Why Develop Teams

This paper addresses the impetuses driving the implementation of organisational teams. It argues that teamwork must be fostered and developed in the workplace and that, through the systematic application of the basic components of team performance, a competitive advantage and long-term survival can be achieved

Impetuses Driving the Implementation of Organisation Team

Traditional organisation structures

The traditional approach to organisational productivity dates back to the early part of this century and in particular to the work of Frederick Taylor at Midvale Steel Works where he was the Chief Engineer. His book The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) had enormous impact throughout the world. It was a bestseller in Japan, and Lenin, the communist leader, was quoted as saying We should try out every scientific and progressive suggestion in the Taylor system.

The profound effect of Taylor's thinking persists in many organisations today.

Traditional organisational structures are characterised by strict rules and procedures that control the working life of employees. Jobs are often fixed, repetitious and mundane, with little skill required. Tasks are generally segmented and employees work in isolation. Recognition and emotional support are sorely lacking. Performance standards are ill-defined and minimal. Management offer little or no feedback, resulting in greater segregation and division. Work becomes a lonely and isolating experience and the result is an alienated workforce.

The factory production line is a clear example of the traditional approach to management. Employees are divorced from the end-product and perform compartmentalised, repetitive tasks. The jobs lack challenge and have little meaning. Management do not recognise or value employees as individuals. The impression is that employees are just workers, and ones that can easily be replaced. In turn, employees feel under-utilised and lose their self-worth. Their personal needs are not being met. The organisation offers a job without challenge and meaning and employees work without recognition and a sense of identity or achievement.

The outcome is a fragmented group of demotivated, dissatisfied, unhappy and job-insecure people who work solely because they need to eat.

Changing values

Employee needs are changing. People are demanding a better quality product as consumers and a better quality of life as employees. They will no longer tolerate being treated as numbers, performing meaningless, isolating and alienating piecemeal jobs, being under-utilised and gaining no recognition for their work.

Today's employees want to feel a part of an organisational family unit. They need to feel involved in the organisation, to be given a sense of responsibility and to have the opportunity to contribute to the organisation as a whole. Job satisfaction is now recognised as an important aspect of modern life, and if employees don't feel satisfied, they are likely to seek work elsewhere. Today's workforce is a mobile workforce. Highly skilled people are taking job opportunities where they see them. Loyalty can no longer be taken for granted. And the organisations that attract the most competent employees will be those with a work environment that recognises employee needs.

The table below illustrates some of the changing values that indicate the need for a total review of organisation thinking along team-based lines.

The Past	The Future
Job secured through the organisaton or a union.	Job secured through performance that is clearly and relevantly defined.
Shareholders come first.	Total stakeholder satisfaction.
Strict organisational rules and procedures.	A unified sense of direction which includes vision, values, mission, outputs, measures and targets.
Us and them, everyone for himself/herself.	One team, one direction.
One person to one fragmented, separate, controlled job.	Teamwork to achieve autonomous outputs.
Little skill required.	Multiskilling.
Routine work with minimal involvement and trust.	Challenging work with maximum involvement and trust.
Production determines availability and value is an extra.	Quality determines demand and value is everything.
Adversarial short-term relationships with suppliers, contractors and unions.	Cooperative strategic alliances, partnerships and relationships with suppliers, customers and unions.
Boss and employee in subordinate relationship.	Team leader and team member in team environment.
People need to be changed.	The environment/culture/structure needs to be changed.
Performance information tightly controlled by the bosses.	Performance information freely and openly available in the work environment.
Complicated structure with many levels.	Flat team-based structure with few levels.
Individual rewards linked to job evaluation.	Team rewards for productivity gains.
Workers carry out orders and work because they have to.	Teams make decisions and workers work because they want to.

The great divide

In the past, organisations could survive with poor work environments and without regard to employee needs or total stakeholder satisfaction which includes the satisfaction of worker needs. Yet today, a great divide is evident in both the public and private sectors world-wide. Those organisations that are not creating a work environment that provides total stakeholder satisfaction are being out-performed by those that can. Organisations that can provide a better working life for employees as well as producing a better quality product for external customers are holding the competitive advantage. The divide is evident in productivity, performance and, in the end, survival.

To survive and thrive in the future, organisations have to be restructured in line with a better understanding of how organisations work, and redesigned to accommodate the changing values and rising expectations of employees.

Organisations need to adapt to the changing values and expectations of their stakeholders. This means the successful implementation of the basic components of team performance.

Success Through Team Performance

Success means different things to different people – job satisfaction, job security, more money or an ideal life style. Whatever success means to the individual or organisation, it can only be achieved through team performance. In an interview with Life Magazine in 1990, Nelson Mandela said: How can one individual solve the problems of the world? Problems can only be solved if one is part of a team.

The satisfaction of individual needs and the provision of total stakeholder satisfaction is a complex issue. Nothing short of the total implementation of the basic components of team performance will suffice. The basic components of team performance are simple, commonsense elements strongly evident in all high-performance teams. All teams will have the components to some degree, but the better developed these components are, the better the team's performance. These key components must be examined, and opportunities to improve them sought. However, don't fix what is not broken – only work with those components of team performance which need improvement. Once identified, an environment or culture in which the basic components can be implemented can be created. These essential components can then be systematically built into everyday activities, ensuring that performance is continuously improved. The philosophy is simple: do the basics as best as you can, all of the time, and you will inevitably improve. With these basics anchored into the workplace environment or culture, performance will continuously improve, and the improvements will be sustained in the long term.

The basic components of team performance

• A unified sense of direction focuses the organisational team on a positive future and provides meaning, purpose and a sense of one team, one direction.
  
  
• Long-term strategies or goals for achieving the organisation's vision are an important component of team performance. These are usually described in a strategic plan with a time frame of three to five years. A good strategic plan, which includes a vision, provides the blueprint for coordination, direction and teamwork.
  
  
• Role clarification defines the role of the individual and the small team of which he/she is a member within the context of the larger organisational team. It is within these small teams that rising employee expectations can be met. They provide the organisational equivalent of the family unit. The most competitive organisations have incorporated the best aspects of home life into the workplace by establishing small, autonomous teams.
  
  
• Outputs, measures and targets lay the foundation for empowerment. Empowerment is the creation of an organisational culture in which all employees use as much of their ability as possible, in a unified and synergistic way, to produce the results required by internal and external customers.
  In order to clarify the notion of empowerment we need to draw a distinction between what has to be done and how it is to be achieved.
  
  What has to be done is determined in consultation with the customer, who may be internal or external. This is done by clarifying exactly what outputs are required, how those outputs are to be measured, and what targets or standards are acceptable.
  
  How best to achieve these outputs should be left to the experts, who we define as 'the people doing the job'. As the old saying suggests, If you want to know the road up a mountain, ask the man who walks it every day.
  
  If outputs, measures and targets are clarified at all levels of the organisation, if each individual and the team to which she/he belongs knows exactly what is expected, then, and only then, is everyone empowered.
  
  Empowerment exists because the targets and standards form parameters within which people can exercise authority, make decisions, solve problems, communicate, utilise resources and generally implement solutions.
  
  This is exactly the way organisations are run at the upper management levels. Similar systems, including systems of measurement, should be created with the same degree of empowerment for workers and workforce teams, for those who are in the front-lines dealing with customers, for those who are adding value in the manufacturing plant. Doing so will create an environment in which the energy released from unlocking human potential can be harnessed and focused.
  
  The result will be increased productivity and quality of working life.
  
  
• Performance-linked communication systems are an essential component in all organisations. Lynton Hayes, the Executive Director of AIM, quotes from a study done in Western Australia: The message coming from the workers is loud and clear: My productivity would be higher if my supervisor and management would give me more feedback on the results of my work, listen more to my ideas and provide greater recognition for good work.
  
  A successful performance-linked communication system will support communication and the analysis and discussion of performance feedback. The aim of such a system is to improve productivity, quality and teamwork and so it will be based on outputs, measures and targets that have already been defined in relation to all stakeholders.
  
  The better the communication system the more satisfied employees will be with all aspects of their work.
  
  
• Today's organisations need to be learning organisations to keep up with continual developments in information technology and to remain globally competitive. In order to develop a learning organisation, management need to invest in employees with training that is tied to organisational goals. Performance-linked learning systems will ensure the training of team members is in line with the specific skills and knowledge required by the team to meet organisational goals. Performance-linked learning systems encourage purposeful, systematic learning that is part of a continuous improvement system, which in turn contributes to a sustainable competitive advantage.
  
  
• How jobs are designed can have a lot to do with team member satisfaction and performance. And the way jobs are designed reflects the way an organisation is structured. Team-based organisation structures contribute to employee satisfaction by ensuring the social needs of employees are balanced with the organisational need for competent technical performance. Work that is more autonomous, holistic and challenging encourages better employee performance which, in turn, increases the productivity of an organisation. The benefits are often simultaneous. For example, flattening the management pyramid improves internal communication which produces more responsive customer services.
  
  
• Reward systems can be a very powerful motivating tool to improve productivity, quality and overall teamwork. Yet most reward systems are geared around a few individual managers rather than encouraging a philosophy of one team, one direction and improvement of the overall system. Rewards in the form of money, other tangible items and recognition are integral to motivating individuals and teams to sustain the highest levels of performance.

Teamwork - A Learned Skill

The utilisation of teamwork to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage is a complex task. Yet at school, technical college and university little training in how to work in a team-based environment is provided. Every individual is left to their own devices until they enter an organisation that depends on their ability to work with others to achieve results.

Successful managers, supervisors and workers possess qualities of commonsense, objectiveness, analytical judgement, decision-making ability and technical competence. They must be capable of sustained hard work, team- work, and tolerance in a working environment that is complex, confusing and continually changing. In short, they have to display qualities that cannot be learned at school, technical college or university. Organisations must therefore prepare to meet their own needs. Only the consistent and persistent application of the basic components of team performance in a purposeful and systematic way will ensure a sustainable competitive advantage and long-term survival.

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