INTRODUCTION
The most diverse authors, in specialized publications, agree that modern management sciences are in a process of vertiginous change.
This process not only focuses on companies but on all types of governmental or non-governmental (non-profit) organization.
These comments are also exposed in the mass media, in courses and conferences in all types of institutions.
Likewise, the turbulent nature of global society, the complex and interactive level of the organizations that comprise it, are increasingly recognized (and not only in specialized fields).
Traditional structural configurations do not account for the dizzying process of change and pose a scientific-technological challenge to entrepreneurs, researchers, consultants, etc., from the most diverse specialties: this challenge today undoubtedly constitutes an «inter» space:
Inter-organizational, that is, between public and / or private, for-profit or non-profit, training and / or research organizations, large and / or small, tending to design adaptive strategies to the dynamic-social characteristics of the environment, or to design and implement new organizational and associative forms that place them as pioneers or in the category of initiative organizations.
Interdisciplinary, which constitutes another dimension of analysis of this phenomenon that accelerates in the late 1990s. It is necessary to generate management models that cross the organizational space and that find complementary and supplementary areas of knowledge for their better understanding.-
The advances made in industrial areas (robotics, diversified and automated multiproduction) with an emphasis on quality systems, the development of increasingly sophisticated standards in different productive or service disciplines, the permanent search to improve quality of life standards; and the development of data processing and communications technology, to make the access and use of computerized tools associated with telecommunications easier and more complete at the same time, determine an ever greater man-machine relationship.
This situation, which is characteristic of the social development of the late 20th century, simultaneously causes innumerable social asymmetries. It is the cause of the man-man relationship inaugurating new forms of bond, which in many areas is perceived in the form of a progressive deterioration, becoming a process of personal centrifugation, a lighter culture and an efficient relationship criterion.
This situation has been noticed by numerous specialists and researchers in the human sciences since the times of Elton Mayo and Kurt Lewin.
The profound social mutations of the late 1980s that continue towards the end of the 1990s (democratization processes in Latin America and other parts of the world, fall of the Berlin Wall, unification of the two Germanies, changes in the composition of the Eastern countries, the wars in the Persian Gulf, economic globalization as a form of creation of imperialisms, the accentuation of unemployment, poverty and asymmetry between rich and poor, that new form of poverty that is the poverty of knowledge, Fundamentalisms, the struggles of ethnic minorities, the crisis in the East Asian countries and its repercussion in the global context, the development of massive social programs, the flourishing of solidarity networks, propose to think of new forms of structural configurations on the world level.
In the organizational field, they pose an innovative managerial need according to the times in which we are living, developing new cultural models, with anticipation, innovation and solidarity (social role of companies and organizations in general).
Teamwork has become one of the fads in the management of organizations. It has an ambivalent meaning. Just as it is fashionable, it is difficult to implement. I will try, in this text, to develop some lines of thought about this supposed duality.
In the experience of Latin America in recent decades, so much history of authoritarianism in conjunction with the dawn of democracy and an excessively material current vision in organizations, turns into a savage capitalism that makes it difficult for teamwork to be more than a fad.
Therefore, as a fashion it can be ephemeral. There is no other way to develop effective teamwork than by changing the concept of fashion for that of mode. The transition to a teamwork mode is not easy. I do not rule out fashion as a marketing strategy, as an instrument to keep the flame burning, but I am convinced of its absolute insufficiency. Only strong effort can reverse this superficial approach to teams.
The efficiency criterion continues to predominate on the horizon of the Administration, and on the map of many organizations.
Unemployment rates, "third sector" organizations, and so on. they fully realize the difficulties of surviving (and also growing and developing) in an economically and socially "savage" world.
Turning teamwork into an organizational management mode requires conviction, policy setting and proactive attitudes on the part of the people who work in the organization.
As we will see later, it is an indispensable condition that it be preached and put into action from the highest steps of the organizational pyramid, as an initial requirement to make the transition from fashion to mode.
This transition from fashion to mode is part of the attempt to articulate the theories that are preached (fashion) and those that are practiced (mode), following the concepts enunciated by Chris Argyris (How to overcome administrative barriers. Holy Days, 1993).-
Many management failures, and in particular in the processes of development of quality programs, quality groups or continuous improvement, are attributed by the managers themselves, to deficiencies in management technology to develop and strengthen work teams in their organizations.
Now, how to install a culture of teamwork, in organizations trained in highly pyramidal authority models, without it being a fad, but a management mode?
This is the meaning of this chapter. Try to give some answers to these questions and open new questions based on the experiences and knowledge of the reader.
WHAT IS A TEAM
In "The Management of Efficient Teams", Editorial Macchi, Buenos Aires, 1998 I developed a detailed study on the different meanings that the authors use and apply to two concepts:
- team group
I found in them many convergences and many divergences. The issue of groups in organizations (always related to increased productivity) has been developing technically and theoretically in Administration since the days of Elton Mayo.
In other social disciplines it emerged with vigor also in the first decades of the 20th century.
The concept of team has its origin in the sports version of the theme.
However, this view from sport is incorporated into the organizational field in the middle of the century, where different authors, in many cases without perceiving a substantive difference, begin to recognize the importance of teams in organizations, initially focusing on companies, and particularly in projects (teambuilding, teamwork, teamleadership, etc.)
In the aforementioned book, I develop a restricted version of the team concept, clarifying that it is a relatively new topic, under study, which is in permanent investigation and change. There I say (p. 64) that:
"A team is a group of people who perform a task to achieve results."
The starting point to define and differentiate teams is the notion of people articulated together.
In numerous experiences in which we brainstorm (brainstorm) to define the concept of team, the students, the assistants find countless words to approach the subject.
Once all the words have been developed, an order of priorities is established for the first five.
In recent times we find the word objectives more and more in the foreground, which is repeatedly repeated in almost all people and subgroups. In other words, the teleological version is increasingly ingrained and this arises in all types of organizations, not just companies.
People, curiously (or not so much), appear in another "position", seconded, included within resources as one more resource, or they do not appear. That is why I emphasize the inclusion of people first.
They are not obvious but the essence of the team's conception. Without people there is no notion of a team.
These people are not disjointed. They are articulated in a complex web of interrelationships that include interpersonal links, the organizational chain of command, context, individual history, etc.
This organizational fabric is linked by the function and role of each member, a topic that I will develop later.
In the concept of teams, the conception of task is intertwined (taken from the perspective developed by E. Pichón Riviére).
Task that constitutes the group, organizes its process, is an explicit task, the task that summons, that integrates, and at the same time, it is an implicit task, of elaborating those obstacles that prevent carrying out the explicit task (if any).
In this tight synthesis I am referring to those aspects that are fundamentally related and related to the organization that hinder the productivity of the team and are necessary to unblock for the team to produce better.
The task is not an isolated event in time and space. Contextured in both limits, it is intimately linked with the notion of results. The notion of results is deeply rooted in the team.
The result is a function of the previously determined objectives. It is the purpose accomplished. At the core of the team is the search for results. People get together, participate, compete, etc. to get results. And these must be measurable.
VARIABLES TO CONSIDER TO DEFINE OBJECTIVES IN TERMS OF MEASURABLE RESULTS:
This measurement (at the time of planning) has to take into account four variables:
- What you aspire to achieve (for example: sell, affiliate, collect, etc.) expressed verbally in infinitive. The unit of measurement: product, service, customers, weights The amount. Answer the question how much? Measured numerically or in percentages The time horizon. Answer the question when? Measured on specific dates, or days, weeks, months, etc.
In this sense, the sports model of the team is decisive. Although in organizations the groups that are formed are continents and containers of individual anguish, the teams incorporate the need to produce and achieve results.
The team is, from this perspective, a different instance of the group.
In «Management…» I developed the following concept:
«It seems that at present the term« group »does not account for… certain complex and specialized aspects… and that the notion of team may have better possibilities of encompassing them in terms of meanings… Working in a team would imply, from this perspective, a variation qualitative (and perhaps quantitative) in the group's production, which becomes a team by ceasing to be the mere aggregation of the team's individual productions ».
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROUP AND TEAM
I will try to develop some of the differences between the concepts of team and group, bearing in mind that there are many variations depending on the author and the theoretical or technical line that follows and that also those points where both concepts converge are excluded.
Some of the topics will be developed in detail later.
| GROUP | EQUIPMENT |
| Communication does not necessarily have to have a directionality. | Directionality in communication is one of the most relevant characteristics in the greatest number of interactions. |
| Communication is not necessarily aimed at establishing a dialogue in search of consensus. | Except in very specific cases, communication is oriented towards dialogues in search of consensus. |
| Its constitution is not geared towards achieving measurable results | It is constituted for the achievement of measurable results. |
| The sense of belonging (with reference to themselves and other groups) can be very low or high. | Depending on the possibility of the type of team under analysis, if possible the feeling of belonging is stimulated. It favors integration and results orientation. |
| Relevance to the task may be low. The coordinator's style of intervention may or may not favor its development. | Relevance in relation to the task has to be high. The team is constituted and has its sense for and in the task. |
| Individual specialization is not a determining factor for the group's task. In certain cases, the heterogeneity of the members is encouraged. | Individual specialization and team co-specialization is a key factor in getting the job done and raising team productivity. |
| In some cases they have a coordinator. | Except in the case of the management of teams called self-directed, these have someone who leads or directs them: manager, technical director, etc. |
| Except for the role of the coordinator, in the members, generally, there are no defined distinct roles. | Although they are multifunctional or interdisciplinary, a clear definition of functions is characteristic of the operation of the teams. |
| Develop strategies, tactics, and techniques explicitly from time to time. | Develops strategies, tactics, and techniques explicitly to accomplish the task and achieve results. |
| The roles vary in the members in the group evolution. In certain groups the rotation of roles is favored. | Encouragement of the leadership role. Promotion of the development of leaders in teams. |
| The protagonism is a result of a complex process «» of assumption and adjudication of roles »». - (E. Pichón Riviere. The Group Process. Editions 5 Buenos Aires.) | The leading role is the result of the team's production. The team also seeks the leadership of the team. |
| Competition is seen on many occasions as detrimental to the group's operations. | Competition is fostered in developing the team's potential. This is understood as "" being competent "" and learning to compete. Train to win and lose. |
| There is a process of reflection on the events and the links in the group. | In some cases there is a process of reflection on the event and the links in the team. |
Although this is a simplified perspective, I am interested in clarifying some concepts that are related to teamwork.
For Eduardo Surdo (The magic of teamwork, S & A, Madrid, 1997, p. 28) the traditional units in the organization «… the task is broken down and people only take responsibility for the part that concerns them. People are only considered a group for administrative purposes ”, while in teams“… People recognize their interdependence to achieve the goals they have previously established. They assume a responsibility as individuals and as part of the group they make up… »
He says that in traditional units «… communication is poor, stereotyped. Feelings and disagreements are inhibited. In the teams «it is open, committed and honest… It is discussed and negotiated.
Communication is the process that facilitates the articulation of the team, the so-called horizontal, vertical and transversal communication coexist in the communication system. At the same time, they influence intra-team communication (between team members), the modalities instituted in the organization and the messages that are transmitted to and from the team (or organization) to and outside of it.
In communication between teams (inter - teams) many times it is not noticed that it is necessary to "negotiate" forms of communication that are different from those that the team has instituted. This noise, conflict, fosters pernicious competition between teams.
The search for consensus, from the perspective of communication, is one of the pillars of the support of teamwork, and at the same time one of the most difficult values to achieve and maintain.
I understand as consensus that aspect of team development linked to a certain method, a certain decision-making process.
In societies marked by authoritarian cultures and crossed by savage capitalism, it is not easy for team members to incorporate more democratic methods of management such as consensus.
The consensus method is obviously different from other types of decision-making methods.
Other types of decisions would be:
- individual decisions or voting decisions are decided by majority.
Although in teamwork, the person who leads has to make individual decisions due to the nature of their function, so certain decisions must also be delegated to certain individuals, the best way to make decisions (when time and the situation allow it) is the consensus.
In the process and in the decision-making act through consensus, the team members feel:
- That their opinions are taken into account That they are protagonists of their own task That they can participate more openly in communication channels Greater commitment to comply with what has been decided. Motivation for management. What can be learned from the diversity of opinions. Learn the richness of diversity. Learn the difficulties of accepting the opinions of others. Learn to defend one's own opinions, etc. Greater identification with organizational purposes, that consensus ensures that everyone wins. As there is no voting, there are no winners or losers, and the feeling of belonging is strengthened.
Among the limitations to the use of consensus as a decision-making method in team management are:
At the organizational level, cultural differences in decision-making methods. It is common to notice conflicts due to different management styles in teams.
It requires an effort from the driver and the members to achieve the participation of the silent ones, who are often the bearers of ideas that break the status quo of the team.
One of the risks of this type of decision making is what is called uniformity stress. Some team members "presuppose" or prejudge that the opinion of others is more recognized by the other members because of what they adhere to the opinion of these or repeat, in their own words, these opinions.
The fear of exclusion or expressing differences drives individual aspects in these circumstances, which in the enthusiasm for having achieved consensus, occasionally involve the team in decisions that the members had not taken individually, indeed, they rejected or did not prefer it..
In Abilene Paradox (cited in Team Building, Dyer W. Addison Wesley Editions), Abilene's Paradox, relates the case of a family that gets together on a weekend, and based on an illusion of uniformity in opinions (pre - judgment), all silence their true motivations and end up making a painful journey that no one, individually, would have chosen.
The feeling of belonging is, as I mentioned in previous works, an illusion, but it clearly favors the productivity of the team. In promoting the feeling of belonging, the thin limit that separates surgery from manipulation must be taken into account.
Membership, which differs according to the moment of development of the team, is variable in each of the members, depending on the multiple and complex elements that are articulated.
Membership, although it is a vector of evaluation of work teams, is strictly individual. There are no possible measurement parameters, there is no possibility to define a value of the equipment in terms of relevance.
In the pertinence of the team members, linked to the performance of the task that calls them, one of the functions of the team members is integrated, which is professionalization. This must be understood, fundamentally, as a form of specialization in the function and at the same time co-specialization in teamwork.
Continuous improvement processes, as a participatory mechanism; technological innovation as a form of permanent review of productivity; The new conceptions of approaching the work in a more practical and effective way are variables that affect the pertinence of the team.
FUNCTION AND ROLE
In any team, even in multi-functional teams, individual specialization links individuals to a major function. The role describes the main responsibilities of the person in the position they occupy.
The job description (which is "officially" assigned by the organization) includes who the person reports, who reports to him, and what the specific responsibilities are expected of him.
The agreement between person - function - task - results is sought.
In the development of the function they prevail (from the perspective of the one who occupies the function):
- The knowledge of the person, the experience
In the management of the function, in the practical exercise, in the concrete performance of the daily task, the stated function becomes a role.
The role is the singular modality that each person gives to the function that was assigned to him. The role is the way in which the person performs her function.
The role is not predetermined. It depends on the situational characteristics of the person (verticality, where personal history, knowledge, experiences and attitude are combined) and the roles played by other team members.
The roles, thus perceived, are situational, contingent.
According to Enrique Pichón Riviere (The group process, op. Cit) the role is the result of a complex process of assumption and adjudication of roles.
The roles can be classified into:
- Relationship with task Relationship with group dynamics
Some of the roles observed are:
- Leader. Outgoing File Initiator Conciliator Obstructor Synthesizer Opinion Finder Affective
Function and role: leadership
Numerous theories and associated research are developed around the definition and concept of leadership.
As I perceive it, following the line of thought of E. Pichón Riviere, leadership in work teams is a role, and therefore it is situational and contingent.
It can be stereotyped, it can be fixed on one person, but for the operability, the productivity of the team, it is preferable that it is rotating and the development of different leaderships (empowerment) is stimulated in the team.
I consider the designation "Project Leader", for example, in a rectangle in the organization chart, to be misleading, as it refers to a function and not a role.
Management and leadership may or may not be convergent. Understand that when I say conduction, I mean a function (manager, boss, etc.); and when I speak of leadership I speak of performance of a role.
Many authors suggest the benefits of this convergence, although they simultaneously propose the development of new leaders as a strategy for organizational development.
One of the most common questions in leadership training conferences and workshops is how to involve team members.
In other terms. This question reveals, among other possible alternatives:
- An individual weakness for the exercise of organizational functions A management problem to ensure that team members perform their functions and roles satisfactorily and productively, synergistically enhancing the results that they would obtain individually Training need for the incorporation of knowledge and techniques to be member of teams, lead and / or lead them.
This need is perceived as "give me a recipe" that I apply, without realizing that the way to develop in this co-specialization in teams is through a process of training - personal involvement, from experience, from experience, which is permanent and continued.
Results and Competition
If the search for results is a significant factor in teams, it is based, among others, on competition.
As I said, competition is based on two axes: competition as being competent and competition as a stimulus factor to improve performance (performance).
I am knowingly excluding the negative connotation of the word competition insofar as it is linked to savage capitalism, dehumanization, etc.
This exclusion is for the sole purpose of trying to assign a motivational connotation to the word.
This is how the competition "plays on two fronts": an individual front in terms of permanent improvement and a team front, in terms of improving their methods and the motivation of the attendees.
For competition, cooperation and leadership, individual and team, are encouraged. Cooperation is seen in terms of the empowerment of individualities and in terms of the challenge to overcome previous performances. It is a bonding aspect, but at the same time professional and challenging for the members.
Creativity and method are inseparable factors in team competition.
Team learning. Team learning.
Some modern trends in Administration enunciate and postulate team learning.
The team itself does not learn. Those who learn are the members, with their times, their rhythms and their possibilities.
Each member learns from the other members individually and from the whole operation.
This learning is "in a team" and not in the team.
Just as it is not the organization that learns but its members, teams do not learn but their members.
This learning is continuous and is perfected if the team members inquire about how they learn. It turns out to be double-circuit: it is oriented to reflect on what is learned and also on how it is learned (the method that each one has to learn). -
MOMENTS OR STAGES OF THE TEAMS PROCESS.
The progress and setbacks in the future of the teams are determined by the uniqueness of each team, but even so, it is feasible to determine some stages of its process, without necessarily all being fulfilled, or that they are fulfilled sequentially or simultaneously.
STAGE OF CREATION OR FORMATION and
STORM STAGE, or CONFLICT
In the team formation stage, a kind of disorientation occurs at the individual level that could be synthesized in the questions:
Because I am here?
Who are the others? Who are you?
And at the same time:
What are the objectives?
What are the methods?
What are the procedures?
In the training stage, the development of trust is fundamentally tried, as trust towards each other, as well as self-confidence.
Here they play the two phases that Pichón Riviere enunciates as affiliation and later belonging.
The team member is already affiliated. How to achieve membership? How to go from me to us? Through the moment of "storm" the members begin to express their affections although they are not yet perceived as part of the team.
Belonging occurs with the knowledge of each other, of themselves and their affections (mutual internal representation) and, evolutionarily, occurs what Sartre (he develops the theme of groups, not teams) calls the team oath, which it can be explicit or implicit.
Through the oath, the team differs from other teams and is recognized as such, mutual internal representation is strengthened and knowledge of the other allows predicting behaviors and situations.
For the establishment of trust, the team works (working), prepares, and in this intergame, each member knows and tests the other, in the construction of this bond, detects their strengths and weaknesses, compares, sets priorities and links, develops communication, cooperation and expresses affection.
In this stage the level of communication that prevails is that of interpersonal relationships. It's about building multiple links and starting a task.
There can be strong amounts of mistrust. The task of constituting the team is to facilitate interpersonal relationships and the development of conflicts (which will always lead to the team becoming in new forms of conflict).
In this phase, rather than the development of the explicit task, there is the search, the knowledge, the trust in the other, in the others, in building the transition from the self to the us.
In training individuals are more isolated, in the storm (conflict) emotional aspects emerge regarding the way to bond, to approach the task.
2- STAGE OF NORMALIZATION
In this stage, the team's vision, its mission (in the area of strategic planning), the objectives, and the functions of each member are defined or redefined.
Likewise, the main methods, the alternative ones, are defined, a style is built from the rules, the procedures. Information begins to flow more freely, more oriented to making decisions about the rules.
The interaction of the team members, still disorganized in the first phase (according to Sartre serialized), is organized, objectives are defined more precisely, functions are assigned, a strategy, tactics and technique are developed, work methods and co-specialization in teams is addressed.
In the standardization stage (as standard setting) the assessment of others is strengthened.
The people, the members, the "members" (each with their own modality) feel part of the team and can see that with normalization the team can gain productivity and achieve better results.
At this stage the team defines its management modality (hierarchical driver or self-directed, self-managed team). The task is formalized.
I usually recommend, professionally, writing, systematizing everything formalized and also the individual and collective history of the formalization process.
The norm determines a possible transition from individuality to the contribution of people for the growth of the organized team. The organization gives greater cohesion.
Participation, protagonism, cooperation and competition are growing.
At the time of normalization, the question shifts from who are you? to be What are we doing? and also how do we do it? How will we do it?
By the time of the implementation of what was developed at the time of standardization, who does what? When? Where? are the follow-up questions.
3- PERFORMANCE SETTING STAGE. EQUIPMENT MATURITY. MAINTENANCE STAGE, HIGH PERFORMANCE STAGE
The organization sets limits and at the same time is an instance of the fight against chaos (entropy).
The team's way of working is flexible within the rules. Trust in the other is strengthened and the difference between individual production and that of the team is noticed. It is the function of this stage to analyze management problems and install mechanisms to adjust planning and functions.
In team management, the hierarchy is maintained, visibly and at the same time diluted (I am not taking self-directed teams, the subject of another conceptual elaboration).
Mature teams (in terms of maturity in the interaction of the members) maintain relatively stable certain criteria of coherence on the values they have established; relevance is fraught with shared individual commitment; they maintain a positive attitude to face obstacles that are always different and challenging.
Functions and roles begin to be articulated in the concrete practice of the team, aimed at achieving and improving results.
There is a team at the time when everyone performs the management.
In homework, the team focuses on production and problem solving, to achieve objectives and evaluate results. Strong ties of cooperative interdependence are established.
During this phase, teams can experience “stormy” situations or situations that question “normalization”.
A good part of the chances of survival and growth has to do with the way they solve these problems without dissolving, without disintegrating, taking advantage of it as a new opportunity to improve performance.
Another risk of this phase is the so-called "resting on your laurels."
When teams satisfactorily achieve their planned objectives, numbness can occur, a kind of conformism that, if maintained over time, will affect performance and inter-team ties.
The achievement of the challenges that the team set itself promotes a new crisis situation in the process.
This crisis, as a learning opportunity, can result in the dissolution of the team (because it has already achieved the intended objective and there are no new objectives for itself, such as certain types of surgical teams) or in an instance to review its methods, and following the continuous improvement process, develop new strategies, methods, etc. to achieve high performance.
RECIPES O..
The books give an account of certain theories or techniques in the field of equipment. They are certainly guiding and reveal homogeneous or heterogeneous ways of thinking.
For those people who are part of teams or lead teams, in any of its conceptual variants, I must say that there are no recipes, knowing what this means, in a world increasingly eager for the opinion of gurus, of the word revealed, from "tell me what to do and that's it."
The experience that we are developing with my work teams makes us think about the uniqueness of the experience of each team
That is why we do not believe in recipes, but in study and experience, complemented by a process of reflection about study and experience and how we study and how we experience.
Years ago, among others, the Schools of Social Psychology, have developed a teaching-learning device of the function and role of coordinator and member of a group based on the model I have described.
The transition to a teamwork modality is a matter of deepening and adaptation, oriented towards the competitiveness of the management, in which each one has to make the transition of learning from their own experience, knowing that not even it is repeated twice.
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