s perception of the function
from that of a necessary evil and expense, to one of a partnership that can add significant value. IT can be valuable in helping the alliance get started and
implemented faster, and with a higher degree of quality. This translates into a strategic advantage for the company.
Chapter 19: Managing the Change to Self-
Directed Teams: Myths and Miseries
Jeanette R. Newman
OVERVIEW
In the information age, manufactured products have become commodities. Global expansion in particular has allowed companies to clone products faster and at less cost with more regularity than ever before. Because the need for product differentiation becomes increasingly important when products are commodities, organizations are competing to bring the most innovative product to market in the shortest possible time and with the strongest customer service.
The ability of organizations to adapt to these marketplace changes is closely tied to the search for infrastructures that strengthen the organization and maximize its human potential. One such structure is the self- directed work team.
The process of developing a high-performance self-directed team profoundly influences the membership of an organization, management, and the organization itself. Innovation, creativity, collaboration, ownership, and employee satisfaction or even passion about work are some of the positive outcomes of the team-based organization that increase effectiveness and efficiency and help ensure market recognition and differentiation.
The movement to self-directed work teams and more interactive and innovative organizations is not an event or a program implemented through a basic and clear-cut plan. It is a profound and basic transformation in the way organizations relate, interact, and respond to each other and their customers. Although its path is unclear at times and the final possibilities uncertain, what is clear is that the transformation emphasizes relationships, processes, and learning. This chapter is designed to support IS managers who have recently made the decision to implement self-directed teams and those who have already achieved varying degrees of progress with the team structure. This chapter focuses on recognizing and managing the myths and the miseries associated with the organizational transformation to teams.
ESTABLISHING THE CONTEXT FOR TEAMS
Significant learning must occur before an organization embarks on the transformation to teams. A framework and link (i.e., context) need to be established between the current organizational state and the reason for having the conversation about the desired state. The context thus provides the basis for the conversations that are necessary for building a strong foundation for change.
The important context regarding teams concerns definitions of terms that are frequently interchanged in organizations. Clarifying the following definitions is the first step toward group unity:
§ Groups: Two or more people who work together toward a common goal, individually, with little interdependency.
§ Self-directed or self-managed teams: Groups that have learned over time to take on higher levels of responsibility for their work with higher incidence of interdependency.
Each of these definitions contains degrees of variation across a spectrum ranging from limited intrateam interaction and dependency to highly integrated, highly dependent interaction among team members. This concept is illustrated in the graph in Exhibit 1, which depicts the type of team opportunities existing in an organization based on the duration a group is to work together to meet an objective and interdependency of the work being performed.
Exhibit 1. The Spectrum of Opportunity
The graph does not provide a linear or absolute view. It is intended to generate thoughts and guide related dialogues about teams and to help develop a spectrum of opportunity that more closely resembles a particular organization. There is no right or wrong place to be on the graph, no better or worse arrangement of groupings.
The important point is for an organization to have the conversation about the range of possibilities and how teams could fit into the organizational structure. Even in the lowest quadrant of opportunity, an organization can achieve benefits of the team structure by polishing relationships and communication skills.
MYTHS OF SELF-DIRECTED TEAMS
Myths are described as fiction, parables, stories, tradition, and, most appropriately, legends. According to the American College Dictionary, legends are “nonhistorical or unverifiable stories handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical [factual].” In other words, the legend is considered fact until disproved.
This same definition is at work in organizations. Organizational myths or legends are the truth for the people in the organization, who make decisions based on a combination of these myths and facts. Because myths lead to additional myths and subsequently to miseries, IS managers should recognize and prepare for them. Five myths appear most frequently in organizations implementing the team structure.
Myth One: Managers Know How to Do This
The first myth regarding teams is that managers know how to implement and build teams; they have all the right answers, the most profound vision, the best competencies, and the grandest insight into the workings of the institution or organization. For the most part, the people of the organization expect the managers to make the right decisions, delegate effectively, and know what they are doing. The managers, in turn, also believe in this myth and its related expectations, which tend to reinforce the traditional hierarchy and one-way communication of information, knowledge, and experience.
Expecting that implementation of teams cannot be too difficult because it falls under the rubric of managerial experience, the managers begin to implement teams with the best form of leadership they know: to direct, delegate, and control. Once the teams begin their journey, however, the managers intellectualize that the role of the manager needs to change. This leads to the next myth.
Myth Two: If Left Alone, Teams Will Naturally Develop
Much of the literature on team-based organizations suggests that a manager’
s role
needs to change. These articles go on to describe the manager’
s role at a macrolevel,
as a coach with minimal involvement in the team’
s day-to-day operations. Managers
usually interpret this material to mean: do not meddle or interfere in the natural group development of the teams; stay out of the team’
s way; take a distant position
in relationship to the team; and focus more intensely on other challenges, such as global, architectural, and strategic issues. All of these actions are intended to give the teams the space they need to develop into fully functioning self-directed teams.
At the same time, managers still exhibit some of the tendencies associated with myth one; they become involved with great zeal when there is a problem, providing direction and leadership as in the past to save the day, but they retreat to their offices or conference room when the incident is over to handle their global tasks. In the initial phases of team development, this management at arm’
s length with
associated spurts of crisis intervention is not the most effective method for implementing teams. A more effective approach to the relationship between managers and teams throughout the team process is depicted in Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2. The Transfer of Authority (From J.D. Osborn et al., Self Directed
Teams: The New American Challenge, Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1990, p. 62.)
The first stages of team implementation require far more managerial involvement than managers realize. It is in the final stages that the transfer begins to take place and the team vision is realized. Organizations try to implement the vision — the final stages — without living through the natural growth steps. Several different methodologies explain the various stages that groups experience in their development. IS managers should familiarize themselves with the natural development expectations of this living entity called groups and recognize that management functions continue to be a part of the ongoing health of the team, even in the final growth stages. The third myth addresses the interesting related inference that managers will no longer be in the picture in the final stages of team development.
Myth Three: Teams or Hierarchy — An Either/Or Choice
Several questions and comments are frequently heard in organizations regarding the interaction between the hierarchical and the team-based organizations. These comments generally concern the respective roles of managers, team leaders, and team members.
Role of Managers Two questions are generally asked about the role of managers: 1. What are the managers going to be doing now that the teams are doing all of their work?
2. Does the manager still conduct performance reviews?
These questions result from the popular inference that self-directed teams eliminate, flatten, squash, and render obsolete the organizational hierarchy. The expectation that there will be fewer managers and fewer layers of hierarchy is not always realized. Some companies look to the team-based structure to assist them in adapting to significant downturns in their industry sector. Other companies are making the structural change because it is the right thing to do to remain competitive and progressive.
In either situation, the traditional hierarchy remains a core structure for the foreseeable future for most corporations. American business systems, education systems, community systems, government systems, and family systems are all largely based on hierarchial structures. When the relationships between members of both the hierarchy and teams are flexible and adaptable, team-based organizations maximize both systems.