Role of the Team Leader The hierarchy dilemma raises the related quandary regarding the team leader. One organization, for example, changed the title of this function from team leader to team facilitator to team representative, even though the essence of the role did not change. The title “leader” implies that the balance of the group assumes the role of followers. Yet the followers ask why they should follow the leader when the leader does not conduct their performance review and has nothing to do with their merit rewards or other forms of recognition.
The title “team leader” and the inferred role work against the good intentions and essence of the original function, which is the role of focus person, meeting moderator, synthesizer of group decisions or indecisions, and communicator of information between the team and the outside world of customers, management, other teams, and other organizations. This role can rotate throughout the team and should do so more frequently than quarterly. It is also important to allow the team to decide the process for the group leader or representative as well as the clarification of the role for this person.
The function of leadership needs to be accomplished by the team but not necessarily by a single individual or by the team representative. Sometimes the term self-directed in regard to the leader or team members carries more meaning and empowerment than is originally intended, which leads to the next myth.
Myth Four: Self-Directed Means Autonomous
The outcome of this myth can be surprising. For example, the members of one team in pursuit of fulfilling their newly acquired responsibilities decided they would no longer provide support to a business application that was a maintenance and support nightmare. The team informed its customer to upgrade, rewrite, or purchase other software to handle this business application. On hearing of the team’
s action, the
application manager quickly clarified the intent of team empowerment and reestablished customer relations.
To this team, the term self-directed was misinterpreted as meaning self- government or autonomy. As teams struggle at times with their roles and the depth and breadth of their responsibilities, such misinterpretation provides a ready source of discontent
and an easy answer to difficulty. This leads to another myth about the homogeneity of the team function and roles of its membership.
Myth Five: Teams Are Most Successful in Homogeneous
Work
Many IS managers think that successful teams have more homogeneous work than teams within their own organizations. Despite the fact that there are obviously successful, high-performance nonhomogeneous teams, such as emergency room teams, this myth tends to provide a rationalization for nonhomogeneous groups that are struggling with their responsibilities. Holding onto this myth stifles group growth and contributes to frustration, disappointment, and lack of confidence.
Taken together, the five myths associated with self-directed teams cause teams and their members to feel a sense of frustration, low self-confidence, disappointment, and confusion. The following sections speak to the miseries that result either directly or indirectly from the myths associated with the change to self-directed teams and provide some tips on their management.
TEAM MISERIES AND MISERY MANAGEMENT
Miseries are a natural part of change and movement from a place of relative comfort to somewhere unknown. As a well-known adage of unknown origin says, “Some people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.” Because miseries can keep people from moving from where they are to their desired target, they have to managed. Some miseries can even be avoided.
Misery One: Teams Are for Every Organization
Organizations looking for ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness risk the tendency to force-fit the latest structural concept, like self-directed teams, into their organizations. Definite dangers exist with this line of thinking. Teams are not for every situation in an organization, department, or function. It is possible to have one area that is suitable for team implementation and the balance of the organization more suitable for remaining in the traditional hierarchical structure. Trying to implement teams in an organization or function where they are unsuitable is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
Misery Management. Because organizations require a receptive culture for successful implementation of teams, the key to the management of this misery centers on assessment of the culture of the organization and its receptivity to the team concept. If an organization does not appear receptive, the champion of the team idea needs to spend time influencing and preparing the organization for the team structure.
The spectrum of opportunity depicted in Exhibit 1 provides a starting point for the assessment of organizational culture. A valuable exercise for IS managers would be to plot the groups or functions within an organization in the appropriate quadrants.
An enlightening conversation is sure to ensue if managerial staff and a cross section of employees are asked to do the same. The learning potential is great regardless of
whether the groups surprisingly plot the organization the same or, better yet, plot the organization differently.
As Exhibit 3 illustrates, the works of Rensis Likert on organizational types are also helpful in assessing organizational receptivity to teams. The four quadrants also represent four different styles of decision making that corporations or individuals assume to varying degrees during the course of their work. Even the most participative of leaders or organizations balances the use of the exploitative-authoritarian style and other styles at certain times. In the case of self-directed teams, for example, a vice president who announces that an organization will move toward teams is working from the top left exploitive-authoritarian quadrant. The same person then moves into the participative quadrant to involve the other employees in the development and implementation of the directive.
Exhibit 3. Organizational Types (From R. Likert, New Patterns of
Management and The Human Organization, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961
and 1967, respectively.)
The first step IS managers should therefore take in assessing organizational readiness for the team structure is to consider and then compare the predominant management style of the larger organization in relation to their own personal style as well as to the style of the IS department or division. If the two styles widely differ, then the managers need to work on influencing the relationship between the two groups to gain organizational support for the transformation to self-directed teams .
When the two groups share borders, there is less work to be done in preparing for the transformation.
Misery Two: Team Killers
Team killers are those actions or observations that despite the admirable intentions of managers immediately stop the progress of a team in its tracks or suppress the growth process. The following sections describe some of the ways in which team killers play out in an organization.
Codependent Behavior. Imagine a team meeting at which the IS manager asks a question regarding potential solutions or innovative ways of handling an opportunity currently challenging the organization. The silence in the room is soon broken, but not by a member of the group. Instead, the manager begins to answer the question.
Like most managers, this ma nager mainly wants to contribute, share knowledge, and
discuss ideas with the members of the group. Managers, however, are only own part of this team killer. The group membership contributes to the problem by deferring to the manager and waiting for direction.
The process of team building requires patience on the part of managers, because organizational members may have been functioning for several years in a dependent relationship. It will take deliberate new methods and time to make the change to a truly open environment.
Lack of Management Support. Managers who distance themselves from teams to allow for the natural growth of the group sever the informal, day-to-day conversations of the previous organizational relationship. Team members may infer that the manager does not care what the teams are doing or if they are successful.
In addition, because the teams are more distant from what is happening in the organization, they end up feeling somewhat abandoned and isolated. IS managers must maintain informal avenues of communication as a source of information exchange and a demonstration of their interest and stake in the team development process.
Say “Team” and Act Autocratic. “Your actions are so loud, I can’
t hear what you
are saying.” Research has proved that people learn far more from what they see than from what they hear or read. Significant misery is experienced when an IS
manager speaks about and even intellectualizes the movement of the IS organization to the team-based structure but does not follow through with appropriate actions.
Although it is certainly difficult for managers to move from previous autocratic tendencies and styles of management that have served them well in their careers to a more participative style, this pattern of behavior can damage the self-esteem of the team and lessen its energy for making decisions and continuing the effort toward successful implementation. Members of the IS organization begin to doubt the honesty and sincerity of the team-based structure as they find thems elves in a situation that does not differ greatly from what they had known before teams were implemented.