers
is configured to include a role with the team, such as coach
and team developer, the tension between the traditional approach
and the team approach will render the organization ineffective.
Teams rarely work if managers in the organization are unable
or unwilling to inspire, empower, and support their decisions.“THE
TRUTH BEHIND MANY TEAM FAILURES is senior management. I can
not count the times someone at a higher level has changed priorities,
had his own idea instead, or just not had the confidence, guts,
or skill to allow a team to flourish.” — Chuck Mallue,
Ex-Exxon Consultant and Manager
Reality #7: Achieving Team Effectiveness Is Not Cheap or Easy.
What level of investment in teams leads to
high performance? This is a good question, and one that needs
to be answered when establishing teams. An organization must
invest in training both team members and team managers. Skills
in listening, assertiveness, conflict management, meeting management,
problem solving, change management, creative thinking, and business
basics are essential. In addition, training in team dynamics
and team development is needed to prepare the team for the natural
conflicts that will occur.Ongoing opportunities for team building
are also valuable. During team building, team members get to
know each other, learn how to support each other, and determine
the most effective ways to work together. This allows the team
to form trusting relationships that help avoid pitfalls, wrong
turns, and discouragement in the early stages of the team’s
development. With strong interpersonal and team skills, synergy
and creativity can be unleashed and challenges can be dealt
with as opportunities. However, team building is successful
only if management continually reinforces the right behaviors
after the initial creation of the team. Team development is
an exercise regimen that must be followed regularly to maintain
benefits. Thus, management support and attention are needed
after the team is assigned as much as before.
Reality #8: It’s Essential to Have Clear Accountability and Ways to Measure a Team’s Success.
What do companies hope to gain with teams? A popular saying is “what
counts gets measured and what gets measured gets done.”
Therefore, a critical factor for teams is to have clear goals
and performance targets. Every team must understand its goals,
work toward them, and be rewarded when it meets those goals
or suffer consequences when it misses them. Typically, goals
would capture improvements in productivity, work processes,
and quality. Additional benefits include flexibility to respond
to situations and creative approaches to new challenges. Once
the goals are set, the team must be held accountable for its
progress and be recognized for its accomplishments. A key to
all teams, regardless of what stage of development the team
is in, is to ensure there is sufficient discipline, alignment,
accountability, and involvement in the team process. Then results
and performance can be fairly measured. Without clear measures,
teams falter and can become a hiding place for low performers
and inefficiency. Unfortunately, poor performance can breed
additional poor performance. When this occurs, it is not just
a team problem, it becomes a leadership and organizational problem.
Reality #9: Teamwork Between Teams Is Difficult but Essential.
Teams within an organization can disconnect from
each other when they work in isolation. They may work on things
that individually might be worthwhile but only contribute marginally
to the overall performance of the organization. Synergy is missing.
Sometimes, good individual team efforts end up at cross-purposes
with each other. Too often, teams individually do worthwhile
work, but collectively they go nowhere. This usually indicates
the absence of internal strategies and systems that link teams
and their individual missions into a larger collaborative purpose.
A better alternative is to find ways to link teams together.
Having various teams working closely together creates an integrated
organization. When teamwork is not integrated, the result is
communication breakdowns and misunderstandings, and wasted time
and work. The goal is to facilitate communication between groups
and encourage the leaders to talk with each other and to strive
to find connections and opportunities for teams to join forces
and work together. As the saying goes:TEAM = Together wE Accomplish
MoreThere needs to be a system of teams, an interactive network
of efforts that operate in synch toward common purposes. |
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