Amongst the various programs for learning and
development in organizations, team building ranks among the most delivered
(jostling for ranking among other popular programs such as interpersonal skills
and communication skills). This fact points to the importance accorded to team
building in the overall gamut of organization development and performance
management. From an idealistic concept that the entire company is nothing but
one team (irrespective of diversity of businesses and locations) to a practical
concept that teams must be small, connectable and manageable (with shared day
to day execution goals), team building takes many configurations. Yet, the
fallacy lies in the premise that teams can be built in one or two day workshops
and based on lectures and games.
Without debating whether the macro team
philosophy or the micro team approach is right (as potentially both are
dovetailed), the focus should be on whether the teams can be built in the classrooms
or need to be built in the shop floor (denotes, of course, any area of daily
work). This is because teams are governed by logical relationships and shared
goals on one hand, and by competitive pressures and disruptive pulls on the
other. Moreover, teams are both formal and informal in structure and both
static and dynamic in operation. In practice, teams are formed vertically and
horizontally, cutting across hierarchy and entity. There is, simply, no way by
which the challenge of organizational team building can be tackled in limited
duration classroom exercises.
Understanding teams
Teams are groups of people brought together
to deliver on a common goal. As in a sports team, each member of an
organizational team must exist for a specific purpose. As in a sports team, each
organizational team must operate as per certain processes. However, unlike a
sports team, where the objective is to win over the competing team,
organizational teams are not expected or enabled to have direct competition
internally or externally. Many times, organizational teams have to compete
against an unknown team with an undisclosed goal. A design team, for example,
needs to develop a competitive product not because it can see or perceive the
design team in the competing organization develop such a product in visible
competition but because product development is an intrinsic strategic goal of
the management.
Organizational teams are more complex to
manage as unlike the sports teams they are less self-reliant. Typically, they
require inputs and support from a number of other organizational teams. An
organizational team, typically, wins against its own (set) target rather than
an external competitive target. Unlike the sports teams, therefore,
organizational teams are susceptible to self-modification of goals. Organizational
teams have to generally live with the assigned membership and leadership, and
would not have the flexibility the sports teams have in terms of selection of
team members, captain, coach and manager. Organizational teams, therefore, are
designed to deliver with fixed (human) assets (and liabilities!).
Business processes
Organizational teambuilding has to be an
integral part of the design of organization structure and business process
management. Teambuilding has to be also differentiated from competency
building. Competent individuals are the fundamental building blocks of effective
teams, and the reverse does not necessarily hold good. Certain industries,
particularly consulting, information technology and construction industries,
have appreciated the need for aligning team building to business process
requirements and the benefit of building teams (from a large talent bench on
call) in a customized manner for specific clients and specific processes.
Most industries and most companies, however,
are unable to build such flexibility into their business processes and organization
structure designs. To be effective and competitive, teambuilding has to be
cascaded down from vision, strategy and program setting, selecting the right talent
for the right jobs. This would require that, if not a whole company, at least
entire departments must be open to continuously organizing and reorganizing
themselves in project mode. This, in turn, requires that the temptation of
managers to hold on to competent executives must be replaced by an openness to
lend and borrow talent across the organization.
Competency grid
Given that the fundamental building block of
team building is competency building, the first objective of learning and
development is competency development. This, in turn, requires the development
of a competency grid that identifies the required types of competencies across
grades (say, from executive to functional head) and across projects (say, from
design of a component to design of a car). Although, it may appear that there
would be a correlation between project progression and grade progression, it is
not necessarily true. In line with contemporary technologies, relatively fresh
entrants may accomplish more sophisticated jobs. This would actually need to be
encouraged than baulked at by established seniors.
Competency building also requires that the C
Suite is filled by leaders who are multi-functional rather than mono-functional.
This would lead to organizational flexibility in targeting projects and
developing talent. Many conglomerate groups in India, including the Tatas and
Birlas, have been successful in multi-specialization of their top executives. Even
in their case, competency grid development is more by default focused on select
personnel rather than by design spread across the organization. The human
resources departments have a major role in building the competency grids. This,
in turn, requires that that HR executives and managers have a thorough
grounding in the technical and business matters.
Team bonding
Once competency building is accepted as the
main plank of successful teams, team building needs to be replaced by concepts
of team design and team bonding. The right membership of teams, with each
member serving a very specific purpose, ensures that the teams appreciate
interdependency and avoid internal conflicts. The team design needs to be
accompanied by identification of team manager (essentially for program and
logistics administration), team leader (to strategize and develop action plans)
and team mentor (to coach the team for higher functionality and motivation).
The members of the team could be cross-domain as is the case with the
concurrent engineering teams in automobile industry.
Team bonding, in the context of a competent
team, has several process nuances. Firstly, the team must understand how the
firm and team value chains work. Secondly, the team as a whole must understand
how the team accomplishment would impact the overall corporate accomplishment
(and impact of non-accomplishment too). Thirdly, the team members must
understand how their performance or non-performance would impact the team
accomplishment. Fourthly, the roles of team manager, team leader and team coach
must be clearly understood. Fifthly, the team should agree on the processes of
team working, performance assessment and feedback management. Sixthly, the team
must be inculcated with the necessary interpersonal skills to be able to
overcome rough edges and jell together.
Multi-step process
As the foregoing explains, teambuilding is a
multistep process which is to be fundamentally grounded in competency building.
Without competencies to support team performance, mere advocacy of soft skills
would be nothing more than patchwork. Teambuilding has to be carried out in
real time on the job situations, under expert guidance. Human resource
departments need to acquire an appropriate knowledge of business strategies and
technical matters to be able to deploy the right tools such as competency
grids. Finally, organizations must provide for flexible structures with talent
mobility to ensure that teams are customized for effective delivery.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on December 29, 2012
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