Sourced from The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Team-Building Tools: Best of the Annuals (Essential Tools Resource) by Elaine Biech (Paperback - Oct 26, 2007)

13.8. What If We Took Teamwork Seriously?

W. Warner Burke

Abstract: A great deal of time is spent talking about the importance of teams and teamwork. Yet it appears that little occurs or, if it does, the effects are not long-lasting. This article addresses why teamwork is less than 100 percent effective and what must be taken into consideration in order for it to be more effective.

Recently I witnessed something rare, an exceptional event. Six ad hoc teams in an organization presented the results of their work. For six months, each team of seven people had labored diligently on a significant problem or issue for its company. A final off-site event (two previous training and progress-report type off-site meetings had occurred) was held to hear each team’s report and to make decisions regarding its recommendations. While there was some variance in the results of performance across these six teams, on the whole their work was impressive and rare compared with most such activities in organizations. They had accomplished much in spite of the fact that all team members had to maintain their regular, normal responsibilities during the six-month period; that is, the teams’ work was in addition to each person’s daily job responsibilities.

Typical Teams

No doubt all of us have seen if not been a part of a task force with similar responsibilities over a similar period of time. What made this event exceptional?

Before considering the exceptions, however, a brief word about what was not special about these teams. First, each team was given the task of studying a company-wide problem or issue that had been in existence for quite some time; that is, it had been a lingering problem but had never really been addressed. It was time, if not past time, for something to be done. Each team tackled a different problem/issue; thus, there were six different tasks. There is nothing special about these team assignments. Organizational executives often compose task forces to take on such assignments.

Second, the teams were composed of individuals from different functions and business centers within the company. Composing task forces representing a cross section of the organization is common. Third, the team size of seven members was about right for the types of tasks. Again, nothing new here; task forces and similar groups are often about seven, plus or minus two members.

Exceptional Teams

What, then, was special and exceptional regarding the work of these teams?

First, each and every team member at the end stated publicly what he or she had learned. In most cases, each person said something about being challenged, stretched. Yes, there was overlap among some forty statements, yet there were a sufficient number of unique expressions to make these statements ring with credibility.

Second, as stated above, the quality did vary somewhat from team to team, but the lowest performing team among the six would make most executives in most organizations happy.

Third, the teams were diverse, not only representing a cross section of the company but with a mix of genders and ethnicities in each group as well. We preach diversity, and should in my opinion, yet a diverse mix of people who achieve high performance is no small accomplishment.

Exceptional Outcomes

Why was this special event, an exceptional outcome?

The most important reason was the fact that each team had a highly challenging and compelling goal. The outcome of each team’s work would potentially have a significant impact on the future of the company. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) claim that high-performing teams are rare. Moreover, what they argue is that a challenging goal is an absolute necessity for high performance.

A second reason was the immediate feedback and impact of the work. After each team had presented, all others answered a brief questionnaire rating, among other things, the feasibility of the team’s recommendations. Then the team met in private with the CEO to discuss its recommendations. Next, the CEO met in the main room with two representatives from the presenting team and with his key executives in a “fishbowl” setting to decide on the recommendations. In other words, immediate action, one way or the other, was taken on each team’s recommendations.

Another reason for this exceptional work in teams was the fact that these events were part of an integral to a larger change effort for the entire organization. The teamwork, even though ad hoc, was not an isolated set of events.

And, finally, there was pressure to perform well. Each group presented to members of the other five teams—their peers—as well as to the top executives of the company.

Effective Teamwork

We talk and talk about the value of teams and teamwork, but little real, effective teamwork occurs or, in any case, if achieved at all only lasts for a brief period (Burke, 1995). Why is this so? Among myriad reasons, here are a few that stand out:

1. We have seen and experienced such mediocrity, why bother?
2. Working as a member of an ad hoc team means attending yet another series of boring meetings.
3. Teamwork takes time, and we have so much individually to do that team participation requires such a sacrifice.
4. While there may be a chairperson for the team, real leadership is often lacking, with a consequence being a lack of clarity, unresolved conflicts, and eventual feelings of imposition and resentment.
5. And perhaps most important of all, who cares anyway? The team may work hard to produce good results, but the likelihood is that insufficient attention will be paid to its work.

To increase the effectiveness of teams, we must take teamwork seriously, that is, we must pay careful attention to such matters as:

• Goals: making certain they are challenging.
• The context within which the team’s work will occur: ensuring it is part of some larger effort tied directly to organizational mission and strategy rather than an isolated event.
• Team composition: making certain the teams have the unique talent required for the task; the proper mix of people, i.e., experience and personality; and the right number of members, which, of course, should be a function of the nature and complexity of the task.
• Results: how the team’s outcomes will be considered and treated, particularly with respect to decision making for the organization.
• Recognition: how the team’s work will be evaluated and recognized by management, especially the CEO.

These five considerations are not exhaustive by any means but represent some of the most important matters to address to increase the odds in favor of team effectiveness.

References

Burke, W.W. (1995). Organization change: What we know, what we need to know. Journal of Management Inquiry, 4(2), 158–171.

Katzenbach, J.R., & Smith, D.K. (1993). The wisdom of teams. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

“Knowledge is profoundly social… it clumps in groups of people who share trust, vocabulary, interests, passions…” (Prusak, 2008)  The argument here provides that communities within an organization are the greatest source of knowledge; whether it’s the systems architecture unit or the senior executive assistant’s weekly poker game. An excellent evaluation then is to determine the social network dynamics of the organization, and assess the critical communications paths between individuals. Another excellent evaluation is locating all the data; from hard drives, servers and SANs; to evaluate the disparate data sets, which data is essentially inaccessible beyond an individual or community/practice unit.

The key realization of knowledge is the measure of its value. As cited above, patents and intellectual property has tangible value. The knowledge base of a staff, wherein lies the intellectual capital, also can provide a tangible value in an acquisition scenario; up to five times greater value to a company from the baseline physical assets and revenue streams; an immense demonstration of the standard organizational objective; “get and keep good people.” (Lynch, 2010) “The real unit of analysis for knowledge [in an organization] is groups; practices.” (Prusak, 2008) Beyond identifying and evaluating your knowledge networks, the next step must be a means of capturing this knowledge in a well-designed KM system, and incentivizing the practice organization-wide to utilize the platform for daily operation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Prusak, L. (2008). Knowledge Networks: The Good, The Bad and the The Ugly. Network/CoP Research Engagement Workshop. London: University of Warwick.

Lynch, D. C. (2010, March 13). IT Governance and Knowledge Management Lecture – TECM 745. (T. M. 2010)

The enterprise architecture provides the unifying framework for an organization to deploy and build upon the information system infrastructure and integrating technology to perform functional processes. Here is where the IT strategy will be mapped to an actionable plan in order to meet the business goals, objectives and strategies relevant and critical to the organization’s success. This includes; providing the identification of operational systems, the deployment and employment of resources, technical guidance across the IT function, and a roadmap for planning and future technology-to-process considerations. Zachman’s framework positions the contextual scope, conceptual enterprise model, logical systems models, physical technologies, the detailed expressions, and the functional enterprise, to encompass the data, functions, network, people, time, and motivation; the why, how, what, who, where, and when, respectively. (Zachman, 1997) The model was later amended to provide the “how well” element to introduce the measure and valuation critical to realizing the full impact of the IT strategy. (Lynch, 2010)

The IT governance framework will “specify the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT.” The principle IT decisions to impact the structure and processes are decisions on: IT architecture, IT infrastructure, business application requirements, and IT investment and prioritization. (Weill & Ross, 2004) The goal of IT governance is to effectively align the investment resources with those information systems which will increase the business value to the organization, and will be guided by the As such, IT governance will direct everything; from annual budgets, security and user terminal choices, to user Internet “surfing” and data store/handling policies. IT governance will also provide the ongoing measure of the value each IS system and technology component is providing, and whether (or not) an amble contribution to the business value is being provide, and provide “contributions to advance the enterprise architecture. (Stenzel, et al., 2007) As the enterprise architecture provides the standardization of the IS and alignment with business operations and strategy, IT governance achieves a standardization of decision-making capabilities, policies to enable positive behaviors with respect to utilization of IT, and a senior-level prioritization of IT investment. “The CIO’s job is IT governance.” (Lynch, 2010)

The final top principle in managing and leading an IT function is the portfolio management, which is simply to produce project deliverables from a strategically balanced portfolio. Here is where cost/benefit analysis is provided, including opportunity costs, assessments of alternatives, and concise assessments on the level to which the project will enable greater capabilities in the organization, and the level to which deliverable will multiply the effectiveness and efficiency of the business function. One critical goal of portfolio management is to limit the total cost of ownership while advancing the impact of information systems; doing more with less. Another, and perhaps the most critical, goal is analyzing the risk levels across the projects and programs.

Enterprise architecture, IT governance and portfolio management, when implemented and executed properly, will carry out the strategies of the organization, and provide the necessary feedback loop to measure the effectiveness of the overall enterprise-level strategy.

Bibliography:
Lynch, D. C. (2010, March 6). “Modified Enterprise Architecture” – TECM 745, Lecture 3. Fairfax, VA, USA: Charles Lynch.
Lynch, D. C. (2010, March 13). IT Governance and Knowledge Management Lecture – TECM 745, Lecture 4. Fairfax, VA, USA: Charles Lynch.
Stenzel, J., Cokins, G., Flemming, B., Hill, A., Hugos, M. H., Niven, P. R., et al. (2007). CIO Best Practices. Wiley; 2nd edition.
Weill, P., & Ross, J. (2004). IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Zachman, J. (1997). Concepts of the Framework for Enterprise Architecture. Zachman International, Inc.

The book details an array of surveys of 860 project manager professionals, and their respective stakeholders: senior managers, team members and customers. Through a rigorous evaluation process, 18 project managers were distinguished as the “Alpha” group, and the survey results provided throughout the book compare the two groups of project managers; the Alphas and the non-Alphas.

Here I wanted to highlight the findings of the surveys related to the attitudes and beliefs held by project managers and respective stakeholders on the subject of authority, to which I have provided corresponding survey results below.

The first two graphs correspond to the rankings given by the project managers and respective senior managers on the level of authority granted to the project manager. The first is the PM’s ranking of perceived authority each believed they maintained, the second is the authority level ranking senior managers gave to the PMs.  The variation in the ranking non-Alpha project managers provided on their perceive authority to the level ranked by their senior managers was far more significant than the Alpha PMs and respective senior managers rankings. The Alphas, in fact, rated their authority very closely with how senior manager rated the authority granted, and the rankings from senior managers on Alphas and non-Alphas was only a 1% difference. If senior managers have reserved a high level of authority for 860 project managers, why do only 18 realize the appropriate level of authority?  Why do 842 project managers essentially think they only have 39% of the authority actually reserved for them?

The second two graphs correspond to the rankings given by the project manager’s on the importance of their role, and the respective senior managers ranking the PM’s role importance. The rankings the Alphas and non-Alphas give themselves on role importance are similar to the rankings given on authority; 96% to 70%. The interesting point here is that Sr. Managers of non-Alphas rated the important of the PM role lower than did the non-Alphas. As in the authority survey, Alpha PMs’ average self-given ranking for Importance of Role was 2% above that given by Sr. Managers.

Although senior managers of Alphas and non-Alphas entrust very similar levels of authority to the PMs, a conclusion can be made that the dynamic of perceived authority, or lack thereof, on the part of the project manager directly affects the perception of importance of the overall PM role with senior managers.  A postulation may also be made that lack of perceived authority may well have a direct impact on overall project management performance, and possibly a root cause of the non-Alpha PMs consistent underperformance compared with their Alpha contemporaries.

One final lesson here for senior managers, in light of the responses on authority, would be to reinforce and ensure your project managers are empowered to execute on project initiatives, and they know it.

And for all the project managers: realize the authority you truly have.

Attitudes & Beliefs Survey Graphs

(Crowe, 2006)

Crowe, A. (2006). Alpha Project Managers (What theTop 2% Know That Everyone Else Does Not). Velociteach.

Another important point is the observed response that 91% of project managers participating in the study ranked their own communication effectiveness higher than did their collective stakeholders.  Even the Alpha PMs scored only 80% effectiveness by respective stakeholders. However, through the interviews the stakeholders expressed praise for the Alphas’ communication effectiveness overall.

Among a number of observations, analysis and ideas, the strongest lesson learned by the project managers who participated in this study was, and overwhelmingly, “communication.”  The survey identified four common traits practiced by the Alphas:

• • Talking to stakeholders very early on to understand audience request, and tailoring communication accordingly
  • Setting a communication schedule, and stringently adhering to it
  • Clear and Concise messages, w/o wasting time
  • Open channel of regular dialogue w/ stakeholders about the communication itself

The conclusion was evident; effective project communication is clear, complete, concise, and consistent. As one stakeholder of an Alpha PM stated;

“It takes me less than ten minutes to go over [the Alpha PM’s] report each week… I get everything I need in one simple report, and it doesn’t change format every week. I can compare this one with previous ones, and it unfolds like a story when you look at it.”

(Crowe, 2006)

Bibliography

Crowe, A. (2006). Alpha Project Managers (What theTop 2% Know That Everyone Else Does Not). Velociteach.

The new initiative involves the implementation of Microsoft’s SharePoint portal application. From this platform, all company information will be stored and accessed, and email and messaging communications will be done through the application.  As such, training sessions have been scheduled across the organization to introduce the new process system, including description of the realized benefits of the implementation: significant increase in information capture for knowledge management; efficient, single-platform for corporate information, communications;

With a remarkably diverse workforce, K&F Global is facing remarkable challenges in what amounts to a paradigm shift in internal business operations with the new portal. Among the addressable challenges; integrating information systems (of all mediums) to the new information architecture, integrating email and messaging functions, new governance and management scopes; K&F Global is expecting a variety of response from the workforce, to which management is planning to address responses and focus adoption in part along general generational attributes within the workforce.

It is determined that the most engaged generational segment for the portal application for internal communications and information capture/distribution will be the youngest of the workforce, within the Millennial generation. The adoption objection will look to further engage this group to advocate the new change, with the group’s affinity for technology in communication and social interaction, ambitious and hopeful inclinations, and polite and civic-minded disposition. This group will be tapped to act as mentors providing on-going assistant in the various organizational teams, along with an informal engagement process via a selected Portal Ambassador.

The anticipation is there will be considerable resistance from the WWII and Gen X age groups. In between are the Baby Boomers, who will play an effective role in the advocacy of the new change. Coordination of the efforts from the Millennials and the Baby Boomers will need to be thoughtful with respect to formal internal outreach into the teams to gain mindshare. The Boomers will contribute to the Millennial’s involvement as advocates with specific attributes: team and consensus-orientation, driven work ethic with optimistic outlook.  In addressing the WWII group resistance, efforts to address concerns and engage in acceptance will focus along the general attributes associated with this generation: practicality of outlook, dedication in work ethic, and a sense of citizenship in the corporation. Likewise, the Gen X group will be engaged along the attributes typical of this group: skepticism, reluctance towards commitment, and valuing competency in leadership. What is convenient, and interesting, is there is an apparent match of personality attributes assigned to the four generational groups which pairs the groups along commonalities; Millennials & Boomers; WWII & Gen X.  These pairings are expected to utilize the synergies created by pooling the resources of common attributes to achieve successful adoption.

Under this pairing, the advocacy executed by the Millennial and Boomer groups as a synergistic group will provide the engagement inherent in the two group’s inclinations towards both adoption and promotion throughout the organization. The WWII and Gen X groups are expected to resist the change, and efforts will need to speak to the practical, reason-minded inclinations which need persuaded and buy-in, and successfully combat the apprehension the two groups have with respect to decision and impact of the portal implementation.

As diplomacy is a recurring topic in managing a workforce diverse with generational groupings, the intent of tasking the Millennials and Boomers to act in roles of mentors and advocates accomplishes two primary objectives: 1) achieve buy-in critical mass, and 2) affect change via internal peer norms of behavior. From our reading of Burke, “behavior is followed by cognition,”; leveraging the Millennial group’s inclination towards immediate acceptance and adoption of the new technology will provide a behavioral footprint on the organization from which to capture critical mass with engagement of the Boomers along their inclinations towards commitment and success-driven ambition. From a strategic perspective, one may view this as “winning half the battle.”  However, the two out-group generational groups MUST NOT perceive themselves as such. On the WWII group engagement, senior leadership must be actively involved in communicating importance of the initiative to the organization to effectively, successfully gain acceptance and adoption among this group. The Gen X group will truly be the last to convince, as this group will hold out on commitment and final buy-in regardless of the critical mass of organizational support.

First, the business environment must be assessed, and all stakeholder interests must be considered. Will the social media implementation offer a competitive advantage in the market place; or is the market within which your organization functions trending towards the adoption of social media, leaving you at a competitive disadvantage?  Your stakeholders; managers, users, customers, partners, suppliers, and senior leadership; will need to realize the benefit of social media applications, and you must consider how this implementation will affect each, and what value and benefit will be realized. Will suppliers be able to more cost-effectively source goods to your organization? Will sales and marketing be able to collaborate more closely and effortlessly? Will customers realize a greater level of satisfaction through interfacing with your organization via the application medium?

Second, engage closely with your executive colleagues on the proposition, and solicit advice and suggestions on known best-practices, or feedback on whether you should reconsider the proposition. “Identify the key business needs, strategies, drivers… and articulate the IT guidelines (maxims) necessary to address those needs.” (Broadbent & Kitzis, 2005) Is there a consensus on the potential value-realized with the social media application? Should data points be collected and assessed to gain insight on the environment and whether an opportunity is near or upon to address social media as a viable solution? Can the social media applications be implemented as an integrated component within a newly accepted system, to capture effective adoption while hearts and minds will be already be open?

Once you have obtained necessary buy-in from executive colleagues, you must effectively communicate the value proposition and expected benefits to all stakeholders, and with specific messaging relevance. You must address the adoption within the scope of business and IT strategy directly related to each stakeholder, and provide a clear line-of-sight on the link between the new applications and current business processes, be able to clearly understand the question they will invariably pose; “Why are we doing this?”, and avoid the derailing “Just-another-management-initiative” conundrum.  (Newberry, 2008)

As a final point here, the CIO must be personally engaged throughout the organization, championing this effort for the staff providing the roll-out and training, and fielding questions and concerns. Look for opportune times to walk around, speak with key managers, team leads and users within the organization, convey your focus and the reasons for the consideration, and solicit their input on how various segments will respond, adopt usage, and reasons for embracing/rejecting the proposed application. Here you look to influence through ownership from the executive level, and thus you will more effectively communicate the strategic significance and positive impact the implementation will have.

Through all of this, be aware of your approach, as here is the opportunity to be a leader. If the social media considered will truly align with the business and IT strategies, and if a solid maxim can be made for the introduction into the infrastructure, then it is incumbent on you to effectively communicate this across the stakeholders; obtain buy-in and support from your executive colleagues, obtain acceptance with the key personnel by engaging along their respective terms, solicit input from customers and suppliers externally for prospective buy-in, and always clearly interweave the relationship between the social media, the IT environment and the strategic objectives, initiatives and goals of the organization.

Broadbent, M., & Kitzis, E. S. (2005). The New CIO Leader: Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results. Gartner, Inc.

Newberry, S. (2008, November 10). Values-Based Leadership with Steve Newberry. Retrieved May 21, 2009, from University of California Television: http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=15398&subject=bus