High Performance Teams
Gregory Rutbell
29 November 2013
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Worldwide
Campus
Identify the elements of
high-performance teams, shared values, and review the four patterns of working
together. In your RB: 1)
Detail one positive and one negative experience. 2) Connect
these experiences to the readings and module objectives. 3) What could you
have done to influence the outcomes? A team has a time-bound, predefined
operational objective, with commitments to produce some product or service. A team
is focused on accomplishing a task. Members of a team are connected by
interdependent tasks and values. Membership in a team tends to be a matter of
appointment by the organization. (Denning, 2011) High-performance
teams goals relate to doing something. High-performance teams are exceptional.
In addition to having the basics in place: clear goal, appropriate leadership
and membership, and adequate resources
and support, high-performance teams exhibit characteristics of community as
well: 1.
High-performance teams actively shape the expectations of those who use their
output - and then exceed the resulting
expectations. 2.
High-performance teams rapidly adjust their performance to the shifting needs
of the situation. The innovate on
the fly, seizing opportunities and turning setbacks into good fortune. 3.
High performance teams grow steadily stronger. Over time, members come to know one another's strengths and
weaknesses and become highly skilled in coordinating their activities, anticipating each other's next
moves, and initiating appropriate responses as those
moves are occurring. 4.
The members of a high-performance team grow individually. Mutual concern for
each other's personal growth enables
high-performance teams to develop interchangeable skills and hence greater flexibility. 5.
Fueled by interpersonal commitments, the purposes of high-performance teams become nobler, team performance goals more
urgent, and team approach more powerful. 6. High-performance teams carry out
their work with shared passion. The notion that "if one fails, we all fail" pervades the
team. (Denning, 2011) The
experience of being a member of a high-performance team is deeply meaningful.
According to Peter Senge, "When you ask people about what it is like being
a part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the
experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves,
of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that for many,
their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of
life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways
to recapture the spirit." (Denning, p. 156) Thus even when the job is over
and the team has disbanded, the members tend to have reunions to reminisce and
relive the experience. (Denning, 2011) According
to Katzenbach and Smith in The Wisdom of Teams, "What sets apart
high-performance teams... is the degree of commitment, particularly how deeply
committed the members are to one another. Such commitments go well beyond
civility and teamwork. Each genuinely helps the others to achieve personal and
professional goals. Furthermore, such commitments extend beyond company
activities and even beyond the life of the team itself." (Denning, p. 157)
To put it another way, high-performance teams have the characteristics of
effective communities: a web of affect-laden relationships; a commitment to
shared values, norms and meanings; a shared history and identity; and a
relatively high level of responsiveness to members and to the world. (Denning,
2011) Managers
have import roles and responsibilities in establishing the basic operating
arrangements for teams and communities. In the case of teams, managers need to
establish direction, membership, resources, recognition and accountability.
Managers can implement these basics with conventional management techniques by
taking the necessary hierarchical decisions. But hierarchical approaches cannot
generate either high-performance teams. According to Richard Hackman in Leading
Teams, "There is no way to 'make' a team perform well. Teams create their
own realities and control their own destinies to a far greater extent, and far
sooner in their lives, than we generally recognized." (Denning, p. 157) (Denning,
2011) It's
not that the standard management techniques are ineffective in the area of
high-performance teams. They can be actually harmful. Attempts to formalize or
blueprint processes typically kill the passion of high performance teams. The
result is that high-performance teams slide back into mere competence. The
techniques of directing, controlling, and deciding that are used in traditional
management to optimize and standardize repetitive processes are ill suited to
inspiring and energizing high-performance teams. That's because these
techniques are "designed for aliveness." (Denning, p. 158) (Denning,
2011) The
ability of a team to collaborate is essential to team effectiveness. A
collaborative climate is one in which members can stay problem focused, listen
to and understand one another, feel free to take risks, and be willing to
compensate for one another. To build an atmosphere that fosters collaboration,
we need to develop trusting relationships based on honesty, openness,
consistency, and respect. Integration of individual actions is one of the
fundamental characteristics of effective teams. Team members "have specific
and unique roles, where the performance of each role contributes to collective
success. This means that the causes of team failure may reside not only in
member inability, but also in their collective failure to coordinate and
synchronize their individual contributions." (Northhouse, p. 301) Research
demonstrates that effective team leaders ensure a collaborative climate by
making communication safe, demanding and rewarding collaborative behavior, guiding
the team's problem-solving efforts, and managing their own control needs. (Northhouse,
2013) Table 1 Comparison of Theory and Research Criteria Conditions of Group Effectiveness Characteristics of Team
Exellence Clear, engaging direction Clear, elevating goal Enabling structure Results-driven
structure Competent
team members Unified
commitment Collaborative
climate Enabling content Standards
of excellence Adequate material resources External support and recognition
Expert coaching Principled
leadership (Northhouse, 2013) High-performing teams
share many traits. Healthcare company Kaiser Permanente conducted a research
study of 16 of its high-performing teams in five different regions of the
United States. The study found that the teams shared the following
characteristics: 1.
Strong leadership. Acting more like coaches than managers, team leaders share
information - financial, performance, staffing, and so forth - with team
members so that everyone is in the loop and understands the big picture. Also,
multiple team members have the opportunity to rotate into the leadership role. 2.
Line of sight. Team members have a clear understanding of how their actions
influence the overall strategic goals of the organization. In support of this
objective, performance metrics should be understandable and accessible to all
team members. 3.
Team cohesion. High-performance teams find ways to build cohesion among
members, whether it's through regular team meetings, posting summaries of
meetings or announcements, or by e-mail. 4.
Process improvement. High-performing teams use structured approaches to
improving their performance, whether Dr. Deming's "Plan-So-Study-Act"
process, the use of "huddles" (i.e., short meetings without a formal
agenda) or the use of "status meetings" (short meetings with a formal
agenda of reporting status of a project, production, etc.). 5.
Infrastructure and support. Ongoing training is often used in high-performance
teams to ensure a "shared language and set of expectations" among
team members. Also, high-performance teams obtain the support of internal
sponsors and mentors who can help the team obtain the resources necessary for
the team's success. (Ivancevich, Konopaske, and Matteson, 2014) Table 2 Differences between Conventional and High-Performance
Teams Charactertics High-Performance
Teams Conventional Teams Leadership
Within the
team Outside
the team Team member role Interchangeable Fixed Accountability Team Individual Work effort Cohesive Divided
Task design Flexible Fixed Skills Multiskilled Specialized (Ivancevich, Konopaske, and Matteson, 2014) Table 3 Benefits of High-Performance Teams 1. Greater improvements in quality, speed, process
and innovation. 2.
A sense of belonging and ownership in one's work. 3. Greater
employee motivation. 4.
Accelerated new product and process development. 5.
Greater employee participation. 6. Reduced operational costs because
of reductions in managerial ranks and greater efficiencies.
7.
Greater employee job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity and lower
turnover and absenteeism rates. (Ivancevich,
Konopaske, and Matteson, 2014) The last few
decades have seen a massive shift toward working together, for many reasons: 1.
The work requires it. Working together with others is necessary to achieve
increased speed to market, faster product development, better customer service,
lower costs, and the opening of new markets. No individual has the expertise
necessary to get everything done. Collaboration has become a critical
competency for achieving and sustaining high-performance. 2. People want it. After several
hundred years of emphasis on the development of the individual, the pendulum
has begun to shift back toward an interest in being together. Growing numbers
of people are interested in moving from a world of "me" to a world of
"we." 3. Technology has made it possible. Radical
changes in the ability to stay in touch with others, by e-mail, the Web, and
cell phones, have resulted in a global explosion of connectivity. Technology
makes it possible for people to be spatially dispersed and still connected
together. (Denning, 2011) The
rapid growth of the numbers of teams, communities, and networks is likely to
continue: 1.
Geographically dispersed teams can now be scattered around the world and
communicate fully with each other. As global supply chains proliferate, it's
increasingly common to see goods designed on one continent, manufactured on
another, and sold on a third. Ever-faster cycle times require closer and more
agile collaboration. 2. Communities of practice are recognized as
essential for knowledge sharing in an organization. All organizations
eventually discover that sharing knowledge happens systematically only when
informal networks or communities of practice are in place. 3. Mergers and acquisitions
tend to fail as a result of the clash of cultures. Often a merger brings
together groups that have been fighting each other as competitors, maybe for
generations. The management then expects the members of these groups to work
together. These situations make it urgent to figure out how to get people
working together rapidly and naturally. 4.
Supply chain management is moving toward federated planning. The traditional
approach in which the organization being supplied is seen as the commander of
all the organizations that provide products or services, with the result that
communications flow in single direction and suggestions from suppliers are not
on the table, is giving way to an approach in which supply chain partners
collaborate to address the trade-offs and break constraints across the extended
enterprise. Suppliers become genuine partners. (Denning, 2011)
A
positive experience I have had from working together is with Boeing. Boeing
merged with McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International in 1997 creating the
world's largest aerospace company. The journey has taken almost twenty years to
integrate different cultures into one. The end result has created the world's
leading aerospace company working together to create the future of flight. Vision
2016 states "People working together as a global enterprise for aerospace
leadership." Working together social events include: luncheons, family
picnics, barbeques, and sporting events. Working together community service
events include: World Vision Books and Backpacks for schools and children,
volunteer events at food banks, etc. Boeing Values include: Leadership
Integrity
Quality
Customer satisfaction
People working together
A diverse and involved team
Global corporate citizenship
Enhancing shareholder value (Boeing, 2013) One
negative experience is my high-performance industrial engineering team was
downgraded from a high level to a low level because of poor performance. Why
did this happen? We lost focus and scope of team roles and responsibilities
including ineffective communication. We now have bi-weekly team meetings
including high-performance team training, working together events, and goals
objectives four panel chart summaries.
References
Boeing. (2013). [On-Line] Available http://www.boeing.com/.
Denning, Stephen (2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling -
Mastering The Art and Discipline
of Business Narrative.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).
Ivancevich, John M., Konopaske, Robert, and Matteson, Michael
T. (2014). Organizational Behavior
& Management (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Lussier, Robert N. and Achua, Christopher F. (2013)
Leadership: Theory, Application & Skill Development.
(5th ed). Mason, Ohio: South-Western, Cengage Learning.
Northhouse, Peter G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th
ed.). Thousand Oaks, California:
SAGE.
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