Team Change
The Change to Teamwork
The New Zealand operations of a global IT services firm undertook a major organisational restructuring1. The new structure was designed around cross-functional strategic account teams. Each customer facing team (known as a CFT) consisted of sales, engineering and industry experts. Financial and engineering advice was drawn from a pool of resources that also included all staff not included in one of the CFT’s. This pool also looked after non-key customers. The new teamwork structure was described by the MD as the tool that would focus all staff on the objective of improving customer service. The experiences and reactions of the managers and employees over the two year period of transition to teamwork provides some real life ideas on what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to teamwork.
Changing the structure doesn’t mean more productive teamwork
Stace and Dunphy2 concluded from their research in Australia, that once strategies, structures and systems are changed, many companies are confused as to how to manage the intellectual, emotional and behavioural responses of their employees. In the case of the IT company, the changes in organisational structure and team experience helped remove the barriers to teamwork but were insufficient to promote highly productive teamwork organisation-wide. The management initiatives did not fully address the psychological changes associated with teamwork.
The results of the change to teamwork
The results of the change to a team structure were mixed. Some teams flew and others crashed. Changes in the organisational structure, the new way in which business was conducted, and experience and training in teamwork did not achieve highly productive teamwork company wide.
However, some teams were more productive. So what made some teams fly and other teams crash and burn and what does this mean for management practice? Each successful case of teamwork in the IT company occurred when there was a common purpose that was believed to be worthwhile, which was highly regarded, had high expectations of achievement and team members had a strong desire and opportunity for membership.
A Common Purpose
The highly productive teams thought and felt as units. Each member interpreted events not from their personal perspective but with reference to the impact on the team. The CFT’s of the IT company worked on multidisciplinary customer projects with a clear purpose of “delighting the customer”. This project work provided the meaningful and appealing team purpose. It seems that the biggest change is not in the mechanics of organisational restructuring but in the transition from thinking and feeling as a distinct individual, to thinking and feeling like a representative of a distinct social group.
A worthwhile, highly regarded task and high expectations of achievement
Much of the management literature on teamwork suggests that task interdependency is key. It is true that activities need to be interdependent and that potential team members should be chosen because of the skills they bring. But this study and the results of similar work shows that task interdependence is not sufficient for a person to make the psychological transition to team member. What is required is that team members are informed about the team task, the value associated with that task and the positive implications of their collective efforts.
Team members must feel that the chances of success are high. Rewards should be based on measurable team results that are perceived to be within their control and not on individual contributions. This helps promote the team status above that associated with the contributions an individual could make without the team.
The desire and opportunity to contribute to the team
Whilst being assigned to a team may be involuntary, actually being a member of a team is a voluntary action that consists of a feeling of attachment and belonging, of strongly wanting to be part of something. Team members have to decide for themselves that they want to be part of a team and they need to feel good about their team membership. The new organisational structure presented work as one process and one output where individuals had to work together. This meant there was little or no opportunity for individuals to separate their task from the team output, which in some cases meant that team members would switch tasks, or operate outside of their traditional role to ensure that the goal was met. Individual team members could not cognitively separate their own performance from the performance of the team. This understanding of a common purpose and thinking in terms of associated work processes rather than a single task within it was an important part of productive teamwork. For a person to make the psychological transition from individual contributor to team member requires a strong desire to be a part of the team and what it represents.
The teams that crashed?
What of the services pool that included the finance, engineering, HR and administrative staff? Previously middle management, these teams had been expected to manage themselves, but instead were found to be individually focused without a common purpose. Whilst they were expected to provide services to the CFT’s they were not part of the team and didn’t identify with the team. The services they provided were on an as-needs, individual task basis, rather than on delivering a common service. The services group compared themselves with the CFT’s and thought the CFT’s received preferential treatment. The services teams, as a result had not changed their attitudes to work, despite the new business model.
Insight & Influence works with our clients to help them make the change to teamwork.
1 Swantje (Svan) Lembke THE SOCIAL IDENTITY OF TEAMS AT WORK. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Management, The University of Auckland, 1994
2 Stace, D., and Dunphy, D. (1994) BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES: LEADING AND RE-CREATING THE SUCCESSFUL ENTERPRISE. Sydney, Australia: McGrawHill.
