Transitioning to Teamwork

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Transitioning to Teamwork

- Without Losing Control

by Paula Gamonal

The Opportunity

Teamwork is a hugely popular buzzword in the workplace these days. Many companies experiment with some forms of teamwork, with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, a number of things can go wrong with such an experiment, and at the first sign of substandard performance, a company may give up the "teamwork thing" and go back to a command and control environment.

Relationships between managers and workers may be worse than they were before the beginning of the experiment. Trust and credibility suffers on both sides of the fence.

How can you "hedge your bets" and make your company a more teamlike environment and reap the benefits of creativity, individual contribution, improved morale, and synergy without the risk of things getting out of control?

The Solution

The solution involves ensuring that you're not just jumping blindly on the bandwagon with a team approach that may not be appropriate or well thought-out for your environment. Make sure you're changing for the right reasons, that you set appropriate boundaries, (teamwork is not anarchy!) that you communicate everything to everyone effectively, that you negotiate roles and responsibilities, that you measure performance and that you give it time.

Change for the Right Reasons

Teamwork is not a new innovation in the workplace, but it has been getting a lot of attention lately. The reasons for its insurgence include a number of social, economic and practical factors, including:

The "worker's market" economy and low unemployment rate cause employers to value employee contributions more and want to keep good people when they find them.

Most employees are more committed to a company's success when they have more input into the processes and outcomes.

Many industries, especially those involving technology and creativity, benefit from steady sources of new, fresh ideas and approaches.

Teamwork rings true with many cultural values, including democracy and the inherent value of each individual.

People have a basic human need to be a part of a group that is accomplishing a common purpose.

Teamwork makes them feel more included in contributing to that common purpose, rather than just supporting the guy above them on the "totem pole."

Put a Fence Around It- Teamwork Is Not Anarchy

Although one of the tenets of teamwork is that everyone has a say; there are some things that do not change. There is a "Social Contract" (to borrow Rousseau's term) of each society and each company that people enter into, whether it's expressed or implied. Expressing your "social contract" on paper cuts down on misunderstandings, and gives the company the means to clarify its position and/or put the kabosh on any type of behavior that may be dangerous to the welfare of the company. This should be a living document that allows for input from a number of people (everybody in the company, if your workforce is small and/or mature enough to allow for it) and should include:

Your company's mission, goals and objectives

Expectations of each person to contribute to the mission, goals and objectives. This can include items like:

Time accounting

Interaction/representation standards with customers

Interaction standards with other employees

Problem/conflict resolution process, etc.

Decide before the fact that conflicts or disagreements will be resolved by a popular vote, or a neutral third party, or somebody in a leadership role. If everyone agrees to this beforehand, it will save everyone a lot of angst down the road. An employee with a problem is much more likely to continue to be a contributor if he or she feels like he or she is being treated fairly even if he doesn't agree with every decision.

In a worst-case scenario, this will also make it somewhat less messy to deal with a discipline or termination action. (Although it's far more likely to come to that if everyone understands the playing field up front.)

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

In any environment (whether it's team-oriented or not) communication, or lack thereof, is the source of most people problems.

Just as the media is an integral part of a democracy (the population can't be expected to make informed decisions if they don't get complete, unaltered information) a company's communication system is an integral part of the success of a team-based organization. The more and better information each person has, the better his or her contributions are likely to be.

This includes mass communications to level the playing field and ensure everyone is informed of basic facts and developments, and providing the vehicles for individuals and workgroups to share the results of their work or research with one another.

The Means

"Town-Hall" meetings

Presentations

Announcements

Posters

E-mails

Inter/Intra/Extranets

Newsletters/periodicals

Memos

The Message

Policy Changes

Reminders

Requests for suggestions Process

Development of

Need for

Use of

Problem/conflict resolution process, etc.

Contributions

Measurements

How we're doing

Meaningful comparisons

Consequences (to stock price, earnings per share, profit-sharing, incentive pay, or some other bottom-line measurement that answers the question- 'so what?')

Negotiate Roles and Responsibilities

Any time you make a change to the role or responsibilities of a person on an existing workforce, you risk a thousand insecurities and trigger resistance if you do not communicate and negotiate the transition in a respectful way. They accepted a position with your company with a certain understanding and certain assumptions. Changing the rules of the game midway is almost never successful unless the people understand what's going on and are motivated to make it work. Involving people in the process of making the change is an excellent way to: Get better information (after all they're more knowledgeable about the immediate subject matter of what needs to be done.)

Engender cooperation and buy-in.

With an existing workforce, brainstorm everything that needs to be done. (This can be depersonalized by having people write them on sticky notes and post them. ) List the items and evaluate them against existing skill sets, and "nominate" specific employees (or allow them to volunteer) for tasks. Always ensure they agree to what they're being asked to perform.

There are always some jobs or tasks that no one wants. Ensure these are tied with some special compensation, or are rotated, or given some special recognition.

Measure Performance

Just the knowledge that you're being observed tends to affect your behavior. Posting measurements in an obvious place (Group A turned out 500 widgets this week) will help spotlight areas that are doing well or need improvement.

Holding teams accountable for performance, including positive and negative consequences, is sometimes inherent in the measurement process. You may also tie profit-sharing or other compensation to consequences of team performance in a meaningful way.

Holding a team accountable, and giving them the means to hold individuals within the team accountable, is also a very powerful thing. Having individual recognition for contributions, or having the means to suggest that team members challenge one another respectfully to improve their performance is much more effective than having the overall management (which is generally too far from the situation to see it accurately) perform these functions. Teams who nominate one another for promotions or who can nix or hold a promotion or raise based on performance tend to take the responsibility seriously and do a much more thorough and efficient job of these functions than someone detached from the individuals day to day performance.

Give it Time

Outline a specific time period, with expectations and outcomes. Indicate to the company that a performance system or policy change will be tested for six months, and you expect a measurable outcome with consequences. If productivity, (or whatever you're measuring) increases by X%, the policy change will stand and others will be considered.

Cultural changes require time. Teamwork is a time-intensive process at the front end. Command and control environments may seem much more efficient in the short run, because there are no decisions to be made 'down the line,' roles are predefined, and there are no questions. Teamwork takes time for everyone to work through the questions and alignments, to settle into working relationships, and get down to work. However, in almost every case you end up with a more stable, highly-functioning group in the long run.

Conclusion

It is possible to move to a team environment without losing control of your company. Teamwork is not magic, however, and good results depend on hard work and preparation on everyone's part. By researching the factors outlined in this article (and doing further reading in the Resources section) you can take advantage of factors learned by the challenges others have survived (or not!) Team-based companies tend to be much more flexible to market changes; able to attract and keep quality employees; and in our opinions, much more creative and interesting places to go to work every day.

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