How to prepare the organization for teamwork

Team is a small number of people with complementary knowledge and / or skills who commit to a common purpose, set their performance goals and agree on the approach to achieve it, for all of which they recognize themselves as mutually responsible. results are closely related concepts; you cannot pretend to have one ignoring the other. And there is a basic discipline that makes teams work, that is, they produce results. “Teamwork”, which refers essentially to a specific performance, should not be confused with “teamwork”, which refers to values such as openness, tolerance to the point of view of the other, interest in the achievements of others, mutual containment and support, just as these values do not manifest themselves exclusively in formal teams,Nor are they sufficient to ensure that one of them performs effectively. Through teamwork the organization can aspire to achieve unique achievements. However, the balance on the convenience of addressing an objective through teams, or the traditional hierarchical operating unit, will depend on the type of business and the specific need in each case.

The following table tries to compare both schemes in some of their salient aspects.

Operating Unit (Manager + group) vs. Work team

	Comparison aspect	Managed working group	Equipment
one	On what basis are its members elected	The person's position in the organizational hierarchy	The knowledge and / or skills that the person is expected to contribute to the team
two	How you conduct yourself internally	Has a clearly distinguishable and permanent driver	Leadership is shared according to roles
3	How accountability rests	Individually	Individually and collectively
4	What purposes / objectives give you your reason for being	Its purpose is understood, in broader terms, by the corporate mission and derives directly from it	It has specific objectives that it intervenes in forging. Although they contribute to the corporate mission, they are not inferred from it.
5	How your actions contribute to the organization	Basically through the individual production of its members	Through a product conceived and produced collectively
6	What is the situation or opportunity that your application advises	Reaffirm what you are and consolidate what you have, seeking to do more and more efficiently what you do	Seek response to the need for change, internally or externally imposed. How to become (do or have) what is not yet (not done, or not have)
7	What internal process follows	Exchange opinions, but finally make a decision and delegate its execution	Debate, elaborate a decision seeking consensus and make together
8	How and on which variables the effect of their performance is measured	Indirectly, through the degree of influence achieved in the action of others	Directly, evaluating the contribution in the elaborated product

Set up the team

In the selection of team members, the right mix of knowledge and skills should be sought such that, through mutual complementation, the team meets these attributes at a level sufficient to achieve its mission. The following must then be satisfied:

Technical-functional competences in relation to the product to be developed. Try to gather professional diversity, as experience shows that teams that meet different disciplines have been richer in ideas than the “monochromatic” ones. Competences in analyzing / solving new problems and making decisions. What is expected of a team is to open paths, discover opportunities. Deciding the course of action that in each case makes the opportunity profitable is an essential part of the mandate given by the organization, and its members must be able to fulfill it. Interpersonal skills. Understanding and committing would be impossible without them, especially in the relational intensity that a team demands. Its members must be able, among other things, to communicate, positively overcome conflict, assume roles, actively listen,Constructively criticize and acknowledge the achievements of others.

Bear in mind that, as teamwork is a capacity-building context par excellence, not only must we seek proven capacity, but also potential.

Get to know each other and start tackling the task

In a team, desirably multidisciplinary, each person brings their own in terms of contributions and experiences, but they are also accompanied by their temperament, their way of relating and their cultural pattern. Therefore, if they are people who have not worked together before, It is then necessary for the members to take the time to get to know each other better, to discover themselves, before and during their assignment in the team. Along with the personal aspects, the team members must show their peers what experiences they bring, what knowledge they gather, so that, through the team, the team can find the most efficient internal assignment of responsibilities possible. It is advisable, for this purpose,organize specific team meetings designed to allow your members to show themselves to their peers and share with them the baggage of what they know.

Take individual and collective responsibility

A group becomes a team only if it develops the feeling of collective responsibility for the results, and the space for this development is created by mutual trust between the members, which in turn is forged through the commitments they assume and fulfill the Members with themselves and with others. Trust and mutual commitment are the only reassurance so that shared responsibility grows spontaneously within the team. Collective responsibility cannot be forced beyond what people accept to trust others. That is why when the team shares purposes, objectives and approaches, collective responsibility grows spontaneously as a natural counterpart, and also reinforces the dedication of the team in its mission. Responsibilities must be balanced,otherwise, not only the result will be affected, but also the motivation of both the overburdened and the lightened. Everyone needs to have something important to do. When using outside consultants, advisers, etc., they should be prevented from absorbing responsibilities to the detriment of team members. A team that only controls third parties does not function as such.

Set purposes and objectives

Teams' success has been especially proven in situations where transformation, innovation or standing out in a competitive environment is required.Configured under these circumstances, the best experiences have been given when management gives the team a sufficiently broad mandate as to so that it can forge and propose its specific objectives. The term "objective" understood as we do in the chair: verb, variable to modify, value to be achieved, unit of measurement and time. When the team forges its own objectives, the more specific the better, it is achieved:

Collective collective commitment

Provide clear control lifts that allow the team to monitor its performance and progress. Generate a strong motivating factor, confirming once again that it arises from participation as one of its most precious products.

It is then that the team retains sufficient leeway to translate the generic purpose or global problem into specific action and outcome goals.

Collectively develop the product

What gives team cohesion to a group is precisely the need to deliver a collectively produced product. Experience shows that groups formed for more generic purposes rarely crystallize as teams. Commitment and trust arise when people work together after achieving a common goal. Consequently, teams that demonstrate a common goal and a way to achieve it inevitably hold themselves accountable, individually and collectively. In contrast, those groups formed after the sole purpose of improving organizational variables (communication, effectiveness, etc.) Without an achievement goal that is challenging to achieve, they rarely crystallize as a team.It is the process of setting goals and discussing how to achieve them that provides team cohesion to the members of a group. Based on these general precepts, it should be recognized in each typical situation what is gained, or not, with a team, since presents different challenges. Take for example, to point out differences, Katzenbach's distinction between:

Teams that recommend thingsTeams that do thingsTeams that lead

Teams that recommend things

When what is sought is to develop a recommendation (to improve quality, safety, efficiency, etc.) and since there is always a deadline, the critical factors are:

Get up and running quickly Have the delivered product actually deployed.

It is key then to involve management in a timely manner, such that:

Through its ascendancy, achieve the effective commitment of dedication of the people who can contribute to the team added value in development and influence in the interaction with the rest in the implementation. Count on enough push so that the organization can alter its routine and allow the work of the team, “opening the doors for them.” Make the act of delivery of the developed product also the subscription of the commitment to implement it according to a program agreed with the management itself and whose evolution is accountable to it.

Since the changes are not “implemented alone”, but require energy and persistence to impose them, the recipients of the recommendation should be involved considering:

Do it with enough anticipation to allow them to be protagonists of the change within themselves and win them over as adepts.

Teams that do things

When it is necessary to make (elaborate, build) a product continuously (manufacturing, sales, marketing, etc.) it must be taken into account that:

If effective performance at critical points (those where the greatest value is created) requires the combination of diverse skills and knowledge to respond to day-to-day decisions, then a team is the right answer. The organization adopts this path must ensure it has adequate management processes that allow it to sustain the performance of all the teams that will operate. Otherwise, these will become an end in itself instead of being part of a strategy of obtaining results.

These processes typically include, among others:

Compensation and reward schemes Performance evaluation Communication Training Leadership development Processes that account for the performance and evolution of teams in their internal operations.

Leading Teams (1)

Despite the "me and my team" of managerial discourse, what is generally observed around the leader is a working group made up of people with exclusive responsibilities defined in correspondence with each of the areas of the organization. This does not configure a team. The question is whether or not this sum of individual optima can be surpassed by a team approach and, consequently, a collectively produced product. Although the team promises horizons that would be unattainable individually, their adoption entails a greater risk given by the distraction in the specificity of each of its members and the possibility of personal conflicts between them. Although operating as a working group ensures effectiveness and limits risk (since the objectives do not require consensus,agendas are precisely prioritized and decisions are the result of one-person authority in each area) challenges can only be addressed if you act as a team. This is the case when it is necessary to face greater transitions, in which the very future of the organization can be put at risk. If this path is taken, it must be ensured that the team itself has its own specific objectives, different from those it manages in the group routines as a steering committee, and also different from those derived from the mission and organizational purposes.If this path is taken, it must be ensured that the team itself has its own specific objectives, different from those that the group routinely manages as a steering committee, and also different from those derived from the mission and organizational purposes.If this path is taken, it must be ensured that the team itself has its own specific objectives, different from those that the group routinely manages as a steering committee, and also different from those derived from the mission and organizational purposes.

Leading Teams (2)

Management teams are the most difficult to set up and find it most difficult to operate as such: the limited time available, personal exposure to results, extreme competitive individualism are, among others, relevant blocking factors. Management levels have some preconceptions about teams that discourage their formation, such as assuming:

That if a manager is part of a team, his direct subordinates must also be it. That a team must be and act as a team all the time. That the driver is only there to lead, and not to provide real work.

However, and although still infrequently, these teams do occur, albeit with some peculiarities: few members, and without a formalized operation. In general, they do not include “pieces” of the organization chart, but only people linked by their decision-making level and their affinity with certain business problems. The acceleration of the pace of transformation in the corporate world suggests a growing trend in the need to form teams at management levels.

When a team then?

Work teams are called to be the obligatory resource for organizations whose focus is the achievement of outstanding competitive results. This does not imply rejecting the creation of individual opportunities or hierarchy as valid principles in the organization, since both are part of the institutional baggage that it serves some of its most important purposes; On the contrary, it is a matter of complementing them. Thus, whenever it is perceived that the organizational limits, set by the hierarchy, inhibit the search for solutions that require creative approaches from multiple perspectives, it will be the opportunity for a team take the challenge. If it is simply "better" to work as a team or, far from being an option, it becomes necessary, it will depend on the specific challenge facing the company,of its strategy and its organizational strength. We can summarize the corollary of what has been said so far in the following table:

Situation / Challenge	What do you want to emphasize	What can be achieved through
Hierarchy, traditional line structure	Work teams
Innovation, product development	Creativity	Get answers, thanks to functional agility	Avoid mental "departmentalization"
Production, service provision	Efficiency	Clear slogan, operational simplicity	Inherent energy, flexibility, self-discipline

Additional Thoughts: Guidelines for Working Before You Begin

Take the time to:

Identify the large blocks of tasks to be distributed. Agree on the conventions to be adopted, or standards to follow if any, regarding terminology, models, formats to be used, etc. Agree on communication mechanisms and ways of internally recording information, especially Given the diversity of technologies available today, agree on the form and frequency of communication of the project team with the rest of the organization, specify the discussion mechanisms, the scheme of the meetings, the registration of agreements, and the instances for the disagree.Emphasize the importance of the information generated by the team flowing smoothly, understood and incorporated into the work of each member in a timely manner.

A team can generate a lot of product, in the form of designs, information, specifications, etc. One of the most common risks that arise is the appearance of "loose ends" among the pieces that are developing, and that prevent the final assembly from responding to what was conceived. The team leader must understand the importance of this aspect, promote permanently the flow of information between team members and monitor that this effectively occurs throughout the development of the work.

And after finishing…

The team generated the change. And now?

There are no better agents of change than their own managers. The team members themselves are the ideal apostles to spread organizational change. Here again the driver plays an essential role: designing the change management plan that allows the team's result to spread throughout the organization and thus yield the full potential that is has identified you.

The organization won through the team. What did the team win?

Knowledge, for having interacted in a multidisciplinary context Leadership skills, for having experienced the dynamic of roles in the team Project discipline, for having starred in the drawing of a plan and traveled through it until its fulfillment Motivation, as this is a direct consequence of feeling of participation that the climate of having collectively produced a successful product generates.

Were the virtues preached adequately rewarded?

People shy away from teams if they are not recognized and paid accordingly. If the organization neglects this issue, it will become increasingly difficult for them to assemble the best for the new teams, and thus have paid a high price for their inconsistency.

In sum

Advancement by teams enriches the organization doubly: through the results produced and through the improvement of individual competences and the growth of enthusiasm of the people who comprise it. But the organization must be prepared, and if it is not, adapt to it so that fostering the team approach does not reveal itself as inconsistent with its secular procedures and policies. The organization must then prepare for teamwork in order to ensure consistency and consistency between what you intend through it and what you have instituted. This will involve reviewing (and correcting, if necessary) how:

Emphasize attitudes rather than procedures Seek and develop aptitude for learning in people Encourage communication at and between all levels Distribute information, knowledge, power and reward to self-directed work teams.